COMMENT It is hard to overstate the political and social disaster wrapped up in the deal Pakistan’s government has struck with jihadi extremists, ceding them control of the Swat valley.
For all that Yusuf Raza Gilani, prime minister, and Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan’s president, dress this up as a “home-grown strategy” to fight insurgency, this is capitulation. Until this week it was a deal struck by a regional government. Now it is the policy of the government. It could hardly be otherwise, since it was the policy of the army, Pakistan’s overmighty subject.
