While the Taleban are their usual thuggish selves what is really concerning about these trends is the REASON why they can be ‘successful’. They are in charge of Swat now because the Pakistani State lost the battles there and is in deadly fear of the contagion spreading throughout Army Ranks.
And its not just the Taleban use of violence at every possible opportunity although that certainly keeps the strayers in line. It’s the POPULAR demand for Sharia Courts BECAUSE the ‘official’ system is incompetent, corrupt, and terminally SLOW. The problem that ‘we’ must have with Pakistan is not that it won’t (read -can’t) fight off these medieval monsters; it’s that its very institutions CREATE the environment in which these ‘creatures’ thrive. Pakistan is a Failed State in all but name. The Taleban are a symptom of the rot, but even if they magically disappeared the rot at the core of that ‘State’, would still be there. Used to be that in Pakistan at least the Army was to be sort of trusted as at least minimally competent. Now I don’t even think that is true.
This isn’t over, and it won’t end well, in the short/medium terms, given the current trend lines. Against a competent ‘State’, the Taleban would have a pretty hard time. Against the Pakistani State, all they have to do is BE THERE, and the power that the failing State cannot exercise or even retain in its grasp, simply flows increasingly to them. The problem is in Islamabad not in Swat. And it ain’t going away.
