Ignatius Urges Focus on Pakistan

David Ignatius is a columnist for the Washington Post. He makes some useful points in this column about Pakistan's need to gain control (Ignatius likes the term "sovereignty") over its own territory.

The problems with controlling the Pashtun on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border brings me back to the idea, bruited here some time ago, of creating a Pashtunistan, and then treating it as a separate country.

I said the other day that Afghanistan is a country without a nation. Like Belgium, where everyone except the king is either a Fleming or a Walloon, Afghanistan has no Afghans. Everyone is something else, and that something else is related to a population beyond the border. Pakistan is a little more coherent, but there are a lot more Punjabis, Sindis, Baluchis, and Pashtuns than there are Pakistanis.

The question I would have about controlling the NWFP (Northwest Frontier Province) and the FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) is this: If it were possible for Pakistan to control these areas and integrate them into the national polity, would it be necessary? Or, conversely, if they need to make such an effort, are they capable of it?