Political | Process

With the Taliban sweeping through a third of Afghanistan’s districts following the U.S. military withdrawal and surrounding the country’s major cities.

• Pakistani authorities have to grapple with the unintended consequences of their policies. A total takeover by the Taliban or a new civil war in Afghanistan would backfire against Islamabad’s national interests, senior Pakistani officials say.
• “We are so closely intertwined with Afghanistan, ethnically, religiously, tribally, that whenever there is civil war, Pakistan gets sucked in automatically,” said Pakistan’s former defense minister, retired Lt. Gen. Naeem Lodhi. “Civil war [in Afghanistan] is the last thing that Pakistan would like to happen.”

SOURCE: WSJ