Daniel Simons, of the the main Pakistan guys at the Council on Foreign Relations, has an op-ed in the New Statesman about Pakistan:
As evidence mounts that Islamabad is unable or unwilling to tackle Islamist militancy in its tribal belt, the drumbeat for a more aggressive American policy against militant sanctuaries in Pakistan – including incursions by U.S. Special Forces on Pakistani soil – grows louder. While Pakistan’s failure to curb militancy in its sovereign territory is unquestionably a cause for deep frustration, this reflexive response to Pakistan’s perceived inertia would be a serious mistake.
Viewed solely through the prism of Afghanistan, a more assertive unilateral policy is justified. But an invasive “Whack-A-Mole” approach would be profoundly counterproductive to America’s core objective in Pakistan’s tribal areas: creating a society in which terrorism is anathema, so that 20 years from now the region does not threaten American national security as it does today. Only a prolonged counterinsurgency effort, with Pakistan as a dedicated managing partner and the United States and other like-minded countries as financial backers and advisers, can accomplish this tall order.
The blunt instruments of a unilateral U.S. counterterrorist campaign are inconsistent with this counterinsurgency mission. The transformation of Pakistan’s tribal areas will require sustained U.S.-Pakistani collaboration and the support of the region’s people, both of which will wither in the wake of a U.S. military operation in Pakistan.
This is excellent thinking, very much in line with my own research on the area and this topic. Unlike his colleage Daniel Markey, Simons is looking beyond 2004 for ideas about how to handle the problem of tribal militancy. Indeed, historically, militants in the Pashtun tribal belt have been successfully managed through political maneuvering and an understanding of how their society works so a central government can co-opt it—frontal, or even “covert,” military assaults almost always fail (especially recently).
It is still too early, however, to assume that Pakistan is either unwilling or unable to handle its own territory. There needs to be an understanding, first of all, that the government of Pakistan will do whatever is in Pakistan’s best interests. After that, there needs to be an understanding that Pervez Musharraf is hated and mostly reviled in the country, so the new civilian government had a compelling interest in trying some alternative, “soft” methods of trying to handle the tribal militants. In his interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Prime Minister Gilani not only issued the same warning as Simons against unilateral action in the tribal areas, but made a point I had neglected: as an official with the Pakistan People’s Party, he really has no interest in supporting the neo-Taliban.
The Neo-Taliban murdered Benazir Bhutto. It is too easy to make a “chickens come home to roost” argument—her support for the original movement in the 1990s was not only not really voluntary, but issued after the fact. She no more created them than she created the harsh conditions in Kandahar that led to their first real victory. Her murder by Islamists highlighted just how serious a problem they were, not just for Afghanistan, but for Pakistan as well. So the government is not blind to their presence, and neither has it in any way “surrendered” to them (despite the hemming and hawing of the more bloodthirsty bloggers). In this, Simons mostly agrees:
A policy of non-invasion does not mean Washington should ignore militants in Pakistan. On the contrary, the United States should focus more intelligence resources on the region. More U.S. troops should be deployed jointly with Afghan forces to patrol the border from the Afghan side…
Of course, abstaining from invasive military action is justified only if counterinsurgency progresses in turn. If programmed effectively, the Biden-Lugar legislation introduced last week – which proposes to triple U.S. non-military aid to Pakistan to $7.5 billion over the next five years – would be a positive step. Its passage would demonstrate Washington’s commitment to Pakistan’s civilian government.
In return for such a generous pledge, though, Washington should seek to redefine relations with Pakistan, which evolved ad hoc after 9/11. Detailing how we expect Islamabad to help realize mutually agreeable aims is a necessary step toward a more collaborative and sustainable relationship. Putting American troops on Pakistani soil would negate any potential benefits of the Biden-Lugar legislation.
Exactly. There is one problem, however: Simons can’t make up his mind about Predator strikes. In one paragraph, he notes the four strikes in 2008 have “already [been met] with popular backlash.” Further, he argues that so-called decapitation strikes—in which a single target is eliminated—have major drawbacks unless the target either has large symbolic value or “unique knowledge” in weapons construction. But he then says that Predator strikes are an “established tool by which the United States can judiciously project force into Pakistan,” so long as we take care not to kill too many innocent people.
Frankly, those ideas don’t jive with each other. But the rest of the piece, about the dangers of unilateral intervention, are absolutely right on and need to be repeated as often as possible. We will not win this fight using drones and soldiers, and the quicker we can figure that out at a top-level, policy-making milieu within the government and DOD, the better off every interested party will be.
This post was written by...
Joshua Foust – author of 1771 posts on Registan.net.
Joshua Foust is a Fellow at the American Security Project and the author of Afghanistan Journal: Selections from Registan.net. His research focuses primarily on Central and South Asia. Joshua is a correspondent for The Atlantic and a columnist for PBS Need to Know. Joshua appears regularly on the BBC World News, Aljazeera, and international public radio. Joshua is also a regular contributor to Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel, and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Reuters, and the Christian Science Monitor. Follow him on twitter: @joshuafoust
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Have you read Mason & Johnson’s No Sign Until the Burst of Fire. I liked it, but it also confirmed my views, even as it educated me, so I am not unbiased.
It emphasizes that the Taliban are expanding only where people speak Pashto. Not in Dari-speaking tribes in the same region, not in nearby, and reasonably similar, Balochi areas. The Pashto speaking people are the largest language group in the world without a country, 25 million compared to the Kurds 20. They were carved in half by the great and wonderful British, basically by Sir Durand, who was oh-so concerned about the local population (i.e. he didn’t consider them at all).
I brought this all up on the one hand because it comports with my theory, but also because Mason and Johnson also say that Pakistani support for the Islamists in the region was a counter to Afghanistan’s promotion of Pushtun nationalism among Pakistani Pashto-speakers.
If that’s true, it doesn’t quite jibe with what I understand you are saying about Benazir Bhutto’s after-the-fact support of the Islamists.
Of course, Mason and Johnson, and by extension me, could be on crack.
They’re on crack. A couple of months ago, I detailed just how very wrong they were on the area’s history, religion, and culture:
http://www.registan.net/index.php/2008/05/07/digging-deeper-into-the-pashtun-tribal-areas/
Really, what his idea boils down to is a watered down, poorly researched copy of Abdulkadeer sinno’s theory of elite mobilization, which postulates that the Taliban are good at not only exploiting local grievances (which is missing in Johnson’s portrayal of all Pashtuns as unthinking pashtunwali zombies), but are good at getting the elites of pashtun society behind them. But That’s Sinno’s thesis, not Johnson’s and Mason’s, which is just bad — poor sourcing, incomplete history, a really distorted view of Pashtun society, and zero understanding of the country’s history.
Which, considering how often Johnson brags about his experience studying the country, is surprising.
Pakistan’s support for Islamists in Afghanistan goes back to 1973. Google “Pakistan strategic depth” and see what comes up. And Pakistan’s support for extremist forms of Islam goes back to its founding as an Islamic state. I highly suggest chapter 1 of Hussein Haqani’s book Pakistan about state ideology for more insight into this.