Terrifying News from Pakistan
Earlier this month, Tony Karon wrote:
What’s more, if the Taliban’s goal were to seize state power rather than local control, it would have little hope of doing so. The insurgency is largely confined to ethnic Pashtuns, who comprise little more than 15% of the population. It is unlikely to find significant resonance in the major cities such as Islamabad and Lahore — though an influx into Karachi of people displaced by the fighting in the tribal areas has swelled that city’s Pashtun population, which has in turn raised communal tensions there. While the Taliban is reported to have made some inroads in southern Punjab and has linked up with small militant groups based in the province, it remains a minor presence in those parts of the country where the majority of Pakistanis live.
That was encouraging, particularly when taken together with encouraging news from Haider Mullick re: Pakistan’s counter-insurgency efforts.
But Frederick Kagan has brought some terrible news to our attention.
Hitherto, although experts have known of the prevalence of indigenous terror groups in Punjab and Sindh, most discussions about Pakistan’s militants have focused on Pashtun groups along the Durand Line demarcating the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. The Pakistani government has generally tried to insist that such groups are the ones responsible for disturbances, calling loudly (and oddly) for Afghanistan to close the border to contain the Pashtuns (though they are Pakistani). Although some senior Pakistani officials remain keen to deny the existence of a Punjabi threat, President Asif Ali Zardari seems more serious. He has formed a new cabinet-level national security committee to review Pakistan’s security situation and called for the recruitment of at least 100,000 more Pakistani police. If this marks the beginning of Islamabad’s recognition of the depth of Pakistan’s problems and Zardari’s own commitment to see the struggle through, then the United States might have a real opportunity here, if we can take advantage of it.
To his credit, Kagan ends on a positive note. But as Ahmed Rashid noted in the NYRB, Zardari is extremely isolated.
Apart from traveling to the airport by helicopter to take trips abroad, the President stays inside the palace; he fears threats to his life by the Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaeda, who in December 2007 killed his wife, the charismatic Benazir Bhutto, then perhaps the country’s only genuine national leader. Zardari’s isolation has only added to his growing unpopularity, his indecisiveness, and the public feeling that he is out of touch. Even as most Pakistanis have concluded that the Taliban now pose the greatest threat to the Pakistani state since its cre- ation, the president, the prime minister, and the army chief have, until recently, been in a state of denial of reality.
Perhaps the state of denial has ended, as Kagan suggests. But does he have the political astuteness necessary to prosecute the war against the Pakistani Taliban without causing a political explosion? I hope he does.
Off on a long and unpleasant business trip tomorrow AM and packing. But a quick note — I don’t find Kagan so positive, or anyway I’m not clear he’s not the one in a “state of denial.” Yeah, Zardari’s convened a bunch of talk shops to deal with chasing out militants. But one of the worst problems, as Rashid points out, is that it’s not real real clear it’s Zardari’s call to make. It sure as hell isn’t if the army says it isn’t, and basically what we’re relying on here is a trust in Kiyani by some senior military (and maybe by David Ignatius) which reminds me vaguely of Bush’s looking into Putin’s soul or some such. I don’t know that there’s better ideas, mind you. I just wish someone would give me reason to be sure I give a crap what Zardari or Gilani think before telling me, oh, yeah, but they’re getting serious about the insurgency problem.
— Sanjay · Jun 1, 12:16 AM · #
Religious militants in Punjab and Sindh are not as significant as the Pashtun. They don’t have isolated mountainous hinterlands with tribal allies willing to give them shelter, arms and new recruits.
Zardari will eventually be replaced by Nawaz and Shahbaz Sharif who are the firm favourites of the urban middle classes of Punjab. They’re more than likely to keep the hammer on the Taleban particularly if the US keeps the money flowing.
— Ali Choudhury · Jun 1, 06:52 PM · #
Why Does Barack Obama Not Like India?
— whydoesbarackobamanotlikeindia.blogspot.com · Jun 7, 07:42 AM · #