Fmr. U.S. Amb. to Pakistan Disputes McCain's ''Failed State'' Claim

At the first Presidential debate last Friday, John McCain claimed Pakistan was a "failed state" at the time of the coup that swept General Pervez Musharraf into power. William Milan, the former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan at the time of the coup disputed that claim in an e-mail to Matthew Yglesias.

There are a number of interesting books, including a forthcoming one by me, that cover the 1999 coup by the Musharraf-led army. You might want to look at those already published by Steve Cohen, Hasan Abbas, Hussain Haqqani (long before he became the present Pakistani Ambassador), and especially Ian Talbot’s updated history of Pakistan.

I think that all of them would agree that, while there were a lot of things wrong in Pakistan during the years leading up to the 1999 military takeover, Pakistan was not a failed state as we normally define such states. I am on record as stating publicly that, having come to Pakistan from Liberia a year before the takeover, I had a pretty good idea of what failed states look like, and it was not one. [emphasis added]

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ezworld on October 1, 2008 at 06:50 PM

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