Pakistan surrenders to Islamists — VOICES for REASON

The New York Times leads with a frightening, but hardly surprising, report on how Pakistan has accepted “a system of Islamic law in the Swat valley and agreed to a truce” with jihadists there, “effectively conceding the area as a Taliban sanctuary and suspending a faltering effort by the army to crush the insurgents.” Pakistan’s surrender was telegraphed by prior appeasing deals (see these three stories for a sampling)–and probably there will be more to come.

For a sense of the threat emanating from Pakistan, and particularly the lawless tribal areas, consider the words of (former) CIA director Michael Hayden: “Today, virtually every major terrorist threat my agency is aware of has threads back to the tribal areas.” Now project what a huge morale-boost this latest capitulation will give Islamists operating in Pakistan and elsewhere.

The policy of appeasing Islamists has sometimes been rationalized on the grounds that the military option–defeating the enemy–has been tried and failed. (E.g. the view of this British general, which is echoed throughout the West, regarding the related Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan.) But has war as such been discredited as an option?

Far from it. I’ve argued against that misconception; the supposed proof of this idea rests heavily on the experience of the Iraq war, but that fiasco was nothing like what a real war looks like. And the point applies even more so in the case of Pakistan’s perfunctory military efforts.