Pakistan — VOICES for REASON

In a speech announcing his “comprehensive, new strategy” for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Obama warned that “The situation is increasingly perilous. It has been more than seven years since the Taliban was removed from power, yet war rages on, and insurgents control parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Attacks against our troops, our NATO allies, and the Afghan government have risen steadily. Most painfully, 2008 was the deadliest year of the war for American forces.” He may well have been understating the magnitude of the problem, particularly in Pakistan (consider this recent brazen attack). And while both liberals and some conservatives have commended Obama’s strategy (with minor qualifications), I regard it as fundamentally misconceived.

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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.

On paper, at least, the United States and Pakistan are allies, but it’s a seriously troubled relationship–to put things mildly. Take, for instance, Pakistan’s past sponsorship of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and its ongoing close ties to Islamists (a subject for future posts). Yet another red flag: the case of A.Q. Khan, a scientist who helped develop Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. Khan gained notoriety in the West when he was busted for illicitly selling nuclear technology to Iran, Libya, North Korea and perhaps others. So you might expect that the Pakistani regime would at least hand him a punishment commensurate with his actions–but Khan, who is something of a folk hero, was placed under house arrest. Now comes news that Pakistan’s government has released Khan from house arrest (with some minor restrictions).

The signs keep pointing to the conclusion that the U.S.-Pakistan alliance was built on a great deal of American self-delusion. I’ve argued that our policymakers plunged us into this messy, harmful relationship, in large part because they failed to judge Pakistan objectively. It didn’t have to be this way, and we could turn things around, but not until we face up to what we’re dealing with.