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No Awakening in the Cards For Pakistan
Why an Iraqi-style Awakening movement in Pakistan is destined to fail.
The Pakistani military recently hustled journalists through tiny villages in Bajaur, a tribal area along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border, where the Pakistani Army is encouraging villagers to form local militias, called lashkars, to join the fight against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
At the same time that authorities are encouraging the lashkars to join the fight against Islamist militants, they’ve asked Afghan refugees to leave camps in the tribal areas and return home.
While a formal reason has not be given, security forces suspect that Taliban supporters are hidden in the camps.
What’s going on here?
An armchair general might deduce that the Pakistani government is hoping that they can foment tribal anger into a popular uprising similar to the Sunni Awakening in Iraq.
For those of you new to the story, we’re winning the war in Iraq. A significant part of that success — we’ll leave it for historians to argue how much — is due to a change in coalition counterinsurgency doctrine that was the result of some very smart men looking at what has worked in the past in other parts of the world, and adapting a solution that fit.
Another significant event contribution to progress in Iraq occurred when Sunni sheiks in al-Anbar province got very tired of al-Qaeda’s senseless brutality towards their tribes, and decided that the best way to express their distaste was through the barrel of a gun.
Though the Sunni uprising in Iraq — the “Awakening” — helped turn the tide in a war that was on the verge of failure, what made the turn stick were the partnerships that developed between Sunni tribes and coalition and Iraqi forces.
Sunni tribes provided intelligence to coalition and Iraqi forces, coalition forces dismantled terrorist cells (sometimes violently), and then tribal militias kept watch for attempts at re-infiltration as Iraqi forces came up to speed and gained trust as they provided security. At the same time, the coalition paid the Sunni tribesmen. Many, if not most of them, were part of the Sunni insurgency who had been shooting at U.S. and Iraqi forces and setting bombs just months earlier. Their employment encouraged them to stick to the straight and narrow.
From time to time, al-Qaeda struck back and attempted to make examples of isolated tribes that were part of the Awakening by attacking and overwhelming them.
Insurgents in Iraq quickly learned that massed assaults against isolated tribes worked… until a member of the tribe made a phone call to the nearest coalition quick reaction force (QRF). When the cavalry arrived with Apaches in tow, the insurgents were almost always overwhelmed, taking heavy losses. Sunni tribes in al-Anbar began to trust coalition and Iraqi forces, Sunni tribes in other provinces began to follow suit, and the rest is history.
The Pakistani government would like to see the same scenario play out in Pakistan. But their hopes of a Pakistani Awakening is going to fail in the tribal areas.
Why?
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6 Comments
1. No Awakening in the Cards For Pakistan | PoliticsMuch.com:[...] orginally posted at PajamasMedia.com. We claim no responsibility for this content. Please click on the link above to read and comment on [...]
Oct 15, 2008 - 6:27 am 2. ecrab:In my humble opinion, the tribes have very little to gain from their association with the Pakistani military. With their cooperation, comes meddling in their local affairs along with decreased power. In a way it reminds me of our local governments use of annexation with delayed increase in services. I think a better way and one that may not be possible, is to look at the way the Roman’s gained influence in their conquered lands. As they came into an area, a high priority was to improve the roads. This, of course, enabled quicker reaction for their forces but also allowed easier access for trade and commerce. Unless the Pakistani government is determined to open those local areas and keep them open the Taliban problem will only fester like a boil in their side.
Oct 15, 2008 - 8:18 am 3. Patterico’s Pontifications » The Start of a Tribal Area Awakening? (Updated):[...] Bill Roggio thinks it won’t work because the lashkars don’t have sufficient back-up from the [...]
Oct 15, 2008 - 11:50 am 4. Ex-fetus:It’s too early. The Iraqi “awakening” worked because the tribes were tired of AQ bleeding them out. In Pakistan, the tribes haven’t bled enough yet. I expect the Terrs to get the government before the government gets them.
Oct 15, 2008 - 3:55 pm 5. JFM:The current Paki Bozo-in-chief hasn’t a clue. No idea where to even look for one.
The fundamental problem is that Pakistan has a keen interest in fundamentalism. Without it, without its population being rabidly militant Muslims it would quickly fall apart.
Pakistan is
1) An hetrogenous state whose components have little love lost for one another.
2) A thugocracy, where a mostly punjabi elite, lives in style by exploiting the other region.
And how they get away with it? You guessed it, by radicalizing their population so the Islam cement is stronger than Pakistan’s naturally centrifugal forces. By inventing plots of Pakistan conquest by teh infidels so the Baloch or Sindhs don’t pay attention where the money is going.
3) Pakistan’s claim to teh NWFP is tenuous at best. Not only practically but legally: their cession to the British Empire was temporary and the treaty has expired. Also their inhabitants are emparented with Afghans and feel themseleves superior to Punjabis. If Afghanistan were a half successful state they would ask the NWFP joining Afgahnistan again. By keeping Afghanistan in misery Pakistan prevents secession from its Pashtoon populations.
4) Pakistan dreams of conquering India. That requires not only the manpower and resources of the NWFP but also greater strategic depth: in other words either conquering Afganistan (hard), installing a puppet government in it or one who is so obsessed with Islam that in a conflict with India will put its army, resources and territory at Pakistan’s service. That is why ISI supported the Taliban and, inside the Taliban those who were completely indifferent to national questions and saw Afghanistan merely as a province of a (future) global califat.
Oct 16, 2008 - 11:58 am 6. Don Vandervelde:The “tribes” will happily join whoever is winning at the time, then turn on them later to keep their independence from the Paks. It’s their tradition. The tribal areas are not actually a part of Pakistan. the whole of Afghanistan, itself, was taken from the terrorists in a matter of months by a few special ops troops calling down unlimited quantites of bombs with exquisite precision, with the help of the Northern Alliance and many local chiefs. This doctrine should be used to pacify the tribal areas, with the cooperation of the Afghans and possibly the Indians, if not the Paks. Then extended negotiations can proceed by all parties to make the tribal areas truly sovereign Pak territory.
Oct 20, 2008 - 9:05 pm