What To Do About Pakistan?

By Cernig

Here's an interesting story, if true - the London Times says US forces are massing artillery, troops and armor near the Afghan/Pakistan border and are threatening to conduct cross-border strikes if the Pakistani leadership don't swiftly get their own house in order.

The deployment followed a claim by the Afghan Government on Monday that the Pakistani Army and its spy agency had become “the world's biggest producers of terrorism and extremism”. The Pakistani Foreign Ministry accused Kabul of creating an “artificial crisis to satisfy short-term political expediencies”.

President Bush said yesterday that the US would investigate the Afghan claims to “get to the bottom of the allegation”. He said that he was troubled by the movement of extremists from Pakistan into Afghanistan.

... US Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made an announced visit to Islamabad at the weekend and held a series of meetings with Pakistan's top civil and military leadership.

According to well-placed sources, Admiral Mullen warned Pakistan that the US could take unilateral military action if the cross-border attacks in Afghanistan were not stopped. The US official said that some elements within Pakistani security agencies could be helping the insurgents operate from their bases in the border region.

An influential Pakistani army official said there were strong indications that the US was ready to launch bombing raids against suspected al-Qaeda and Taleban camps inside Pakistan.

The official said that any unilateral American military action could have serious repercussions and create difficulties for Pakistani counter-terrorism efforts.

Meantime, there's breaking news of a cross-border exchange of artillery fire.

KABUL, July 16 (Reuters) - NATO forces in Afghanistan attacked targets inside Pakistan with artillery and attack helicopters after coming under rocket fire from across the border, the alliance said on Wednesday.

Tension is high along the border with a sharp rise in attacks in eastern Afghanistan coming from inside Pakistan that Afghan and NATO officials blame on de-facto ceasefires between the Pakistani military and militants in its lawless tribal belt.

ISAF forces "received multiple rocket attacks from militants inside Pakistan, July 15," the force said in a statement.

"The troops identified a (compound) as the point of origin of the attacks and responded in self-defence with a combination of fires from attack helicopters and artillery into Pakistan."

And the NY Times has a report on an airstrike last month that appears to suggest Pakistani troops killed by that strike were intermingled with and helping insurgents who were targeted.

All of which suggests that Obama's stance on Pakistan is about to get a whole lot less hypothetical and get a whole lot more scrutiny.

The greatest threat to that security lies in the tribal regions of Pakistan, where terrorists train and insurgents strike into Afghanistan. We cannot tolerate a terrorist sanctuary, and as President, I won’t. We need a stronger and sustained partnership between Afghanistan, Pakistan and NATO to secure the border, to take out terrorist camps, and to crack down on cross-border insurgents. We need more troops, more helicopters, more satellites, more Predator drones in the Afghan border region. And we must make it clear that if Pakistan cannot or will not act, we will take out high-level terrorist targets like bin Laden if we have them in our sights.

Make no mistake: we can’t succeed in Afghanistan or secure our homeland unless we change our Pakistan policy. We must expect more of the Pakistani government, but we must offer more than a blank check to a General who has lost the confidence of his people. It’s time to strengthen stability by standing up for the aspirations of the Pakistani people. That’s why I’m cosponsoring a bill with Joe Biden and Richard Lugar to triple non-military aid to the Pakistani people and to sustain it for a decade, while ensuring that the military assistance we do provide is used to take the fight to the Taliban and al Qaeda. We must move beyond a purely military alliance built on convenience, or face mounting popular opposition in a nuclear-armed nation at the nexus of terror and radical Islam.

As for McCain? Well, he doesn't really have a position to defend of his own so he'll probably adopt whatever the Bush administration's position turns out to be - and get a media pass on doing so.

Now the Murdoch-owned London Times, the Bush administration and conservative pundits might want to pretend that Pakistani intelligence's aid for the Taliban and other extremist terror groups is something new, brought about by Pakistan's new government and curbable by giving Mushie more power again - but that simply isn't true. Mushrarraf and his predecessors have always used these groups as proxies of Pakistani foreign policy - especially against India and it's interests - and Richard Armitage's infamous threat to bomb that country back to the stone age if they didn't help the US in it's War on Terror only served to make them slightly more careful about the aid and shelter they provide.

Obama's plan for pressuring Pakistan is to tie military aid directly to fighting terrorism (unlike the Bush administration's high-tech multi-billion dollar giveaway of nuclear-capable fighter/bombers, anti-shipping missiles, sub-hunting aircraft and other toys) while increasing non-military aid considerably in an attempt to lift Pakistanis out of radicalism by lifting them out of poverty. It's a better option than scorched earth. The U.S. must also ask Pakistan's leadership what it would take to purge its government, military and intelligence services entirely of the criminals (many of them in very senior positions) inside that state who fund, direct and shelter Al Qaeda and other terror groups. That help should be provided and the Pakistani government held to the agreement in no uncertain terms - by UNSC resolution if required. (China, which has a high level of military co-operation with Pakistan, would be the stumbling block there.)

However, in the meantime no operations other than "hot pursuit" chases should be made across the border. That's going to hurt, but without a UNSC resolution and massive international backing it would just be another pre-emptive war of aggression and collective punishment on a Muslim state - one, mind you, that is an actual nuclear power. "Hot pursuit" and a purge of those aiding the terrorists would be very unlikely to result in Pakistani nukes being used by the state or handed to terrorist proxies - no-one in Pakistan's leadership has a death wish. But a general invasion would directly lead to the kind of instability where the military and political leadership could lose control of their nuclear arsenal. No-one needs the fallout from such a war.

Comments

[BJ Bjornson]

Even "hot pursuit" will be tricky. Very hard for the government of Pakistan to maintain any kind of legitimacy while allowing those kinds of violations of its sovereignty, and the place is unstable as it is. Not that there is some surfeit of better options out there, unfortunately.

This sort of thing calls for a very delicate balancing act of cross-border action with diplomatic pressure and assurances to the various parties involved all from the highest levels. Unfortunately, Bush is still in office for another six months, which means that if the above story is true, the next president will have an even bigger mess to clean up than there is already.

[Steve Hynd]

Hi BJ,

I meant that the principle of hot pursuit is at least recognised as legitimate under international law, which makes it far harder for a sovereign state to really object. You're right that it will still be tricky, though.

[Enlightened Layperson]

The U.S. must also ask Pakistan's leadership what it would take to purge its government, military and intelligence services entirely of the criminals (many of them in very senior positions) inside that state who fund, direct and shelter Al Qaeda and other terror groups.

I don't think this can be done. It would be suicidal for any civilian Pakistani leader to take on the army and the ISI. We have a really bad situation here.

[Nell]

It would be suicidal for any civilian Pakistani leader to take on the army and the ISI. We have a really bad situation here.

Thanks, Zbig Brzezinski! And thanks, George H.W. Bush and the entire Reagan "national security" team!