I read this article in the New York Times this morning. It just reinforces the idea I've had for several months that Pakistan is the true next test in the "War on Terror."* The Pakistani Taliban has taken on governmental roles throughout Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province and into this base are flowing both domestic and international insurgents. The Pakistani government has no practical way of dealing with the situation because an all-out attack would most-likely undermine the already unstable government. The government now seems to be giving tacit support to the Taliban regime, while mounting occasional "token" attacks to show its Allies in the West that it's serious in the War on Terror. The West (read: the US) is now either stuck with an ostensibly pro-Western government, but an area of anarchy which feeds both the Afghan insurgency and the global Al-Qaeda network, or a destablized Pakistani government with an arsenal of nuclear weapons which could potentially fall into the hands of Islamic fundamentalists.
The impossibility of the United States' position in Pakistan just highlights the general inevitability of defeat in the "War on Terror" itself. Throughout the Islamic world, the United States is stuck with a decision between supporting tyrannical, but officially pro-Western regimes, or supporting democratic reforms and whatever government the people choose. However speaking from personal conversations in Egypt, and from various articles I have read the general consensus seems to be that any general election is going to result in the ascension of Islamic, anti-Western parties (Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hamas in Palestine, Hezbollah in Lebanon, etc.) I believe what the United States is facing has broad popular support, not necessarily for the methods used (suicide bombings, innocent deaths, etc,) but as a means for countering a self-centered foreign policy which for years has ignored the needs of the people in the countries in which it intervened direct or indirectly, and instead pursued completely and unwaveringly its own interests. Any attempt to support democracy without changing our other long-term goals in the region will simply create more resentment (i.e. Iraq, where the US's priorities were abundantly clear in what we did and did not defend in the early anarchic days of Baghdad. )
Pakistan currently has a population around 170 million, with 36% of its people under the age of 15. Up until now, the United States has treated Pakistan unevenly, often favoring India (as illustrated by the new Indo-US nuclear pact. In the 2007 fiscal year, the United States gave $1.62 Billion in aid to Pakistan. However 68.5% of this aid was in security-related services. Although the remaining $506 million in economic aid is a significant and generous gesture by the United States, it pales beneath the vast amount of military aid, which further damages the United States' image in the country and negates any gains made by the economic aid. (A full breakdown of US Aid from 2002-2007 is here.) What the leaders in Washington seem to not yet grasp is that this "War on Terror" is a war that will not be won primarily through military means. Not only is the United States and its Allies at an incredibly miliatary disadvantage fighting in the rough terrain of the Northwest Fronteir Province and its Afghan counterpart, but the continued fighting only attracts more insurgents to the scene. Instead the United States must win this war in (a cliche so overused its painful to type) "the hearts and minds of the people." It must show that 1) it has more than its own blind self-interest at heart when it deals with Pakistan and 2) create situations to positively engage the energy of the younger Pakistani generation so it does not succomb to feelings of hopelessness and stagnation that have afflicted youths in so many opportunity-devoid locations throughout the globe.
*I use "War on Terror" here to refer to the combination of economic, miliatary and propaganda attempts by the United States to defeat Islamic terror groups
Edit: Nicholas Kristoff has an excellent article which sums of some of the points I was trying to make. He ends with this:
"“I am convinced that the long-term solution to terrorism in general, and Afghanistan specifically, is education,” Lt. Col. Christopher Kolenda, who works on the Afghan front lines, said in an e-mail in which he raved about Mr. Mortenson’s work. “The conflict here will not be won with bombs but with books. ... The thirst for education here is palpable.”
Military force is essential in Afghanistan to combat the Taliban. But over time, in Pakistan and Afghanistan alike, the best tonic against militant fundamentalism will be education and economic opportunity.
So a lone Montanan staying at the cheapest guest houses has done more to advance U.S. interests in the region than the entire military and foreign policy apparatus of the Bush administration.""
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