Obama's Deepening AfPak Crisis

President Barack Obama, flanked by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Bob Gates, announced the new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan on March 27th. But the administration is already scrambling to keep up with deteriorating events.

With the appropriate huzzahs for President Barack Obama's first 100 days still ringing in the air, his new AfPak strategy, for the linked crisis of Afghanistan and Pakistan, is already in deep trouble. Events have accelerated beyond the assumptions underlying it, especially in Pakistan, and much of the past few days in the administration was taken up with re-strategizing, including discussions on Air Force One as the president flew back-and-forth for a Missouri town hall yesterday and a full-scale National Security Council session before that.

Obama is meeting today with the chairs and ranking minority members of the Senate and House armed services committees, including his defeated rival, John McCain.

AfPak could be a tremendous disaster for America. As we are serially distracted by the various ADD obsessions of our media culture.

What's wrong? Most immediately, the slow-rolling jihad in Pakistan and a relatively new government there that's been fighting with functional modernist governmental rivals and cutting deals that don't work with the Pakistani Taliban. And in the long term, an approach in Afghanistan that leans in the direction of nation-building rather than simply -- though it's not simple -- keeping Al Qaeda too disrupted to launch serious attacks on America.

Richard Armitage, longtime confidante of Colin Powell and deputy secretary of state in the Bush/Cheney Administration, told Al Jazeera on Tuesday that Pakistan and Afghanistan may spiral out of control.

What, after all, does Obama want to accomplish? To try to turn Afghanistan into a country like ours, as George W. Bush and Dick Cheney seemingly tried in Iraq? (Leaving Obama with the messy overhang.) That's an even more unlikely goal for Afghanistan than for Iraq.

At this point, Obama will be fortunate to keep Pakistan from falling into the hands of the Taliban. And if that were to happen, all hope of denying Al Qaeda cadre safe havens in Pakistan from which to plan and launch strategic terrorist operations against America would be lost.

It seems to me that our policy should be guided by three imperatives:

1. To disrupt and disable Al Qaeda's strategic capabilities, i.e., its ability to launch a 9/11-type attack.

2. To develop friendlier relations with the Islamic world as a whole.

3. To keep Pakistan's nuclear weapons out of the hands of jihadists. Iranian nuclear weapons are theoretical; Pakistani nuclear weapons are not.

A top Soviet commander remembers the difficulty of the Afghan War.

We may actually be closer than we suppose to achieving the first goal in Afghanistan. That's about preventing the formation of terrorist bases, camps, training centers, keeping leaders on the run, disrupting communications, interdicting weapons shipments, preventing the development or acquisition of weapons of mass destruction. Which does not require a modern state run out of Afghanistan's capital of Kabul, but simply a more stable and functional one, probably a coalition government, that enables ongoing operations against Al Qaeda.

The second goal, of friendlier relations with the Islamic world, is one that Obama is already well launched upon. His speech to the Turkish Parliament in Ankara, his respectful tour of the nation's most famous mosque and religious museum, are major departures from the past.

The third goal, of keeping Pakistani nukes out of the hands of jihadists, is trickier. That requires at least a major semblance of stability in Pakistan. And that is something fast unraveling.

Obama is realizing that Pakistan has become his toughest international challenge.

Obama is spending a great deal of time focusing on the deteriorating situation in Pakistan. Under the new administration, which replaced that of General Pervez Musharaff, the Pakistani Taliban have metastized through much of the country, and are edging perilously close to the capital of Islamabad.

In developments which mostly went unreported in the American media, the US Embassy in Islamabad on April 9th shut down for all normal operations and suggested that American citizens curtail their travels.

On April 10th, security forces arrested some 350 suspected jihadist terrorists in the Pakistani capital, in advance of some still unspecified plot for a terrorist strike. You'll recall that that is far more people than were needed to virtually shut down Mumbai, India's financial capital, in the terrorist siege there last Thanksgiving.

Since then, the Pakistani Taliban have made further advances around the country. They continue to disrupt US supply operations to the forces fighting in Afghanistan and are threatening Karachi, Pakistan's seaport through which those supplies must flow.

After several agreements, granting sharia law in various parts of the country in exchange for peace and an end to offensive operations, between the government and the Taliban failed, the Obama Administration urged the government to launch military attacks, and the army may be having some successes in the last few days.

The army, founded in the British tradition following Pakistan's independence in the 1940s, is historically the only stable major institution in the country. Like Pervez Musharaff and current chief of staff Ashfaq Kayani, its top officers were educated and trained in elite British and American staff colleges as well as in Pakistan. But for all its modernist sheen and pro-Western sympathies, the army -- like the dread ISI intelligence service, which helped Afghan Taliban take over Afghanistan from battling mujahedeen warlords in the wake of the Soviet ouster -- is shot through with jihadist sympathizers. Pakistan's rationale, incidentally, is that it wanted a very stable Afghanistan to avoid meddling there from archrival India.

Obama had already upped civilian aid to Pakistan to help stabilize the country. Now he's proposing to increase military aid, in the form of new military hardware such as helicopters, infantry weapons, and night-vision goggles. And Pakistan has just agreed to increased US military training in counterinsurgency for its forces, with some of it apparently to take place outside the country.

The terrorist siege of Mumbai five months ago derailed already tense relations between Pakistan and India.

Pakistan is also moving some of its troops massed along the border with India to its border with Afghanistan. When India and Pakistan nearly came to war after the terrorist siege of Mumbai last Thanksgiving, probably a major strategic goal of the attack, Pakistan moved troops away from the Afghan border, where they are supposed to interdict forces aiding the Afghan Taliban, to its border with India.

And what of Pakistan's nukes? That's even less clear. The Financial Times reported yesterday that Pakistani officials are sharing nuclear secrets with the US, Britain, and other Western countries to "assuage fears." Considering the proximity of Pakistan's nuclear weapons to territory under the sway of the Pakistani Taliban, that's not tremendously reassuring.

Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, the suddenly simpler part of the AfPak equation, the Afghan Taliban announced yesterday that they will launch Operation Nasrat Victory to respond to Obama's Afghan military surge. They promise a series of suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks against foreign troops, diplomats, international aid workers -- Obama is dispatching hundreds of civilian experts and aid workers to more rural parts of Afghanistan to help develop the country's civilian infrastructure -- and Afghan officials.

In other developments, Britain and Australia, having ended their Iraqi missions, are sending more troops to Afghanistan.

And Turkey is taking over command of NATO forces in and around the Afghan capital of Kabul to provide security, increasing its troops in Afghanistan. The French previously had that command, and security had become rather porous.

You know it's a bad situation when Afghanistan, site of the long-troubled and neglected "good" post-9/11 war, as the Democrats had it during the Bush/Cheney years, is suddenly in better shape than Pakistan, our one-time front-line ally in the "War on Terror."

You can check things during the day on my site, New West Notes ... www.newwestnotes.com.

Comments

[David Campbell]

The Middle East as a theme park.
I think many people, if not most, have finally realized that this whole area is hopeless. It is not worth one American life or one American dollar. It has been in inturmoil from ancient times and will continue to be so in the future. These are not nation states but tribal nomads of the desert. They are concerned with their family and tribal groups above all else. They bring with them suspicion of strangers and religions which are their lives, not once a week rituals. They are not interested in democracy , science and rational thought unless they need such to wage war against other tribes. None of these backward societies should be our concern but should be to the United Nations. They do not want us there and resent our culture and values. If any group directly threatens our security then we shall deal with them directly. Otherwise we should leave, with our military, shut down all other connections, and continue to live in the 21st Century. But, they are fasinating theme parks of ancient cultures, exotic foods and their bizarres in Cairo, Istanbul and Marrakech are quite wondeful and make for interesting vacations. Our citizens will be warned that they are on their own without America's protection. We can look elsewhere for oil and stop selling them weapons, technology and let them entertain themselves with their own music and video. I'm certain Disney will be happy to provide consulting services.
~~~~

[LizM]

It is hard to be anything but completely ambivalent when it comes to what US policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan should be, let alone what is the right strategy for Iraq and everything in between, literally!

But, I still believe that “keeping Al Qaeda too disrupted to launch serious attacks on America”, which must be the absolute minimum in all of this, cannot be achieved without working toward the stabilization of Afghanistan through the mother of all diplomatic/political/economic/humanitarian ( with an especially heavy focus on training the Afghan police and army) efforts that the world has ever witnessed.

What we are talking about here - whether we call it ‘nation-building’ or something else - is a long, tough slog of a process that may take a decade or more to yield successful and tangible results. My worry is that there will be too little political will - from all corners of Washington and the rest of the world - to see it through. But, I don’t think your first imperative can be met and sustained without such a comprehensive, muscular and ongoing effort to achieve the relatively modest goal of helping to forge a stable and functioning state with our Afghan partners.

...continued...

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

Funny, you haven't seemed completely, or even partly, ambivalent before ...

[LizM]

Well, I am fairly certain that any kind of successful outcome in Afganistan/Pakistan is going to require at least three elements: a very long time - measured in decades, not years; a military component that focuses almost exclusively on eliminating al-Qaeda and training up the Afghan army and police (good luck with that!); and, a muscular diplomatic/political/economic/humanitarian component. If this doesn't work, nothing will.

I become ambivalent about this whole enterprise when I start to really think about it all and wonder whether it could ever possibly work...and that feeling gets stronger with each passing day.

Sometimes I wonder if there isn't just too much water under the bridge already...and too much time wasted. This is a classic and disheartening example of the US finding itself in a place where it is damned if it does and damned if it doesn't. You know what - ambivalent doesn't come close to describing what I'm thinking about this sad state of affairs.

[BottomLine2008]

I think Al Qaeda can be disrupted with special ops, high tech and intel operations which don't even require what Obama says he's already going to do.

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

The answer is probably somewhere in between, but I suspect we're closer to where we need to be with Al Qaeda than many think.

[LizM]

...continued...

I actually have a problem with the whole ‘nation-building’ term and the completely understandable negative connotations that attach to that concept - from the point of view of the US and its coalition partners and from that of the people whose lives it so directly affects. I, for one, am certainly not talking about turning Afghanistan ( or Iraq or anywhere else) into a Western-style liberal democracy - not even by a long shot!

I think one of the major problems with US policy in Pakistan ( and Afghanistan and Iraq, for that matter) is the strong belief in the region that the US will not have the political will to spend the time, effort, and resources to work with them and get this job done. If history is prologue, the region can be forgiven for thinking this.

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

I use it for a reason, which is that it's easy for US leaders to slide into a more sustained engagement than is necessary for US security.

[LizM]

I can understand that...completely.

[BottomLine2008]

That's another Vietnam War.

[SaulZ]

This is another article based on the Karl Rovian philosophy of keeping the Americans hostage to fear. 1st of all Bradley should try to learn something about how nukes work. 2nd: he needs to learn about Pakistani population and geography. Nukes are not cars that can be stolen and used for robbery. The only way Pakistani nukes can get into the hands of extremists is if Pakistan gets under an extremist government, the chances of which are none, as can be easily gauged from the results of last free and fair elections. Even the moderate Islamic parties got routed in their traditional strongholds. You need to talk to Pushtoons from allegedly Talibani strongholds to confirm how anti-extremism and anti-Talibans they are. With suicide bombs and attack on Sri Lankan cricket team, even their sympathizers have turned against them.

However, here is a question for Bradley: What is the guarantee that this whole Taliban fear factor is not being created just like the WMD drama was created to demonize Iraq?

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

Thanks for your non-serious conspiracy theory.

Which evidently assumes that I am lying about the Obama Administration spending much of its time this week on the crisis.

And which ignores the fact that Obama is, as of today, conducting a trilateral US/Afghanistan/Pakistan summit at White House to address the crisis next Wednesday.

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

Oh, and, btw, my supposedly knowledgeable friend.

There is no such thing as "Pushtoons."

There are, however, Pashtuns.

Have a nice day ...

[LizM]

...in the 'Bon Jovi' sense of the phrase, of course.

[SaulZ]

Sir: I am a minority Pakhtoon (pakhtun / pukhtoon / pukhtun if you will) from Pakistan and a Canadian citizen living in Mississauga, Ontario (the immigrant town).

We call ourselves Pakhtoons, while our people in Pakistani province of Balochistan call themselves Pushtoons. It is just a little diff in dialect. Pashtuns and Pushtoons don' matter much to me. I know how it is pronounced in my language :-)

Btw, you cannot discard an opposing point of view as a conspiracy theory. You can do better than that. You have not answered my question yet.

[LizM]

SaulZ,

I would go so far as to suggest that even in the extreme case of the extremists taking outright control of Pakistan, the US has a contingency plan that would be successful in never allowing that nuclear arsenal to fall into their hands.

That's what allows me to sleep at night. :)

[SaulZ]

Which I am guessing is nuke Pakistan out of this planet?

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

That would assume we know where all the nukes are. Which I'm told we do not.

[BottomLine2008]

Bradley is Karl Rove-like?

Hahahahahaha.

You don't do much reading here, do you?

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

Oh, you know, Karl Rove is my hero ...

[BottomLine2008]

There is a RATIONALIZER question.

>>>>However, here is a question for Bradley: What is the guarantee that this whole Taliban fear factor is not being created just like the WMD drama was created to demonize Iraq?

[jaysan]

(cont'd)

The real answer is actually the worst of both worlds, I'm afraid. The shadowy pro-Taliban hardline elements inside the Pakistani military want to see the Taliban seize control of as many levers of power as they can, in order to thwart civilian cooperation in the war against their hardline Islamist brethren. The plunging Pakistani economy is getting worse everyday, and whatever aid is coming in is being devoured by the kleptocracy there, while the poor fare even worse. The much-vaunted million-man army is misusing the lion's share of any military assistance to deploy it against the border with India, while leaving their pet Taliban wolves to ravage the landscape. The entire spectrum of the Pakistani state refuse to accept any accountability in how they spend or allocate the copious aid being blindly funneled to them, so that it's an absolute guarantee that it's not going where it's needed.

Since Pakistan's shadowy praetorian hardliners have no intention of allowing their scruffier rural Taliban assets to be wiped out, it's only a matter of time before they decide to hit India with more terrorist attacks, in the hopes of pushing India to put more troops on the border, thereby offering Pakistan the excuse it needs to pull its troops out of the fight against Taliban and over to the border with India.

These things should be obvious to any informed observer who comes from the region.

[jaysan]

@Sanjeev,

I'm not sure where you're posting from, but here in India there's tremendous concern that Taliban are being used by their state sponsors inside the ISI and Pakistani Army to take over the country. Given that Pakistan's military were the original creators of Taliban in the first place, and continue to maintain unspecified traditional backchannel contacts with them, it's rather hard to accept at face value the Pakistani claims of having the situation under control. When the fox is guarding the henhouse, there's every chance of losing more chickens.

And actually, to hear the Pakistanis themselves is to get two starkly different pictures. When the Pakistanis need more money, weapons and aid, then they seem to play up the Taliban threat. When the US warns Pakistan that further Taliban encroachment towards its nuclear weapons is a redline that would invite the most direct US intervention, then Pakistan suddenly says the Taliban aren't a problem.

So Pakistan has multiple conflicting needs here, which cause it to project multiple conflicting pictures. Their need for more weapons and aid to shore up their failing state and floundering economy makes them want to sell the Pakistan-in-Peril concept, to garner more international assistance. Their need to ward off any Western pre-emptive action against their nuclear arsenal makes them want to downplay the Taliban threat.

[SanjeevBery]

Jaysan -

I myself am Indian-American, though I've spent a short amount of time living and working in New Delhi. Through that, I've gained some measure of exposure to and appreciation of Indian perspectives on the neighbor to the immediate west.

I've also spent a lot of time talking with Pakistani and Pakistani-American academics and activists in the U.S. There are a couple of pieces I've coauthored with Pakistani-American voices in the U.S. that can be read elsewhere.

You might find this surprising, but there are many Pakistanis who will agree with much of what you have written -- not all, but much of it. It depends on how the conversation is structured. Just as there are a thousand "Indias", there are also many different "Pakistans."

I suspect that when you write "Pakistanis," you are referring to heads of state and military leadership. There are also many "Pakistanis" who resent the dominance of the Pakistani military and corruption of the Pakistani civilian elites.

I have read the groans of Pakistani academics when Zardari goes to the U.S. and plays the "Taliban is taking over" card for more money. I have also heard the resentment of Pakistanis over the Pakistani military and ISI's continued incubation of Taliban militias under the continuation of the doctrine of "strategic depth." To be fair, there are plenty of conspiracy theories as well, and many who do not recognize these problems.

(more)

- Sanjeev Bery
http://digdeeper.us

[BottomLine2008]

You know, we can listen to rationalizations forever.

[SanjeevBery]

(continued)

My quarrel is regarding the ongoing dialogue in the U.S., in which American media commentators frequently avoid explaining how exactly some 10,000 Pakistani Taliban are really going to control, occupy, and govern a nation of 170 million people.

In American discourse, there is this perception that the Taliban will somehow gain control through an alliance with hardline Islamist parties or the military. This is very different from the more nuanced perception of observers in which the Taliban are looked at as a strategic extension of Pakistani foreign/military policy in Afghanistan.

I find it implausible that the Pakistani military would allow the Taliban to attempt to control Islamabad, Karachi, or Lahore. There's a big difference between incubating the Taliban and allowing oneself to be controlled by them. It also seems numerically implausible, given the many millions of people living in these cities.

I can't speak to the potential of future terrorist attacks in India, or their use as a political tool to heighten Indo-Pak tensions for military purposes. They could be attempted, but I don't know for sure. I'm not sure anyone can speak about future hypothetical attacks with complete confidence.

Sanjeev Bery
http://digdeeper.us

[jaysan]

Sanjeev,

You need to understand that the Pakistani military is chafing under their current relationship with the civilian govt, whom they resent as corrupt buffoons willing to kowtow to the US agenda. Hardliners in Pakistan's military see the Taliban as a means to undermine the civilian govt and thwart its participation in the anti-terror agenda. They are certainly willing to go all the way and see the Taliban seize power completely. The Islamization of the military which was started under general Zia-ul-Haq during the 1980s has inexorably produced a generation of hardliners with a stark perception of the world, including a paranoia that the world wants to break apart the "first Islamic nuclear power". They feel that without an Islamic revolution, their crumbling nation won't survive.

If you look at the example of Lebanon, the Lebanese army has never cracked down on Hezbollah, as they've never seen it in their interest to do so. They simply allow Hezbollah to function as a parallel authority and independent militia. Since Hezbollah's target is mainly Israel and not Lebanon, certainly the Lebanese military feel they have no stake in taking them on. Likewise, the Pakistani military see Islamist extremism as a potent ideology to force society to march in lockstep with them, and to take on evil infidel India.
Indeed, many military hardliners see fundamentalist Islam as the only real solution to Pakistan's incorrigible corruption, and it's numerous separatist threats.

[jaysan]

(cont'd)

Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi and other major cities are merely seats of civilian power, not military power. For the military, Zia-ul-Haq is their role model. He is considered by them to have been their greatest leader to date, having demonstrated how Islam and authoritarianism can work hand in hand, and not be in competition with each other.

When some analysts warn of a potential for schism within Pakistan's military, they're alluding to the fact that the hardliners aren't small in number, and see things radically differently from others, so that they won't compromise.

The tribals are far more than 10,000 and their numbers can be boosted or reduced at will. By the same token, one could argue against how a mere million-man army could control Pakistan's 170 million, but clearly they did under Musharraf and other previous dictators. When there is a gun culture to draw gunmen from, and when it is done in the name of Islam, then you'll find that the revolutionaries will easily outnumber any cosmopolitan urban elite, who have less in common with the bulk of the population than the Taliban do.

As for speculation on a potential terrorist attack against India, I think that looking ahead and thinking predictively is how terrorist attacks are foiled. So naturally, that's going to have to be done. It is by considering the hypotheticals as a thought experiment, that one gains the deeper insight into potential dangers and pitfalls.

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

How many Viet Cong were there?

How many Viet Cong were there after an area fell under Viet Cong dominance and rifles were provided?

Think about it.

[BottomLine2008]

Dude!

There's a guy below who's drafting off your column to publish and promote his column!

Too funny.

[Arion]

So far as peace in the region goes, it's well to keep in mind that jihad is the national pastime in Afghanistan and the tribal areas. Not against us, but against the tribe just over the hill. See Winston Churchill's war correspondence ca. 1890. The tribal leadership is the real power there. Comparatively, the Taliban is a passing surface phenomenon. What we need is a network of alliances with the chiefs. This is far from easy in an atmosphere where each sheik is jealous of all the others, but it can be done. Comparatively, bribery is quite inexpensive and often quite socially useful, since the cash filters down, often to needy tribesman. And bribery is simply the customary way of doing business in that part of the world. We could combine it with buying up opium production.
This approach means giving up our social ideals, like voting and women's rights. But the tribal leadership really doesn't like the Taliban, or Al Qeada either.

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

I don't think that's what we're referring to with regard to Islamic jihad ...

[SanjeevBery]

William -

Lastly, I want to challenge your notion of a looming Taliban takeover of Pakistan. I'm not going to pretend that the Taliban aren't a destabilizing force, but I think it will require a lot more evidence to justify the claim that the Taliban are on the verge of taking over a nation of 170 million people.

Not only that, but I have yet to see a specific credible argument for how Taliban troops are going to access, let alone use, Pakistan's nuclear weapons. You can't just climb down into a missile silo and pull a trigger.

My understanding is that the Pakistan Taliban number perhaps as much as 10,000 at most. In Afghanistan, my understanding is that the Taliban troops number around 15,000.

To date, no one has made an articulate argument for how 10,000 Pakistan Taliban are going to take over or control 170 million Pakistanis. To put this in perspective, the U.S. still can't maintain a stable occupation of a nation of 30 million Iraqis with 140,000 U.S. troops backed up by Navy and Air Force technology. It is a stretch to argue that 10,000 Taliban of minority Pakistani ethnicities are going to occupy, control, and govern a nation of 170 million people who have consistently voted against Islamist political parties.

Thanks -

Sanjeev Bery
http://digdeeper.us

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

Another straw man, I'm afraid.

The title of the piece is "Obama's Deepening AfPak Crisis," not The Impending Taliban Takeover.

It is, however, indisputable, that the Pakistani Taliban have managed to gain sway over much of the country.

As for how they might gain access to the nukes, remember that I pointed out the many jihadist sympathizers in the Pakistani security apparatus.

Incidentally, and on this point, the ISI deliberately channeled American aid during the Soviet Afghan war to the most fundamentalist Islamic factions in the country.

They did not do that because the CIA told them to.

The ISI also trained and backed the Afghan Taliban to take over the country from the battling mujahedeen warlord factions.

[SanjeevBery]

From your piece: "At this point, Obama will be fortunate to keep Pakistan from falling into the hands of the Taliban."

[SaulZ]

Bradley: Seriously, you should consider taking Pakistan Geography 101. Pakistan is bigger than all New England and Mid-Atlantic states put together. Your statement like "It is, however, indisputable, that the Pakistani Taliban have managed to gain sway over much of the country" is equivalent to saying that Al Qaida took over eastern USA on 9/11. Dude it is terrorist attacks that we are facing. It is not an army. Few goons don't make an army. Also, your assertion that ISI supports fundamental parties is flawed. If I were to believe your point then I must also accept that ISI has been a total failure in that all its supported parties could not win any seat other than northwestern province and even there liberal parties got the majority votes.

[SanjeevBery]

William -

Continuing my prior analysis, I would also like to point out the missing historical context to your portrayal of the Pakistani ISI.

You refer to the "dread ISI intelligence service, which helped Afghan Taliban take over Afghanistan from battling mujahedeen warlords in the wake of the Soviet ouster." This is the exact same ISI that Reagan dumped billions of dollars into to funnel into Afghanistan in the war against the Soviets.

It isn't totally accurate to purely portray as a alien enemy the very institution that 30 years ago we viewed as a convenient ATM machine for providing funds to our proxy warriors. We bear some responsibility for funding the very institutions that we criticize today. I suspect that some of the very relationships we criticize the ISI for maintaining today were useful relationships 30 years ago when we were supporting Afghans in their fight with the Soviets.

The very word Mujahedeen is plural for Mujahed, which means "struggler" or one pursuing Jihad. My understanding of Bin Laden and others is that they personally emerged out of this U.S.-funded war. The various factions may have spent years in a civil war afterwards, but we didn't care too much about their ideologies when they were fighting the Soviets.

It is a bit inaccurate to make Pakistan's problems sound like some "foreign" challenge that we must heroically fix. We helped create these problems, because they were once our Cold War solutions.

Sanjeev Bery
http://digdeeper.us

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

The purpose of my piece is not to provide a full-fledged history of the Pakistani security apparatus. It's long enough as it is.

Osama bin Laden, incidentally, is not the product of the US, which you almost imply in your lengthy post.

[SanjeevBery]

That's not my implication. I'm merely stating that today's Taliban is very much a product of the battles with the Soviets 30 years ago. Bin Laden, of course, is a big example of that.

[SanjeevBery]

William -

While I agree with some of your statements, I'll confess that I strongly disagree with your analysis of the Pakistani military.

You describe the Pakistani Army as "historically the only stable major institution in the country." You also describe the leaders as "educated and trained in elite British and American staff colleges" and having "pro-Western sympathies" while saying that the rank-and-file is "shot through with jihadist sympathizers."

This is a problematic approach to understanding Pakistan because it portrays the Pakistani military leadership as a modern, stabilizing force. When the military keeps overthrowing civilian governments -- corrupt as they may be -- it is only technically correct to describe the military as the only "stable major institution." It is also the primary destabilizer as well.

Not only that, but Pakistani military dictators have consistently received U.S. support -- at the expense of local democracy. Musharraf received significant U.S. support while local democracy activists and lawyers were attempting to rebuild Pakistan's democracy.

Indeed, the main national Pakistani official to take action on the recent flogging of the Pakistani girl in Swat was the Chief Justice of the Pakistani Supreme Court, a man who the U.S.-backed Musharraf previously removed from power.

Sanjeev Bery
http://digdeeper.us

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

I don't think you actually disagree with my assessment that the army is historically the most stable institution in the country.

You don't seem to like the army much, though.

[SanjeevBery]

Again, the Pakistani military is a "stable" institution only because it is also a primary source of instability in Pakistan. Stability implies that they play a positive role in the country's political trajectory. They can only be considered "stable" because they continually obstruct the development of democratic alternatives.

If you keep deposing, expelling, or killing your democratic opposition, you can't truly be considered a source of stability -- even if you as an institution are in fact "stable."

[SanjeevBery]

My main point is that it isn't entirely accurate to label an institution "stable" when it is a primary source of instability to the democracy around it. The Pakistani military has expelled, jailed, and killed democratically selected leaders in Pakistan on more than one occasion.

Three different dictators have emerged from the Pakistani military, and the most recent one triggered massive pro-democracy protests that successfully led to a partial restoration of the independent judiciary.

The last military dictator, Musharraf, was responsible for Islamist political parties coming to power because he held elections while blocking mainstream political parties from participating. Not a step towards stability. Those Islamist political parties lost to centrist parties in 2008 when the military dictator, Musharraf, was no longer around to call the shots.

[GrainOSand]

Very distressing -- why are some so hell bent on forcing global destruction? People simply write off the people engaged in the jihadist activity as backwards and fanatical. Those words usually refer to a fringe group or a minority interest that can be held in check. This story reads like the stuff is slated to hit the fan and hard. I appreciate you providing your thoughts on solutions Mr. Bradley. I tire of those who criticize or cite weaknesses but offer no solutions of their own. You describe the perfect trap. All the moving parts for catastrophe are revealed in the lines of your reporting. Many things will have to go well to avoid deep sorrow if not horrific pain. I say, to be efficient we -- “Hit it and Quit it”, with regard to Afghanistan. As for Pakistan. WTF! I had high hopes for the new government (I was saddened by the assassination of Mrs. Bhutto and thought that her death would galvanize the country against extreme expressions of dissent. No such luck though.) I know there is killing here in America and all physicians should heal themselves first, but Pakistan has nukes and the unreasonable villagers are surrounding the game changing weapons. That is a serious problem that will keep a president burning the midnight oil and wearing out the rugs in the White House as he logs mile after mile in consideration and contemplation. The situation bears watching closely, for all citizens of the globe.

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

The assassination of Bhutto, which I don't have space to write about here or this becomes far too long, was assisted by jihadist elements of the security apparatus.

She had the charisma and personal clout to work with reformists and the military -- Kayani was once one of her top aides -- and make needed changes in the country.

[SoCalFamilyGuy]

Seems like... go back thirty years and we were having the same discussion about Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos when the Viet Cong spread into the neighboring countries. Like the Taliban, were the VC interested in running a country or just exporting their brand of communism wherever they could?
So now, is Obama about to start on Afghanistan/Pakistan like Johnson started on Vietnam and should we start preparing the ground on the Mall for another memorial for 55000 dead Americans?
There has to be a better way to do this.

[CarolinaDem]

I'm with you. Look, our working class is more than willing to give huge political power to people who ruin their lives, just because they can appeal to their quasi-religious beliefs about their dignity and 'values'. These Islamic backwaters in the western Himalayas are looking for somebody whose ruling motivations promise them they'll matter. Women are big losers, but they go with the Taliban when they sense that 'we' are only interested in making deals with their elites. And when you lose the countryside to suspicion, you're back in Vietnam all over again.

[BottomLine2008]

The great thing about it always being Vietnam is you don't have to know anything new. lol

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

Were the Viet Cong interested in running a country?

Absolutely. It's called Vietnam.

[BottomLine2008]

That's a good Al Jazeera report on the Mumbai attacks.

I remember a bunch of people claiming it wasn't Islamic terrorists at all at the time.

Hah!

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

There's always some wishful thinking ...

[BottomLine2008]

That was very wishful thinking, from people who pretend there are no Islamic terrorists.

[BottomLine2008]

I like that Obama admitted last night that Pakistan is his biggest challenge now.

I don't like he didn't admit all the meetings he's been having about it.

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

Of course he's not going to announce that.