A Taliban victory in Afghanistan means insurgency in Pakistan by Michael Rubin

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"... Any Taliban victory will be calamitous for the region both because of the destabilizing refugee flow it would spark and because, as Husain Haqqani, the former Pakistan ambassador to the United States, points out, because it could embolden both Pakistan’s homegrown extremist and lead to a resurgent al Qaeda. ...
Without Pakistani support, the Taliban would be nothing. ... The vast majority of the precursors for Taliban explosives come from two factories inside Pakistan. Pakistan also supplies weapons, safe-haven, and logistical support. ...

Pakistani decision-makers have long lived in a bubble. Pakistani military and political elite go to the same schools, live in the same neighborhoods, and move about the same social circles. When in 1971, Pakistan lost East Pakistan (Bangladesh today) after locals rebelled against the ethnic chauvinism of the Punjabis who dominated West Pakistan, the Pakistani military and intelligence services decided to encourage more extreme versions of Islamism in order to get a new generation of Pakistanis to place religion above ethnic identity and prevent any new separatist movements. Radicals who the security forces might once have targeted found themselves with a free pass so long as they did not promote violence inside Pakistan. Pakistani authorities welcomed millions of dollars from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries to build and staff religious seminaries to promote a much more extremist line. Pakistani authorities also used the Kashmir dispute as fuel for radicalization and, in recent decades, terrorist violence. ...

They were wrong. Fifteen years ago, Pakistani authorities sought to cut a deal with the Pakistani Taliban. It backfired tremendously as they moved to within 60 miles of the capital. ...

The simple fact is that every regime that seeks to cultivate domestic Islamists in order to leverage them to influence events abroad suffers blowback. It happened in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Libya, and Turkey. Pakistan will not be immune. ..."

A Taliban victory in Afghanistan means insurgency in Pakistan | American Enterprise Institute - AEI