Muslims and Liberals

The Columbus Dispatch
October 10, 2008

Pakistan is too weak to have repelled recent American ground and air raids on suspected Taliban targets within its borders. It has protested the violations of its sovereignty by its “war on terror” ally and fired what appears to be symbolic shots at some intruding U.S. drones.

Pakistan is too weak to have repelled recent American ground and air raids on suspected Taliban targets within its borders. It has protested the violations of its sovereignty by its “war on terror” ally and fired what appears to be symbolic shots at some intruding U.S. drones.

Meanwhile, in a desperate effort to stave off U.S. incursions, the Pakistani army has launched a bloody campaign against the Taliban in the tribal areas. That threatens the country’s internal security, as signaled by the bombing of Islamabad’s Marriott Hotel, killing scores of people including the Czech ambassador and two U.S. citizens.

Anti-American militancy in Pakistan is diffuse and widespread and can’t be tackled militarily. Yet the next American administration is likely to continue the raids. The Democratic and Republican presidential nominees are committed to ratcheting up the war in Afghanistan, where Pakistani guerrillas attack NATO forces. Barack Obama advocated attacking suspected Taliban hideouts in Pakistan before the Bush administration began doing so. These offensive inroads into Pakistan would, besides threatening Pakistan’s stability, bolster the Taliban movement there.

U.S. officials say the raids are necessary because the Pakistani government is “unable or unwilling” to stop Taliban infiltration into Afghanistan. Actually, there is no shortage of willingness in the new Pakistani government to do America’s bidding. President Asif Ali Zardari has been staunchly pro-American. He owes his big job to the United States. U.S. diplomats John Negroponte and Richard Boucher pressured former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf into immunizing Zardari and his assassinated wife, onetime Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, against a string of corruption charges. That immunity enabled him to stay out of jail and run for president. Top Pakistani army generals, who play decisive roles on war-and-peace issues, also have been steadfastly pro-American, as the United States provides a quarter of the Pakistani army budget.

Nevertheless, the Pakistani government and military are reluctant to launch a sustained crackdown on the Taliban (they engage the guerrillas mainly to placate Washington) because they know it would be counterproductive. As I found out during two trips through Pakistan in the past two years, support for the “Afghan jihad” against NATO forces is widespread among Pakistanis, including those who denounce the Taliban’s violent “Islamization” campaign. Most Pakistanis resent the use of their army against their youths pursuing what they consider a legitimate struggle.

Muhammad Hafeez, chairman of the sociology department at Punjab University in Lahore, echoed a view I heard over and over in Pakistan. He said the Taliban who are fighting NATO troops in Afghanistan “are not terrorists,” as the Americans portray them. “They are mujahedeen [freedom fighters] who are fighting to liberate that country” from NATO occupation.

I wonder how the United Stages would refute Hafeez’s argument after it helped recruit, train and arm Pakistani guerrillas to fight Soviet invaders in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The Pakistani Taliban have been recruiting their anti-NATO fighters mainly from the tribal areas. Expanding what Obama called “the central front” of America’s anti-terror war to Pakistan would succeed only in expanding the Taliban’s support base there. And if American troops have gotten trapped in Iraqi sand, God help them in the Pashtun-inhabited mountains, gorges and forests of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

No invading force, from the ancient Greeks to the Soviets three decades ago, could subdue the indomitable Pashtun. Today’s Pashtun youths, moreover, are far more politically conscious than their forebears, while America’s nerves are more fragile than most of the historic hegemons. I’m afraid terror could prevail on the anti-terror war’s “central front,” unless the goals or the war are redefined.

The United States can’t eliminate even a fraction of the anti-American guerrillas in Afghanistan or Pakistan through military operations. Sooner or later it would need to eliminate the main source of anti-American terrorism in there: the NATO military presence in Afghanistan. To begin the process, Washington should develop a political framework in Afghanistan to shift power from its puppet Hamid Karzai government to one supported by the Pashtun, the largest and most powerful of Afghan tribes that are estranged from the current Afghan power structure.