China, Crimea and Pashtunistan

[unhappycamper]

http://www.opednews.com/articles/China-Crimea-and-Pashtuni-by-Pepe-Escobar-Afghanistan_China-Politics_Crimea_Pakistan-140322-60.html



Pakistan army soldiers.

China, Crimea and Pashtunistan
By Pepe Escobar
OpEdNews Op Eds 3/22/2014 at 21:34:26

At the center of the simultaneous tumult faced by both Afghanistan and Pakistan stands the ultimate taboo: Pashtunistan. How does the dream of a common Pashtun land connect to the secession of Crimea from Ukraine? And what does China think about all this?

Let's start with Pakistan. US counterinsurgency "experts" such as disgraced former Gen. David Petraeus' guru, David Kilcullen, insist Pakistan is imploding. No wonder; hacks like himself get paid to predict chaos.

It's much more nuanced, as usual. Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is actually trying to prevent Pakistan from imploding. That's why he wants a deal with the TTP -- the Pakistani Taliban.

Sharif's party, the PML-N, is conservative in religious and neoliberal in economics terms. It's intimately connected to Pakistani religious parties. Sharif knows he has to be careful in the Punjab region because of the local popularity of anti-Shiite jihadists -- the Sipah-e-Sahaba outfit.