The Washington Post reported today that the Taliban insurgency is gaining ground in Pakistan (Clashes Escalate in Third Day of Violence in Pakistan):
Violent clashes between extremist insurgents and Pakistani troops escalated Wednesday in the country's fractious northwest as Taliban leaders threatened to withdraw their support for peace deals brokered earlier this year with Pakistan's new government. […] It was the third consecutive day of violence between pro-Taliban extremists and government troops in the formerly serene Swat Valley. After skirmishes erupted near the town of Matta, Pakistani security forces began enforcing a 24-hour curfew on the area, a military spokesman said.
Given the increasing frequency of Taliban cross-border raids into Afghanistan, what can the U.S. do to help Pakistan in this struggle with the Taliban? In “A Pro-Taliban Threat,” Malou Innocent, a Cato Institute foreign policy analyst, writes:
Pro-Taliban militants are currently in talks with one of Pakistan's provincial governments to enforce Shariah, or Islamic law. Though the deal is meant to stop the spreading Islamist insurgency on Pakistan's western border with Afghanistan, if passed, the deal will only embolden radicals and undermine U.S. interests in Afghanistan. […] Instead of toothless peace deals, a better strategy would be to isolate and contain the militancy through ‘clear and hold’ operations. Since America has a vested interest in a secure Pakistan, and the capabilities of Pakistan's Army must be improved substantially, Washington can assist Islamabad by raising the professionalism of Pakistan's army by increasing the number of joint military-to-military training operations, and enhancing human-intelligence sharing in the tribal areas.
This is a great idea and deserves consideration at the highest levels, but I fear the window may have closed for these kind of joint operations. Such military-to-military operations may have worked better when the U.S. was more closely tied to Gen. Pervez Musharraf rather than the more loosely defined security structure that now exists in Pakistan. Don't get me wrong, I supported our brief flirtation with Benazir Bhutto and support democracy in Pakistan, but we should also remember the law of unintended consequences. Democracy is messy and often blurs lines of accountability, something we need more of, not less, in a society defined by tribal and clan loyalties. How loosely defined is the internal security situation in Pakistan? According to this report in today's New York Times, there are fears that Pakistan's intelligence service has gone rogue, is no longer accountable to the civilian political leadership and is actively supporting the Taliban. If that is the case, the U.S. and allies operating in Afghanistan now have a far larger problem to deal with than a few bands of al Qaeda militants hiding in the northwestern mountains of Pakistan.
