I’d imagine the booze joints around the Pentagon are doing a pretty brisk business over the last few days. There seem to be a lot of ropes unraveling at the same time, and the rabbit-hole we’re dangling over is looking deep and dark and probably not a wonderland at the bottom.

Pakistan’s recent elections have all the appearance of near total annihilation of Musharraf’s Muslim-League Q- party. The general displeasure of Pakistanis toward the ruling party, seen largely as an American puppet, is hardly a shock, and the American refusal to denounce November’s crackdowns and the bloody siege of the Red Mosque worked overtime to undermine the pillars of Washington support in the country. But the magnitude of the loss must be reverberating through the halls of U.S. foreign policy makers.

Via the New York Times 

  From unofficial results the private news channel, Aaj Television, forecast that the Pakistan Peoples Party would win 110 seats in the 272-seat National Assembly, with Mr. Sharif’s party taking 100 seats.

Mr. Musharraf’s party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, was crushed, holding on to just 20 to 30 seats. Early results released by the state news agency, The Associated Press of Pakistan, also showed the Pakistan Peoples Party to be leading in the number of seats won.

Already rumors are circulating about Musharraf’s resignation, meaning the U.S. might be about to lose one of it’s allies in the region. The U.S. still has substantial influence given the amount of aid that flows into Pakistan. But the incoming parties will not have the same enthusiasm in dealing with the U.S. as the State department is accustomed  to. The new Pakistani government will be in the position to make some demands of their own, especially given the importance of Pakistan’s tribal regions.

Put bluntly, the U.S. cannot succeed in Afghanistan without Pakistan’s help in the border region. Nor can the U.S. act unilaterally within Pakistan without risking regional destabilization. The new Pakistani parliament will be more than willing to play hardball, complete with the knowledge that a good number of the people who elected them would like to see the U.S. fail in Afghanistan.

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Things have also been complicated by recent announcement of independence from Kosovo. The following days and weeks will be ones of rather loud discomfiture between NATO, which largely supports independence, and Russia, that has sided with Serbia in rejecting the declaration.

There are plenty of other European nations who are worried that a European Union recognition of Kosovo would rekindle other internal nationalist movements. Any member of the European Union can kill an official recognition, since such an act requires consensus. Given Spain, Greece, Romania and Slovakia are all facing similar issues, the odds of consensus seem slim.

Similarly, Russia will kill any United Nations measures toward recognition. This will put Kosovo in an odd sort of limbo, recognized by individual states but not by the international bodies.

Already, there are reports of violence breaking out in the region. While NATO and UN forces are present, it is not clear to what extent they are willing to serve as peace keepers or peace makers. More importantly, this comes at a time of increased tensions between Russia and NATO.

Russia has voiced opposition to this plan from the start and now appears to have egg on its face. A new Russian president will be elected on March 2, and baring some intergalactic anomaly, that president will be Dimitry Medvedev. His presidency will begin with humiliation if Russia doesn’t respond.  If the EU cannot come to a consensus as to Kosovo, the U.S. will be left alone in a staring match against the resurging Russians. The field is complicated by the addition of China,  ever aware of it’s own nationalist-separatist movements, who is siding with Serbia and Russia.

The developments in Pakistan are going to affect how the military does business in Afghanistan and Central Asia, and developments in Kosovo are going to shape NATO and European Union relations for years. The U.S. has had the privilege of unopposed decision making for several years, due to the weakness of other powers and the strength of its alliances. How Washington and the Pentagon handle a return to parity will be interesting to watch.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 19th, 2008 at 1:39 pm and is filed under Afghanistan, Balkans, Europe, NATO, Pakistan, Russia, politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.