The New York Times quotes a Brookings scholar who believes that the sudden increase in the number of Taliban captured indicates that the Pakistani authorities have decided to move against them. The arrest of Mullah Kabir, a member of the Quetta Shura and associate of Mullah Omar, in an all-Pakistani operation, follows closely on the capture of “Mullah Mohammed Yunis, the Taliban’s shadow governor of Zabul Province”. Bruce Riedel of Brookings was moved to say that “this indicates Baradar was not a one off or an accident but a turning point in Pakistan’s policy toward the Taliban. We still need to see how far it goes, but for Obama and NATO this is the best possible news. If the safe haven is closing then the Taliban are in trouble.”
NATO is in need of good news. Defense Update says that the collapse of the Dutch government over the issue of continuing the Afghan mission could lead to a “domino effect” in which the departure of one puts an intolerable stress on all the rest. The departure of the Dutch would leave a hole in Urugzgan province. Australia has refused to take it over and Canada is committed to withdrawing 2,800 troops by 2011. But not everybody thinks the Pakistanis have turned on Taliban.
Steve Coll, writing in the New Yorker, argues that although the Taliban have now become a corrupt and hidebound organization in which there is ample reason for one to turn on the other, it remains in Pakistan’s best interests to keep it going. The hope that Islamabad will round completely on their proteges is to expect too much. The Pakistani intelligence service, the ISI, has long used arrests to reshape the Taliban to their will — “striking against some Taliban factions in Pakistan but tolerating or helping others”. Coll believes the Pakistanis are moving against those who have started to bite the hand that feeds them.
Why might Pakistan consider modifying its strategy? In 2009, Islamist militants, mainly Taliban, carried out eighty-seven suicide attacks inside Pakistan, killing about thirteen hundred people, almost ninety per cent of them civilians, according to the Pak Institute for Peace Studies. Last October, Taliban raiders staged an unprecedented assault on the Army’s General Headquarters, in Rawalpindi. Customarily, Pakistani officers have blamed “bad” Taliban for such domestic raids, while absolving “good” Taliban (who shoot only at infidels in Afghanistan). As the violence on Pakistani soil intensifies, however, it would be natural for Pakistan’s generals to question whether their jihad-management strategy has become mired in false distinctions.
But once the rogue Taliban have been weeded from their noxious garden the ISI will be more than happy to let fleurs de mal blossom. Coll says it is an unhappy fact that:
the geopolitical incentives that have informed Pakistan’s alliance with the Afghan Taliban remain unaltered. Pakistan’s generals have retained a bedrock belief that, however unruly and distasteful Islamist militias such as the Taliban may be, they could yet be useful proxies to ward off a perceived existential threat from India. In the Army’s view, at least, that threat has not receded. Indo-Pakistani peace negotiations that have been in suspension since the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack are only just re-starting. Absent a sudden breakthrough that charts the potential for normalizing relations between Pakistan and India—a framework settlement on Kashmir, freer trade, freer borders, and demilitarization—Pakistan’s rationale for preserving the Taliban and similar groups is not likely to change.
Bill Roggio’s excellent survey of the sprawling Taliban organization shows that despite the recent cooperativeness of Pakistani intelligence there are a heck of a lot more to go. He describes its regional commands and its ten specialized bureaus. He concludes that the Taliban have a very deep bench and while the recent blows on them have been heavy, they are by no means mortal.
The Afghan Taliban’s leadership council and its regional shuras and committees have weathered the capture and death of senior leaders in the past. The Taliban have a deep bench of leaders with experience ranging back to the rise of the Taliban movement in the early 1990s. On prior occasions, younger commanders are known to have stepped into the place of killed or captured leaders. It remains to be seen if the sustained US offensive and possible future detentions in Pakistan will grind down the Taliban’s leadership cadre.
However, General Petraeus is doing some shaping of his own. The next phase of his offensive is aimed at Kandahar, not as geographical entity, but as a key part of the Taliban network. After striking at Helmand, which is the center of the Taliban’s opium trade, hitting Kandahar may be an attempt to cut the younger cadre of insurgents loose from the old heads.
“The younger generation (of Taliban ) are very ruthless people,” said Hajji Mohammad Khan, a tribal elder from Zhari district. “The Americans don’t recognize them. They just stand there when the Americans pass.”
That may be part of the plan. If the Petraeus can loosen the grip of the Taliban’s Military, Ulema and Political committees (all described by Roggio) from the young guns then discipline may break down and cause the population to turn against them. By deconstructing the Taliban command and control, Petraeus may win the political war. Yet even if this were Petraeus’ goal, the main roadblock standing in his way will the Pakistani ISI. If Coll is right, they will not stand idly by and watch Petraeus plow under their plantation of terror. They’ll stand for a little weed-whacking, but will they tolerate it’s extirpation root and branch?
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Extreme weeding
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A former friend who went Cindy Sheehan on me once asked, “So what are we gonna do, kill them all?”
To which I replied, “If necessary, yes.”
Would you leave a single poisonous snake crawling around your house because it was a bit less ill-tempered than the other ones that got in?
The notion that anyone can determine the “good” Talib from the “bad” is ludicrous. And if Pakistan thinks that in the end having “tame” Taliban on its border is a better gig than India, they need to do some more studying.
Does anybody really know what’s going on?
I’ve had my fill of “expert” opinion. Pakistan’s incentives are not aligned with ours. That much I think we can agree on. Aside from that I think they can best be described using Churchill’s summation of post revolutionary Russia: a riddle wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in a mystery.
On the allied side, we can hope that Petraeus et al have divined an achievable objective and created a campaign plan. Will it succeed? I don’t know, but given the competence of the leadership and the capabilities of the forces we have a decent chance. Patience is what is called for. No doubt our weak willed allies will continue to fall away. That will force us to pick up their slack.
Other than that, what else can be said?
no mo uro:
A former friend who went Cindy Sheehan on me once asked, “So what are we gonna do, kill them all?”
To which I replied, “If necessary, yes.”
An estimated 18% of Southern white males of military age died during the Civil War. It works.
I view the Pakistanis and the ISI’s relation to the US like Lucy over and over tricking Charlie Brown into thinking that THIS TIME she will hold the football when he tries to kick it.
Why is the statement “they preserve the Taliban as a counterweight against India” taken for granted? It is absurd that Pakistan, with its 600,000+ conventional army and small nuclear arsenal, should really consider a guerrilla squad of 20,000 Pashtun tribals – whose chief asset is their ungovernable and populous Kush homeland – a true “asset” against India’s conventionally superior forces? In light of the trouble the Taliban cause, how could this be? If Islamabad squashed and repressed the Pashtun Taliban they would be showered with an unending stream of American largesse. They would by their patron China even more latitude in the West generally and with USA specifically. Those two countries would then restrain India – which by the way is not really the aggressor in this situation anyway. So what is this Central Asian bullsh_t about needing to preserve the Taliban for Pakistani “national security”? Isn’t it more a question of corrupt and impudent little idiots ruling a feudal satrapy and gullible and spineless Americans happily eating their crap than a true structural geopolitical problem? Come on.
Coll believes the Pakistanis are moving against those who have started to bite the hand that feeds them.
Let’s wait and see what happens to those Taliban arrested by the Pakistanis. I notice they’re being arrested, not killed by drones. It doesn’t seem too far fetched to think they’re being brought into what amounts to protective custody.
NATO needs good news, indeed. Put another way: NATO needs to find a way to spin anything it can as good news, to keep that ‘domino effect’ from gaining mementum.
Gringo. Add to the 18% killed the wounded and permanently maimed who live to go home to tell the story.
Right there with you Dan. I’ve made that point many times over at Long War Journal. Pakistan has been the instigator of every Indo-Pakistani war, and has come out the loser every time; what exactly do they have to fear from India (except another trip to the woodshed). India has pre-emptively invaded Pakistan exactly ZERO times.
How about this analogy about appeasement?
I don’t have to run faster than the bear. I only need to run faster than you.
2. Steve C.:
Patience and time are what we don’t have. Whatever chance for success Petraeus’ and McChrystal’s plans may have had were fatally torpedoed by the administration setting a deadline/timeline for withdrawal.
Only a believable and credible long-term commitment by the US would offer any chance of success. Once we announced a deadline/timeline the whole effort began to degenerate into farce, and ultimately, tragedy.
A lot of competing issues in Pakistan:
1) Islamic fundamentalism
2) Fear of Islamic fundamentalism
3) Hatred and fear of India
4) Desire for control/influence over Afghanistan
5) Lack of control over much of their own country
6) Milking the U.S. cow
6) is a constant, so it doesn’t really come into play much. 1) and 4) were the driving factors for awhile. 2) and 5) are taking primacy for the time being, after the Taliban got too big for it’s britches. I think it’s highly unlikely that the recent cooperation represents a long-term shift.
Mary Mary quite contrary
How does your garden grow
With silver bells and cockleshells
And pretty maids all in a row
Mullah Omar lost your Baradar
How does your garden grow
With IEDs sir if you please
And dead infidels all in a row
Paki Paki Talib lackey
How does your garden grow
With pulled up weeds and planted seeds
And good Taliban all in a row
Barack Barack on the attack
How does your garden grow
With silent drones and bleached out bones
And dead Taliban all in a row
Mary Mary quite contrary
How does your garden grow
With welcome scenes of brave Marines
And Predy raids all in a row
Dan #4:
I was thinking the same way myself. And I came to these conclusions:
1. The Taliban keep Pakistan from having to watch its back. As long as they are around there is no danger that anyone will be able to Afghanistan’s act together enough for Pakistan to have to worry about the place. Taliban = scewed up mess of a country. It’s like you wanting the Feds to turn that forest that adjoins your property into a national park so no one will build a condo complex there. Sure there are critters that come out of the forest and eat your garden but that is better than the alternative noise and traffic.
2. Having a bunch of death-loving fanatics next door gives great plausible deniability when they want to whack India over Kashmir or just on general principles.
3. Inevitably, there is some pass-through in Pakistan as a result of other countries either trying to support or eradicate the Taliban. Whether it is the USA supporting them t0 hurt the USSR or the USA and NATAo attacking the Talban, you can bet that Pakistan rakes off some of the cream from the top. And how tough can the USA get on Pakistan relative to its Nukes or its warlike intentions toward India when we are wholly dependent on their goodwill and cooperation? The Germans found out after the Cold War was over that they had just become an unimportant backwater. Germany can afford that; Pakistan cannot.
I’m a Brit. I was 7 years old at the end of WW2. One of the first things I remember is “the only good German is a dead “German” even if this was not universally agreed.
I am just now re-reading Shirer’s book, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. In 1941 Hitler ruled over almost the whole of continental Europe with the aid of 80 million Germans and various fellow travelers in every conquered nation, who were utterly convinced that natziism was the wave of the future.
The war kicked the stuffing out of these people, killing about 8.5 million Germans and ensured peace in Europe.
There are about 42 million Pushtuns. They are not all Taliban but I fear that we may have to inflict upon them a proportional punishment.
How much money from the Taliban’s opium operations goes to Pakistani big shots?
The tribal area breeds fighters faster than our rules of engagement can kill them. I think that we need to implement, if possible, a “You Leave Us Alone – We Leave You Alone” deal with Pakistan, the tribal leaders, and the Taliban, and depart Afghanistan.
That being said, having American warplanes stationed on two borders of Iran has a value beyond the political outcome in Afghanistan.
When Pakistan changes the name of their capital to New Christchurch, it will be clear the tide has turned.
The notion that there is a country called Pakistan is a dangerous delusion. It is a collection of ethnic tribes that has no history or tradition of “nation”.
The military is simply the strongest tribe. Its only goal is preserving its position. Constant war with India is its raison d’etre. Any relaxation of tensions and violence undermines its power.
Expect Pakistan to act in the interest of its military. Tkat makes the whole mess a little more understandable.
If Pakistan were a normal country, then the Taliban, in an India-Pakistan conflict, can only be a liability, not an asset. A uncontrolled “loose canon” force with limited offensive power that can be relied on to completely FUBAR any conflict resolution by doing the worst possible thing at the worst possible time. Israel’s Stern Gang comes to mind.
But if Roy is right, then the Taliban perform a useful function by making the other powers in Pakistan appear reasonable by comparison.
The fundamental issue is that not a single Western politician appears ever to have read the Afghan “constitution”. NATO troops are dying in some quantity, and Western treasuries being drained, to install and maintain a klepto-narco syndicate based on a shari’ah theocracy. The West has no business propping up a shari’ah-governed non/failed state.
And the nanosecond that NATO pulls out of A’stan, the Taliban (or its salafist or mahdaviat successor organization) will move immediately into the void.
Peter@15.
I think that we need to implement, if possible, a “You Leave Us Alone – We Leave You Alone” deal with Pakistan, the tribal leaders, and the Taliban, and depart Afghanistan.
I disagree. This ‘realpolitik’has already failed time and time again. Further, winning hearts and minds is slow, but, paraphrasing and old joke, once you have used the 2×4 to get the mules attention, it is easier to communicate, and thus speeds the hearts and minds process.
Islam is not a religion. It demands compliance, on a civil level, with a set of laws incompatible with the US Constitution. At the very least it needs to be treated as the US Communist Party of old (J Edgar Hoover style) and forcefully impeached. It requires a propaganda and unfortunately and physical assault.
Change is possible. Change is desireable. Chang will happen, to them…or us. You pick.
Nah. The deaths of 7 CIA agents, in Khost, is behind this. How? Dunno. But when I read about those deaths, I just assumed the CIA was blindsided. And, there was nothing they could do in response. Why assume only the MOSSAD is capable of clandestine revenge? Wouldn’t the CIA have at least enough paperwork to figure out what to do when they needed to body bag their own agents?
Earl: And the nanosecond that NATO pulls out of A’stan, the Taliban (or its salafist or mahdaviat successor organization) will move immediately into the void.
Who cares? Then all we have to do is put everyone from Afghanistan on the no fly list. It’s not like they can get in a boat and come here.
Bryan Suits radio host was saying the other day that the CIA demanded some compensation from Pakistan/ISI for the deaths in Khost, and this is it. Also, that these “arrests” are just house arrest, with the suggestion it may be bogus anyway.
The CIA demand would be backed by threats to stop funding Pakistan and the ISI, among other things.
I’m not sure there is a solution that does not involve the eradication of Islam via the conversion of its population to some other faith.
Aggressive reaction, sometimes. Aggressive pro-activity, not so much. Welcome to the post modern era of waging something against those that wage “man made disasters” against us.
<i<20. michaelhoskins
I am reluctant to use the word “real” alone or in combination with any other letters when discussing the Western response to Islamism.
Religion is totally excluded from the vocabulary of Western diplomacy and from the mouths of every Western politician who dares to even bring up the topic of Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Bangladesh, et al.
This war has been going on since 636. I am not about to get excited about conducting a “minds and hearts” campaign in shariaville.
Pakistan is not a normal State. It is the physical manifestation of the ego of Muhammad Ali Jinnah. That is a bad thing for three, you know me, connected reasons.
First because it is a bad thing based of the historical record to attempt to create a political entity to express any one individual’s vanity or ambition. There have been other examples of political structures that were imposed from above to provide employment for an ambitious or troublesome princeling.
Second the character of Mr Jinnah was such as to doom the project from the start. Even by the forced analogies and condescension of the 1950s newsreels it is hard to think of him as another Washington. He was no Cincinnatus serving an established people and eager to get back to his plow. Jinnah wasn’t even an observant Muslim. He merely was looking for an engine to pull the train with his name on it and found one that wasn’t being used. His was happy to work within the Congress Party until he discovered that he wasn’t in charge of it. His success is explained by his being more pro-British culturally and emotionally than he was pro-Indian. The role that Pakistan has played for the last 60 years, artificial construct with uncertain loyalties within and prone to serving as the agent of outside ambitions, British, Chinese, Saudi or American, seeking an advantage in the region is not an abberation but a design feature.
To that vice Pakistan adds a third form of artificiality in that it isn’t simply a case of some dynamic personality hijacking a national movement. In this case the country was cobbled together by a committee to include disparate and often hostile elements. The closest European equivalent is Belgium. That country was cobbled together after the Napoleonic Wars to serve the interests of the French and Germans as a Catholic buffer state. It has never really worked and the eagerness of the Belgians to support the European project is explained by more than simple appreciation for the bountiful cream that they have been able to skim off the top.
For three generations now Pakistan has looked for some larger story to diffuse its own contradictions in. The EU can serve that purpose for the Flemings and Walloons or even it is hoped for the Irish and the Ulstermen but there is no larger identity that can serve that pupose for the tribes in Pakistan. There is nothing that can serve that role for both Pakistan and India in a regional setting and efforts to find other larger allegiances have also foundered. The Non-aligned movement proved to be a setting where India played first fiddle. More recently the Islamic community has been approached by Pakistanis, and people from other fractured countries, seeking an identity larger than the dysfunctional polity they inherited. For a host of reasons that has not proven a workable solution. Despite the motto of the Muslim Brotherhood that “Islam is the answer” it is becoming increasingly clear that to believe that means that you are asking the wrong questions.
Peter Boston@26
Point taken. I meant the hearts and minds to be tongue in cheek. The dangers of blogging at work, between meetings.
More clearly, I propose a full on roll back. I just cannot see any leave-each-other alone agreement working. Islam is bloodily evangelical (lol).
The fight now saves the bigger fight later. We can discuss tactical moves from now on; but the Strategic Necessity is to make the decision, now, to not just defend, but to push back, hard.
Lifeofthemind #27:
“Pakistan is not a normal State.”
Good point. Pakistan is the offal that got left out when the multi-ethnic State of India was formed.
And Afghanistan is made up of the offal that was too stinky to include in Pakistan.
In my #12, I forgot to add that Pakistan likes Afghanistan as a mess because it is a place to ship its own home grown Ted Kazinskies to, or at least the ones that don’t go to London.
Teresita @22:
You are quite correct. Separationism from the Islamic world is the West’s only hope. Absolutely no interaction- no educational/medical/cultural interaction or immigration (I know, little likelihood of that). Trade only. And, to watch the outcome of failing to adopt such policies, monitor the UK, France and Sweden as their ageing, tired, enervated populations deal with their assertive, youthful Mohammedan Fifth Columns.
Teresita @ 22,
“Who cares? Then all we have to do is put everyone from Afghanistan on the no fly list. It’s not like they can get in a boat and come here.”
I hope this was meant to be ironic, otherwise this is just a flippant answer to a serious problem. While it pains me to quote that idiot Thomas Friedman, we do live in a flat world where anyone from anywhere can eventually work their way into the U.S., even if we cut off transportation to Af-Pak.
The U.S. learned its lesson well on 9-11; no longer can we permit safe havens for Islamists, even if those safe havens have no electricity or running water. The real issue is at what point do give up trying to re-make the Middle East in our own image using the Pottery Barn principle? When have we had enough so that we leave, and only come back occasionally to obliterate whatever power structure and standing infrastructure the Islamists have created in our absence?
I think we are approaching critical junctures where we start thinking about switching to the latter strategy.
You need a solid foundation to push back from.
The official policy has gone from not speaking the word Islam to not speaking the word war. Maybe the addition of a few other verboten words will make the problem go away entirely.
Such is the reality we live with.
For my own sanity I have adopted a very long view.
#24 michael: Perhaps unfortunately, there is another solution that also involves conversion – initially at least, to highly ionised plasma.
The “absurdity” of Pakistan using the Taliban to as a foil to balance against the much-larger Indian army becomes rather less absurd when you realize that the Taliban is a tool not for use in Kashmir, but in Afghanistan.
The ISI cultivated the Taliban to prevent Indian inroads into Afghanistan following the collapse of the Soviet invasion on its concurrent Afghan puppet regime. Pakistan views the very idea of an India-friendly Afghanistan as completely unacceptable for both geopolitical and military reasons, and would rather it devolve to a festering sore slightly more sophisticated than cave-man rock-throwing before letting that happen. 20,000 Taliban are more than sufficient to keep Afghanistan destabilized, barring effective US response.
–JC
Waves of religous fanaticism burn themselves out in due order. This one should go in about another generation, two at the outside.
Sound too long for your tastes? That is just tough. How we ride it out determines the future of western civilization. Nuke them all will not work. Isolationism will not work.
What will work? The Bush doctrine, altered to fill in some gaps, will take care of the physical aspects. Its Fraternal Twin, the Benedict XVI Doctrine will alter the theological aspects in our favor.
Now that is how I am going to play it. Want to come along? You may. Don’t want to? You don’t have to. But you do have to stay out of my way.
Buckets #31:
When you think about it, has not the “Safe Haven” concept been a unique problem for us, and never in our favor?
In Korea the communists had safe haven in China. In Vietnam they had safe haven in China and at least for a while in Laos and Cambodia. In Latin America they had Safe Haven in Cuba. The terrorists had Safe Havens in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Pakistan and during the Cold War to some extent in Eastern Europe.
The USA has never ever had Safe Haven. What we have had were places we were safe from attack because we could stop the attacks. The North Koreans launched air attacks against our bases in South Korea and left Japan alone only because they lacked the capability.
Republicans dislike the Safe Haven concept and often try to put an end to it. That is what the Bush Doctrine is about. The Democrats seem to embrace letting the enemy have Safe Havens. But make no mistake about it, the Safe Havens are the creation of the Left – and especially of Our Left.
Okay complete the following,
The Taliban is to Pakistan as;
a) Hezbollah is to Syria
b) Hezbollah is to Iran
c) Hezbollah is to Lebanon
d) Hezbollah is to Israel
e) all of the above.
The Taliban is to Afghanistan what;
a) Hamas is to Palestine
b) Hamas is to Israel
c) Hamas is to Egypt
d) Hamas is to Syria
e) Hamas is to KSA
f) all of the above.
Rats and fleas are to the Black Plague as
a) The Taliban is to Al Queda
b) The ISI is to the Taliban
c) Pakistan is to the ISI
d) The PLA is to the PLO
e) The Iranian revolution is to Syrian Baathists
f) Syrian Baathists are to Hezbollah
g) Private Charitable and Government sponsored Saudi financing is to Hamas
Q)What is the effect of the Bush Doctrine on all of the above.
A) it is too soon to tell.
Q) How quickly and with what amount of permanence can an inept Democrat Party led Government following a adept Democrat Party led opposition, derail a democracy movement?
Ans. since its victory in the polls in 2006 up to January of 2009 funding for Hamas was from most sources (other than Iran) has been severely limited. Saudi Arabian leaders will do what is perceives to be in its own best interest for survival. Since 9/11 the same Kingdom which estabilished the missonary effort that in effect created Al Queda and gave sustenance to the Taliban Up to that point was once again forced to make a choice between siding with the US in most efforts, or submitting to the Islamist/MB doctrine. Neither was very healthy but the Saudi Royal family determined that siding with the US was preferable to giving in to the terrorists. That decision held firm through the trials of Iraq and the constant testing of strengths in Lebanon. I sincerely doubt we could have even begun to think about the efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan without the acknowledgment of approval of the Saudi government.
Obama and Biden are about to flush away a lot of effort paid for by a lot of American blood with their reckless unstructured and apparently completely improvisational mid east initiative. I cannot help but flash back to then Senator Joe Biden hectoring the President’s then National Security Adviser Condolisa Rice during confirmation hearings for Sec of State, “For God’s sake, don’t listen to Rumsfeld. He doesn’t know what in the hell he’s talking about on this.”