[Update] Taliban Encroachment in Pakistan Grows at Terrifying Pace: What Does the U.S. Do?

See larger map below the fold.

Update: Read “Taliban Advance: Is Pakistan Nearing Collapse? at Time magazine. Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey notes, “this Daily Mail piece has had me on edge since morning. The Kardari government gave the Taliban an inch by signing away Swat so now they’ve decided to take a mile in Buner. The wages of appeasement. … [Time's dispatch is] about the rapid shari’a-ization of Buner and spreading panic in Islamabad. How bad is it? Roggio ups the freak-out ante:

The Taliban takeover of Haripur would put the Taliban on the doorstep of Islamabad and would also put two major nuclear facilities at risk. Morrissey recalls reading that the U.S. has “emergency contingency plans to seize Pakistan’s nukes if things go haywire, but I’m naively hoping against hope that Zardari and the military leadership will voluntarily surrender them to keep them out of jihadi hands if they think they’re about to be overrun. …” (Read more reactions at Memeorandum.com.)

The Taliban take-over of Pakistan, city by city, region by region, is flat-out terrifying. And CNN’s Fareed Zakaria — who devoted his Sunday show to Pakistan — wants you to e-mail him at GPS@cnn.com, to answer this question: “Should the United States take dramatic action and interfere in the inner workings of Pakistan to keep it from falling apart?” What in the hell should we do?

Today, we learn that the crisis is growing exponentially as the Taliban is encroaching in the country, through Punjab and Peshawar, the capital of the restive North-West Frontier Province [map below], and now is only 60 miles from Islamabad, the nation’s capital. The Taliban has declared its goal of taking over all of Pakistan, which means those extremists would also be in control of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.

Check out the New York Times’s “Pakistan Sends Special Police to Taliban-Held Area.” Also read MSNBC’s “Pakistan troops rush to Taliban-infiltrated area – NATO truck base also attacked; Clinton urges Islamabad to focus on threat“:

“Gunmen attacked a Pakistani paramilitary force sent to a Taliban-infiltrated district just 60 miles from the capital Thursday, killing a police officer and feeding growing doubts about the government’s peace deal with extremists in the area.”

Each move and violent act, notes the NYT, provide “another indication of the gathering strength of the insurgency, and it raised new alarm about the ability of the government to fend off an unrelenting Taliban advance toward the heart of Pakistan.”

From the MSNBC article:

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told American lawmakers in an unusually blunt statement Wednesday that Pakistan’s leaders were “basically abdicating to the Taliban.” On Thursday, however, she said the Pakistani government appeared increasingly aware of the threat. [Hillary has clearly seen new classified information telling her that the threat level is substantially higher than earlier thought.]

U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke talked to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari by telephone Thursday, but the president’s office would not say if Swat or Buner were discussed. The chairman of the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, was visiting Pakistan.

As reports filtered out about Taliban fighters moving into Buner — that they were patrolling roads, broadcasting radio sermons and ordering barbers to stop shaving beards — the government sent six platoons from the paramilitary Frontier Constabulary to the district this week.

Here’s a full map of Pakistan. Look closely, and you’ll see Islamabad and Punjab, the areas that the Taliban are now targeting:

On Sunday, in a very frank interview, Richard Holbrooke, our envoy to Afghanistan/Pakistan, laid it out in no uncertain terms, beginning with a description of the people who are living in Pakistan:

You have people who committed 9/11, who attacked Mumbai, who attacked Islamabad, who killed Benazir Bhutto, and without any doubt at all are planning attacks on the United States and our allies, as well as the government of Pakistan, as we speak.

It is very difficult. I can think of no other place in the world where history hangs more heavily over the situation, and current economic conditions makes it more difficult in Pakistan.

… Pakistan really matters to the national security of the United States. [...]

Below, Richard Holbrooke points out that the Taliban are now within 100 miles [now it's 60 miles] of Islamabad and creeping closer and closer to Punjab. We also hear from a preeminent Pakistani journalist on Punjab:

Holbrooke told Zakaria:

I would draw your attention to the fact that the day before yesterday the chief spokesman of the Taliban in the Swat area publicly renounced the part of the deal in which they’re supposed to lay down their arms.

And it seems to me that that ought to be a wakeup call to everybody in Pakistan that you can’t deal with these people by giving away territory as they creep closer and closer to the populated centers of the Punjab and Islamabad. They’re less than 100 miles from Islamabad after this deal.

And I am concerned at the growing risk that you’ll have more terrorist attacks in Lahore and Islamabad, perhaps in Karachi. So we are very concerned about this.

Here is the full interview of Richard Holbrooke:

Now hear from “leading Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid”:

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In December 2007, CBS News’s Katie Couric asked each presidential candidate which country posed the greatest threat. Hillary Clinton answered, “Pakistan.” Barack Obama replied, “Iran.” Hillary had it right, of course.

If only she were president. However, it’s assuring that she is our Secretary of State. Doubtless, she is concentrating with all of her energy on how to cope with this crisis. I just pray she finds some way to slow, and hopefully halt, the progression of the extremist Taliban in Pakistan.

The alternative is too frightening to contemplate.