Stay THIS course?

How long do you think Republicans would be supporting a war started by Bill Clinton if this happened:

Pakistan signs peace deal with pro-Taliban militants
Agence France-Presse, The Associated Press

Published: September 5, 2006

MIRAN SHAH, Pakistan The Pakistani government and pro-Taliban militants announced that they signed a peace accord Tuesday aimed at ending five years of violent unrest in a tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

The agreement came as a NATO-led offensive in southern Afghanistan continued for a fourth day, with U.S. artillery and airstrikes killing 50 to 60 suspected Taliban militants Tuesday, a NATO spokesman said.

Under the peace deal, the militants are to halt attacks on Pakistani forces in the semiautonomous North Waziristan region and stop crossing into nearby eastern Afghanistan to attack U.S. and Afghan forces hunting Qaeda and Taliban forces. It came as Pakistan's president, General Pervez Musharraf, was set to visit Kabul on Wednesday in a move aimed at improving strained relations between the United States' two key allies in the fight against terrorism.

The accord calls for Pakistani troops to stop their hugely unpopular military campaign in the restive Pakistani region, in which more than 350 soldiers have died, along with hundreds of militants and scores of civilians.

But the agreement, which one official said offered an "implicit amnesty" to foreign and local militants, highlights the Pakistani military's inability to crush a violent pro-Taliban insurgency on its own soil.

Pakistani forces had no alternative but to reconcile with the militants, whose knowledge of the terrain and determination to protect their region would have forced the conflict to continue, said Rusul Basksh Rais, a Pakistani political analyst.

"The military was not in a position to defeat the tribes," Rais said. "But Pakistan can't afford to - and I believe won't - let this area become a sanctuary for the terrorists."

Meanwhile, just how much control does Pervez Musharraf have over his own military?

Yesterday, a Pakistani military spokesman, Major General Shaukat Sultan, had this exchange with ABC News:

Q. ABC News: If bin Laden or Zawahiri were there, they could stay?

A. Gen. Sultan: No one of that kind can stay. If someone is there he will have to surrender, he will have to live like a good citizen, his whereabouts, exit travel would be known to the authorities.

Q. ABC News: So, he wouldn't be taken into custody? He would stay there?

A. Gen. Sultan: No, as long as one is staying like a peaceful citizen, one would not be taken into custody. One has to stay like a peaceful citizen and not allowed to participate in any kind of terrorist activity.

Obviously Musharraf got a phone call from his good friend George W. Bush, perhaps threatening to expose the dirty pictures, because today the Pakistan government vehemently denies that it would allow Bin Laden to avoid capture:

"If he is in Pakistan, today or any time later, he will be taken into custody and brought to justice," the Pakistani ambassador to the United States, Mahmud Ali Durrani, said in a statement.

The ambassador said a Pakistani military spokesman, Major General Shaukat Sultan, had been "grossly misquoted" when he told ABC News Tuesday that bin Laden would not be taken into custody "as long as one is being like a peaceful citizen."

"Grossly misquoted." The ambassador has studied his Tony Snow well.