As you all probably know, Pakistan is a mess right now and honestly, that’s putting it rather mildly.
After capitulating to the Taliban a couple of months back, Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari and the Pakistani military are finally fighting back.
This battle represents more than just a battle to control the Swat Valley of Pakistan; it represents the battle for the country itself.
This problem started back in February when Zardari acquiesced to the Taliban’s desire to control Danegeld, a city located within Swat. The Taliban assured all parties involved that this agreement would stop further violence.
And what do you know; the Taliban reneged on the deal. Boy, I don’t know who could have seen that coming…
Oh yeah that’s right, anyone with two eyes, that’s who!!!
So now, thanks to this foolish and shameful act, Pakistan is embroiled in a desperate fight to take back control of the Swat. This fight, incidentally, is taking place a mere 60 miles from Islamabad and, more importantly, Pakistan’s arsenal of nuclear weapons, some 100 nuclear bombs and warheads. Additionally, this fighting has led to the displacement of nearly a million Pakistanis and the slaughter of many innocent lives.
While it looks like the Pakistani army will win this battle (early, but admittedly unreliable, death counts puts the loss of life at 751 for the Taliban and 29 for the Pakistani army), the war may still rage.
Unfortunately for the rest of the world, just like in Afghanistan, there are parts of Pakistan where the Taliban is very popular. This is due in large part to the anti-American attitude that is widespread throughout much of the Mid East and Asia and to the power vacuum that the Taliban filled in the inhospitable parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan that Islamabad and Kabul cannot control.
So what needs to be done?
Well, the answer to that question is uncertain, as this is such a difficult situation for all of those involved.
From President Zardari’s point of view, while he does not want to completely give in to the rouge thugs that are the Taliban, he does not want to appear to be a puppet of Washington and risk alienating him from the roughly 50% of the Pakistani population that does not care for the U.S. Conversely, he knows that he needs the U.S.’s help to defeat the Taliban.
From the U.S.’s perspective, Pakistan has to be controlled; otherwise, all of the progress in Afghanistan will continue to be whittled away. On the other hand, they are forced to deal with this clown Zardari and his complete ineptitude when dealing with the Taliban. They cannot depose him as that would send the country into further chaos. Plus, whoever would be placed into power would be viewed as a puppet of Washington and that would further foster ill will towards us in the country.
As you can see, this is a real dicey situation, but this is what I would do…
Get tough with Islamabad and Zardari. Show them that it is in their best interests to not only drive the Taliban back, but also to soundly defeat them once and for all. Convince Zardari of the reality that he cannot possibly hope to coexist with the Taliban as eventually they will either overthrow him and/or kill him.
We also have to convince Pakistan that their main threat does not come from India, but rather it comes from the Taliban. Right now, Pakistan is so paranoid that India will attack them that they have the bulk of their weaponry and all of their best soldiers on the border they share with India. We need to convince them to invest these troops and weapons in the West where the fighting with the Taliban is taking place.
I know that this is easier said than done, but we can help.
Our military can help train Pakistani soldiers in the art of fighting a counterinsurgency war, lessons that our soldiers learned fighting in the streets of Iraq.
We can also continue the drone attacks that have killed dozens of Taliban fighters.
That’s what we can do from a military perspective, but there are economic and political actions we can take to help Pakistan as well.
First, we can begin constructing trade agreements with Pakistan. This will help their poor economy and begin to improve the quality of life of all Pakistanis.
Secondly, we can continue giving them aid. Right now, we have an agreement to give Pakistan $1.5 billion per year for the next five years. Continue that policy, but place conditions on that aid, such as real progress in defeating the Taliban.
Thirdly, we can use our friendly political and economic relationship with India to lower the tensions between them and Pakistan.
This American political, military and economic investment into Pakistan will show the Taliban fighters and the Pakistani citizens that we will not accept defeat. Hopefully, this will produce a ripple effect throughout the country that will shift support from the Taliban to us, as it did in Iraq.
I know this sounds like a lot of time, money, resources and personnel, but we have no other choice. What happens in Pakistan, literally, could determine our success in Afghanistan and the overall War on Terror. We have invested too many lives, too much money and time to fail now.
I have some confidence that President Obama will do the right thing in Pakistan. He has seemed to grasp the monumental problem there better than President Bush ever did and I hope that he follows through with some of the ideas that I outlined above.
If he does not, if he fails to properly follow through in Pakistan, I am afraid that we very well may lose the War on Terror.
As we have all been reading over the past few months, the situation in Afghanistan is slowly deteriorating. The Taliban is experiencing a resurgence, Al-Qaeda is still operating between Afghanistan and Pakistan and the Karzai Government is becoming less effective, respected and influential.
Obviously, this is rather alarming and something has to be done…and fast.
But what needs to be done? It appears that everyone is under the assumption that all we need to do is execute a troop surge in Afghanistan. After all, it worked well in Iraq; so it should work in Afghanistan… right?
I am not so eager to grant that reasoning (the reasoning that seems to be the main argument for this action, by the way) as 100% sound.
Afghanistan and Iraq share very little similarities.
Simply from a geographic standpoint, Afghanistan is far larger than Iraq. Its extremely mountainous topography makes it much more difficult to patrol when compared to Iraq’s predominantly desert landscape. These mere geological differences make a troop surge far more difficult to accomplish and less likely to be effective.
The geographic issues are one problem; however, the countries’ other differences are even more daunting. The people, government, customs, culture, society, economy, infrastructure and history of Afghanistan are far different in innumerably different ways from those of Iraq and pose significantly more challenges than the geographic issues.
As one can see, one surge does not fit all.
Now, I am not suggesting that we pack up and head home.
That would be ludicrous.
What we need to do is not simply throw more troops at the Afghan problem; rather we need to develop a completely different strategy for Afghanistan. I am not talking about a strictly military strategy either.
We need to gain the trust of the Afghani people, so there needs to be cultural and economic portions of the plan, so the Afghans realize that we are the good guys and if they side with us, they will be safe.
It was this, a change in strategy enacted by General David Petraeus, that I believe was the main reason for the remarkable turnaround that Iraq is currently experiencing.
After all, the troop surge that happened in Iraq was, in the grand scheme of things, a relatively small influx of personal. In fact, we have had more troops in different times in Iraq than we did after the surge.
The troop surge, however, went hand-in-hand with a different strategy. The counter-terrorism approach (where we would run around, seeking out the bad guys, engage them, go home and repeat the next day) that we had in place from 2003 until the middle of 2007 ultimately failed.
What was successful and what did turn Iraq around was the strategy of connecting with the Iraqi people. Under General Petraeus, coalition troops went out and gained the trust of the Iraqis, showed them that they would be safe with our support and really learned what made these people tick.
It is this type of strategy, this outreach that will lead to an Afghanistan awakening.
Right now, people in Afghanistan are unwilling to help our troops or the Karzai government for fear of reprisal from the Taliban.
If we can change that, if we can go out to the population centers and convince them that they will be safe if they trust us, then the Taliban’s and Al-Qaeda’s support system will begin to be dismantled.
I deliberately say, “begin to be dismantled” in the previous statement for a major reason…Pakistan.
Right now, Pakistan is a major thorn in the side of anyone that wants to see the Taliban and Al-Qaeda eliminated. Due to Pakistan’s incredibly weak government in Islamabad and a complete lack of control of its northern and western borders, the Pakistani-Afghani border is a superhighway for terrorists flowing in and out of both countries.
Any time American or NATO forces turn up the heat on the Taliban or Al-Qaeda, they simply slip into Pakistan and return at a later date.
This needs to stop.
It is my opinion that the Bush Administration was too easy on the Pakistani government. After all, they have had over seven years to eliminate the terrorism problem in their country. In those seven years, they have received military support, billions and billions in economic and humanitarian aid and political support from us and in return, they have not upheld their side of the bargain.
We need to make it perfectly clear to the Zardari Government that we will have a terrorist-free Pakistan with them or without them. I think even they will understand that message.
We also need to continue the drone aircraft attacks, even if they go into Pakistan. They are an incredibly efficient way of eliminating the bad guys while not risking the life of a single American soldier.
To be clear, we cannot have a terror-free Afghanistan unless we have a terror-free Pakistan.
I know that I am painting a fairly bleak picture of Afghanistan and I will admit, I am slightly pessimistic about our chances of succeeding there, just ask the Soviets how difficult it is to tame Afghanistan.
I will say this however; I have tremendous faith in General Petraeus. I believe he is without a doubt the right man for this monumental job.
I am also hopeful that when the August Presidential elections come for the Afghani people, they elect a real leader, unlike the one they have now. With the rampant corruption that infests the Afghan Government, I am not going to hold my breath that a Nouri al-Maliki with step forward, but you never know.
Just remember it was only a mere 20 months ago that most politicians and commentators were calling Iraq a lost cause.
It’s funny what a little time and a new strategy can accomplish.
Let’s hope the previous statement can be applied to Afghanistan in the near future.
That’s all for now folks. Until next time, take care and be well.
The terrorist attacks that shook Mumbai over the Thanksgiving weekend have the potential to do have a greater political impact than the nearly 200 dead Indians do.
Now I am in no way suggesting that this senseless loss of life is not important, quite the contrary. As a nation that has been rocked by terrorism, I think we can all sympathize with the Indians’ feelings of fear, anger and confusion and pray for the people that lost family, friends and loved ones.
The greater problem with these attacks is that they further destabilize a rapidly degenerating situation in the region. Afghanistan’s strides over the past few years are being erased by a more aggressive and energized Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Pakistan cannot control the flow of terrorists between its and Afghanistan’s border. Now, the world’s largest democracy and a strong U.S. ally in the region has been rocked by a terrorist attack that exposed embarrassing gaps in both the Indian security and intelligence capabilities.
This is troubling to not only New Delhi, but to Washington D.C. as well. We need a powerful India to help inject some stability into the region, a stability that may one day be a major factor in the ultimate defeat of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
The reason that we need a stable India is because Pakistan has shown utter incompetence in dealing with the real terrorism threats in the region.
You see, I think we’ve been approaching the Pakistan problem entirely wrong over the past couple of years. We’ve given them political support, financial backing to the tune of billions and billions in economic aid and military assistance.
Where has it gotten us? Nowhere.
Right now, the primary reason the war in Afghanistan is faltering is because Pakistan cannot secure it’s border or control the thriving terrorist cells within the country.
I really think it’s time to take an honest look at our relationship with Pakistan and ask this very important question: Are they a friend or foe? I’m not sure if I know the answer, but right now, I’m leaning towards the latter. After all, they are the one’s that fire on our troops when conducting raids. They are the ones that say one thing and do another when it comes to terrorism. They are the ones that run to the international media to complain about our incursions in their country, yet do nothing to rectify the current situation.
I, for one, am growing tired of Pakistan and believe it’s time to show them we mean business over there. I realize that they’re in a tough spot with roughly half of their population supporting terrorism and half supporting our actions, but they’ve had over seven years to get that act together and they clearly haven’t.
I suggest taking a new approach to the Pakistani problem, an approach that brings us even closer than we already are to India. If we were to diplomatically side with India over their hotly contested spat with Pakistan over Kashmir, we will show Pakistan that they need to earn our support. I’m not worried about a negative, Pakistani response because, if they want their nation to survive, they have to side with us, they know it and so do we. If they don’t, they’ll be run by Islamo-fascist terrorists.
This will put Pakistan on notice that if they falter, we have an even stronger ally in the region that will help us defeat terrorism, one that may actually accomplish something.
That’s all for now folks. Until next time, take care and be well.
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