X-Post from the Pakistan thread:
SSridhar wrote:X-Post from the Pashtun Civil War/Genocide thread:
Absolute cr@p. The Lal Masjid in the middle of I'bad was allowed to drag on for six months. Musharraf's government said that the surest way to tackle militancy in NWFP was to enter into peace deals with them while the surest way to tackle militancy in Balochistan was to massacre them mercilessly. That's the double standard that these closet islamists adopt between tackling jihadi islamists and sub-nationalists. Except for Ms. Pinky, none, absolutely none, has expressed concern about the 'urgency to tackle militancy in the tribal belt'. Not, Shujaat, nor Nawaz or Qazi hussai or Fazl-ur or Imran. In fact these are all strong Islamist supporters.
Pacifying ? Is that the role of the Army ? Shouldn't the TSPA go to FATA with the intention of eliminating these jihadists if the earlier claim of a tectonic shift is true ? It is obvious that the GoTSP's intenions are still to keep these jihadists under their control for later opportunities in Afghanistan and India.
The Pakistani state lacks the interest and the will to end Pashtun area's use as the safe haven for global and regional jihadi forces.
However the PA is urgent about ending the destruction being inflicted on the state machinery in Pashtun areas. The Pakistani state has slipped from sarkar, to kingmaker. to major player when it comes to the local power equation.
What the Americans in particular are still weighing is to what degree Pakistani state's loss of control in the area translates to a loss of Western access in terms of disrupting Al Qaeda activity, and/or an increase in the threat from the Taliban.
The article is part of a pitch for the US to pay for a systematic COIN campaign that would allow the Pakistani state to re-establish its authority in Pashtun areas. The pitch being 'this will work, and its in your best interests because its cheaper than using American troops' - its cheaper than using American troops, Karzai's troops being too few, and airstrikes being insufficient.
This is a very attractive offer for the Americans, but they will demand certain things - they are going to shoot back that Pakistan's record of civil governance is abyssmal, and that they will not be able to make such a plan succeed on its own. That the US design and structure such a campaign, and that US civil-military teams are integrated down to the district level, with control over funding reconstruction, payoffs and weapons distribution to tribes willing to fight pro-AQT forces, etc.
In exchange for Pakistan essentially becoming a supervised subcontractor in the governance of a large part of what is ostensibly its own soil, the pre-existing aid flows, including military aid flows that go direct to the Pakistani state will continue.
Unless things go very wrong, no matter which of the current contenders comes to power in Islamabad, they and the rest of the PA leadership will accept such a deal. The dollar signs in their eyes, and the hope of regaining strategic depth will be too strong.
The Ziaists will not go away - they are going to fight this bitterly by
(a) instensifying the process of Islamisation in Pakjab
(b) intensifying appeals to the wider ummah that Pakistan is under kufaar occupation, and that the PA leadership has sold out to the Zionist-Crusader conspiracy
The process of the fragmentation of the PA's domestic support base, and the Islamisation of Pakistan over the question of Allah vs. America will continue. My estimate is that the break is about a decade and a half away.
