Pakistan: it's serious ...
Just in case you were in any doubt: Yes, what's happening in Pakistan is extremely serious.
Five major attacks in 10 days; more than 150 people dead. Coordinated attacks in Lahore, close to the Indian border; Rawalpindi, where the army is headquartered; and Peshawar, close to the Afghan border. (There are reports of another attack in Peshawar as I write this.) If this what the Taliban look like when they're on the run, which is what Pakistani officials have been claiming, I'd hate to see them when they're at full strength.
On the other hand, it does seem that they have been taking quite a beating. The Pakistani army have wrested back control of the Swat Valley region, even though it's clear that some Taliban fighters remain. And they - or rather an unmanned US drone - did manage to kill the Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud, in August.
Has it weakened the Taliban? Probably - but clearly not to the extent that they are no longer capable of mobilising gunmen and suicide bombers across the country. Are the Taliban worried about the prospect of the major threatened military offensive in South Waziristan? Again, probably - but what we've seen over the past 10 days could well be their way of saying to the Pakistani government and military: If you come to get us, we can come to get you.
It's said that there are around 28,000 Pakistani troops available for the South Waziristan operation - and there are thought to be around 10,000 Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters in the region. Civilians are already fleeing, ahead of the expected onslaught, just as they did from the Swat Valley.
But no one in Pakistan thinks this is a war that can be won by military means alone. That's why just last night, President Obama signed the law which will provide $1.5 billion a year in non-military aid to Pakistan, making it the third biggest recipient of US aid after Israel and Egypt.
So what now for Washington's Af-Pak strategy? Well, President Obama may be announcing within the next week what he's decided to do about troop levels in Afghanistan - I expect him to announce a substantial increase, but their deployment may be time-limited, and he may set "bench-marks" for the Afghan political and military leadership to meet.
One intriguing hint last night: the Afghan ambassador in Washington suggested that there may, after all, be a second round in the Presidential election, after the allegations of widespread fraud in the first round. If he's right, it could be seen as a significant concession to US and other critics - although the final outcome will still be the same: Hamid Karzai will still be President.
I suggest that over the coming months, you keep half an eye on the American political timetable. This time next year will be the run-up to the mid-term Congressional elections: and if the Democrats are to retain control of Congress, President Obama will want to have a good news message from Afghanistan.
And a year after that, he'll be embarking on his re-election campaign for a second term in the White House. What he'll want more than anything will be to be able to say: "I can tell the American people that our military involvement in Afghanistan is coming to an end. Our security - and the security of the Afghan people - can now be left in the hands of the Afghans themselves."
Which will leave just one, big problem: what will be happening next door in Pakistan, a nuclear-armed state with a deeply-entrenched jihadi insurgency?
That's why I said that what's happening there is extremely serious.
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~35~RS~)
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Of course the situation in Pakistan is serious. The question is, and what is most serious is that we even think of asking the question, can the Pakistan state survive? Can Pakistan remain a cohesive state or will it fall apart?
The history of the country since it was founded in 1948 does not really bode well for the future. The country a creation of Muhammad Ali Jinnah with its west and east Pakistan as the majority Muslim states of British India has always had problems of cohesion. It has a torrid history of coups and military rule and break up. I just hope it does not fall apart again for the sake of the people. The proximate cause of the present problem can be traced back to the support the state was encouraged to give to the Taliban by the USA.
I really don't fully understand the present tribal and regional tensions in modern Pakistan. This is how I see things: Can the eight major subdivisions see their future together of apart? Can the Baloch population in Pakistan see itself apart from its former Afghan/Iranian parts to remain at least friendly with Sindh and Punjab? The mountainous regions to the North are immensely complex with disputed borders in Jammu and Kashmir. Is there still really any reason for Pakistan? Let us hope so. However the political classes have not made a very good fist of running the place since independence. The tribal territories have largely run themselves for years and are really in all but name independent.
There must be some benefit to be derived from being a single country for the country to remain and the lack of this is due to the inability of the political classes to run the country for the benefit of the people, not just their friends. Pakistan needs a new cadre of politicians who set out to run the country for the benefit of all of its quite diverse regions and people and that is still the problem! And another coup will not fix the problem!
Perhaps a new Baloch state formed from Baloch states in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran would have the necessary cohesion to bring peace to the area, but I doubt it. This would leave the Pakistan Punjab and Sindh as rump (by area) Pakistan but with most of the people. The Pushtun parts of Pakistan might join the Pashtun parts of Afghanistan, but I don't this this would be any kind of solution. All in all the three states should probably stay as they are, but the prospects for the peoples of the area are not good and thus for the rest of the World they are not good either - all rather a depressing failure of politics. Anyway that is how it seems to me, today.
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A very thoughtful and heartfelt post Robin. I can't help but think that the present Pak/Afghan situation is the prelude to something much more serious. Pakistan is essentially a failed state.
"The tribal territories have largely run themselves for years". An understatement, the British Raj in the 19th century left them alone and learnt not to send troops in, but to govern by diplomacy, bribes and trade offs. The only foreign occupiers that managed to successfully subdue the region (and Iran) were the Mongols; but they had an utterly ruthless attitude and wern't above genocide when it suited them.
"There must be some benefit to be derived from being a single country for the country to remain..." Unfortunately Pakistan divided from India on religious grounds, so a religious battlefield it remains; there is a bigger struggle being fought in Middle Eastern countries, most obvious in Iran, between the conservatives and the liberal modernisers; attitudes towards the role that women play are the most obvious differences. (Many Muslims enjoy living in Britain for the freedoms it brings; the sending of daughters to school is one of them.) This struggle is likely to be the major story of this century.
I support troops being in Afghanistan (The invasion of Iraq was a foolhardy mistake.); there is a good reason for our being there. The mistake our leaders made was thinking that taking Kabul meant we had 'won'; they should have realised that was just the preliminaries. (Unfortunately they then also thought 'regime change' was a practical possibility, hence Iraq.)
But I share your pessimisim, what happens in Pakistan/Afghanistan/Iran is serious; is getting worse and needs our full attention. This is likely to shape world events and our politics (internal and external) for at least the next few decades.
One thing I ask is not to believe that anyone from Pakistan or Afghanistan is automatically a supporter of the Taliban or Al Qaeda; this simply is not the case; despite many trying to tar everyone of the same religion with the same extremist brush.
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Couldn't they just merge Pakistan with India and make it an even-bigger "World's Largest Democracy" ?
Eventually they could take over Afghanistan as well, teach them all to speak English, make them part of the Commonwealth and when Turkey joins the EU it won't be long before the "Stans" in between, and the BTC oil pipeline is all under the control of the Americans and the oil will be under the control of the 'English Speaking World'.
http://www.arnolfini.org.uk/downloads/Arnolfini_Cwords.pdf
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This is long overdue. It's a shame that it took American drone planes killing Taleban leaders to create a situation where Pakistan is forced to take the actions that was always in its own best interest. It is also agonizing to realize that possibly a mere 10,000 Taleban and al Qaeda are at the heart of what is holding the entire world hostage yet except for the US, no one has been concerned enough about it to do something effective. Pakistan would do well to recognize that this is a fight to the death. If they don't pursue the Taleban until it is entirely descimated, then any respite will merely be used as an opportunity for the Taleban to regroup and rebuild until it has regained enough strength for the next wave of assaults. It is important for the US to not only grant aid to Pakistan conditoinally on its performance in eliminating al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taleban in Pakistan but the Afghanistan Taleban there as well. Failure to do so will allow the threat to Afghanistan's government to remain sufficiently potent so that the US could never leave Afghanistan feeling assured that the Afghanistanis could handle their own security.
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#5. MarcusAureliusII
1. Could you perhaps tell us the identity of the country that initially set up, financed and armed the Taliban? (ans. The USA!)
2. On the subject of 'decimation' - with you fancy adopted fake Roman connection I would have hoped you realised that to decimate a legion was to kill every tenth man!
3. The reason that your ideas don't work is that you totally neglect the people. The problem with both Afghanistan and Pakistan is the population sees little benefit in being part of the state. This is a failure of politics - Afghanistan is currently incurably corrupt and represents only one of the tribal groups in the country and in Pakistan the political and military elites have failed for decades to persuade the Pushtun and Baloch (and other ethnic and tribal groups) that there is much benefit from being part of Pakistan.
Imposed, or internal, military solutions do not work as they solve nothing.
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John from Helldom;
"Could you perhaps tell us the identity of the country that initially set up, financed and armed the Taliban? (ans. The USA!)"
Careful analysis in the US has demonstrated that this popularly held myth has no basis in fact. I'm sure the European left and other Anti-Americans love to perpetuate it in part as revenge for the support the US gave the Afghan mujahadeen that helped wreck their utopia, the USSR. That mujahadeen was not the core essence of a nascent future Taleban that took over Afghanistan's corrupt government which reigned after the USSR left.
A fatal mistake the US has made in defending its security around the world since the close of the second world war is its failure to recognize that its own interests must take precedence over all other considerations including the lives of civilians in combat zones. Those civilians must be made to realize that their own fate directly hangs on the complete elimination of America's enemies such as the Taleban and al Qaeda. They must come to realize that giving them sanctuary or failing to join the effort to eliminate them will not save them but instead put their own lives at greater risk. Unfortunately, reason is often not persuasive, the unfolding of events must convince them they have no choice. We shouldn't be giving them any choice and we should make no bones about it. We didn't in world war II, if we had we would have lost. The signing and obedience to international treaties defining "war crimes", "crimes against humanity" and other one sided restrictions on America's ability to resist and netralize its mortal enemies is putting it at grave risk. The waterboardig of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed according to those in the know who have testified before the American public is that it resulted in him divulging many terrorist plots both in the US and in the UK that might have gone undetected. It worked which for many of us is all that mattered. When it comes to wars of our own survival, the end does justify the means. I am unwilling to become a dead martyr for yours or anyone else's abstract concept of justice. My right to stay alive at any cost is as great as anyone elses and I will not sacrifice it.
BTW, while you are correct in the origins of the word decimate (1500-1600 AD though), in current usage, the number one definition in dictionary dot com is;
"to destroy a great number or proportion of: The population was decimated by a plague."
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Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, NOW
Great Britain, Germany, Spain, France, Rome, THEN
if its not one its the other, mostley the one, or according to the one, the other.
What is the end of all this?
What is at the end of all this?
Will there be an end?
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