Make-believe about Pakistan

August 14, 2009 by Elan Journo

After interviewing high-up officials in Pakistan’s military for two hours, the New York Times’s reporters came away with this gem: “Dialogue with the Taliban, not more fighting, is in Pakistan’s national interest, they said.” What’s more: the Pakistani regime is unhappy about the American military efforts against Islamists in next-door Afghanistan. Why? The fighting has resulted in some of the Islamists crossing the border into parts of Pakistan. Translation: quit bothering the Taliban across the border, and quit bothering us about fighting them within Pakistani borders.

Note that Pakistan’s army gets some $1 billion in U.S. aid every year, and that our forces work closely with Pakistan’s military to target Islamists. Officials in the Obama administration praise these operations, though they complain that:

… Pakistani authorities have chosen to fight Pakistani Taliban who threaten their government, while ignoring Taliban and other militants fighting Americans in Afghanistan or terrorizing India. …

[American officials believe] Pakistan was still picking proxies and choosing enemies among various Islamic militant groups in Pakistan.

The United States maintains that the Afghan Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, leads an inner circle of commanders who guide the war in southern Afghanistan from their base in Quetta [a city in Pakistan].

When will the weight of evidence impugning Pakistan be sufficient to overturn the belief (esp. in Washington) that it is our ally — and lead us to change our policy toward it? Its record has been abysmal. And its “dialogue with the Taliban” has worked splendidly — for the Taliban. Just look at the deal enabling Islamists to impose sharia in the Swat Valley of Pakistan. But perhaps no amount of evidence will be enough. For the idea that Pakistan is our friend — or even  that it is the enemy of our enemy (i.e., the Islamist movement) — belongs in the realm of make-believe. The Obama policy of self-delusion on Pakistan — continuing in the footsteps of Bush — will cost us dearly.