The BBC reports:
In recent days three top American generals have turned their guns on Pakistan, accusing elements of its main intelligence agency, the ISI, of supporting Taliban and al-Qaeda militants. The unprecedented broadside followed the announcement by the US President Barack Obama of a new strategy for Afghanistan. Mr Obama cited as its cornerstone the need to destroy militant safe havens in the Pakistani tribal belt along the Afghan border, something he knows can’t be achieved without complete cooperation from the country’s army and intelligence.
The article ends with this quote: “‘The concept of pressuring Pakistan is flawed,’ Ahmed Rashid and Barnett Rubin have written in the Foreign Affairs magazine. ‘No state can be successfully pressured into acts it considers suicidal.’” The integrity of the Pakistani government took on further importance after President Obama told Face the Nation that Pakistan will be consulted before any strikes against militants are carried out. If Islamabad isn’t fully onboard the effort then the consultation could turn into an advance warning system for the Taliban and al-Qaeda, thereby endangering any assets subsequently tasked with carrying the strike out. Bloomberg writes:
March 30 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama said the U.S. will consult with Pakistan before raiding militant bases on Pakistani territory, as he called on leaders in Islamabad to be “much more accountable” in combating terrorism. … The U.S. expects some accountability from Pakistan and its understanding of the “severity and the nature of the threat” from the terrorists.
Pakistan has told the U.S. it considers missile strikes on its territory counterproductive. The Pakistani government says it is doing all it can to combat militants and is pursuing a strategy of selective military action, coupled with political and economic development programs, to try to persuade tribal leaders to expel foreign fighters sheltering along the border with Afghanistan.
The Pakistani view of “counterproductive” US missile strikes raises the initial challenge. There may be more. Taken in toto the BBC article leaves the reader with the distinct suggestion that while the US military will loyally carry out the instructions of the Commander in Chief, they do not repose a great deal of confidence in the willingness of Pakistani intelligence agencies to lift their end of the load. In fact, the BBC article has quotes which stop just short of suggesting that parts of the ISI are in league with the enemy.
General David Petraeus, head of the US Central Command, spoke of cases “in the fairly recent past” where the ISI appeared to have warned militants that their positions had been discovered.
Given this difficulty, a successful campaign in Afghanistan/Pakistan will require either a) the reform of the ISI so that it becomes a more suitable partner for the enterprise or; b) there is some kind of operational insurance to ensure the task can be carried out in the event the ISI falls down on the job, a kind of Plan B in case things miscarry.
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24 Comments
1. exhelodrvr:Pres O is now backing off on his threats of using ground troops in Pakistan.
Mar 29, 2009 - 7:59 pm 2. dan:Now might be a good time to finally abandon the PR strategy of “protest in public, agree in private” where Muslim governments are concerned. It’s obvious that the strategy adopted by Egypt following the Muslim Brotherhood uprisings, the House of Saud following the siege of Mecca, the Pakistanis following the Soviet retreat and even the Lebanese following the Civil War – to say nothing of the Israelis following Oslo – should be formally and loudly abandoned. The proxies now virtually out-power the juntas. It is time to punish the tribals, stymy the FSB-GRU, and frustrate the Chinese services. The Cold War map is lit up again like a pinball machine and the Islamists-as-psychotic-dupes strategy has worked – and Iran is on the verge of the Bomb. We are being wrongfooted everywhere, and the American electorate, personified by O, has chosen Oprah over Curtis LeMay. I sure hope that “new strategy – as revolutionary as the invention of the tank” that Woodward reported some months ago is true, otherwise things are going to rapidly tilt out of control and we will be facing an arms race among the savages while America will be forced out on the terms of the tyrannies – led by Russia and China – within the legal tenure of the Obama Administration.
Mar 29, 2009 - 8:14 pm 3. bob:Alarming Video
h/t Sam
Lest we forget.
Mar 29, 2009 - 8:36 pm 4. Utopia Parkway:I don’t think Curtis LeMay is available. The funny thing about this is the the dems have been saying since 2003 that Afghanistan is the war we should be in. O said that he’d know how to get bin Laden. I don’t see O walking away from this one just yet.
It’s hard to see the US putting in the kind of effort that would be required to pacify the NW territories. Pakistan has its own problems and is too conflicted to do it either. The best we can probably do is to keep Afghanistan clean of them and keep blowing up their leaders with hellfire missiles from UAVs, which won’t be enough to win this.
If we see Mullah Omar in custody or dead then we could become optimistic. I’m sure the guy lives in his mother-in-law’s house in Quetta. Until then this will remain a mess.
Mar 29, 2009 - 8:46 pm 5. Walt:Some things are too serious for light verse, and this is one of them. Obama will be putting some 70,000 American soldiers and marines as well as Nato forces in a box unless he is more skilled at diplomacy and war than he now appears to be. It will not be Dien Bien Phu, we are much too powerful for that, but it could get very ugly. If he increases troop strength as he proposes to do and does not secure the lines of supply, we will have to rely on air for supply, and historically that has not turned out so well. It will not be Stalingrad, the Taliban and AQ are not the Red Army and the USAF will not be flying JU-52s, but remember the Russians had a difficult time trying to cope with hand held Stingers, so you can imagine what difficulty we will have when Russian or Iranian or Chinese missiles are delivered into Taliban hands. If Obama is not careful, if he relies on Russia and Iran for access to theater, and they pull the plug afterward, then Obama has two options: retreat or escalate. Both Russia and Iran would have reason to guarantee safe passage at first then renege when convenient for them to do so. Putting an American army at the mercy of Iran and Russia is lunacy.
It is also lunacy to accept the premise that Pakistani territory is sacred soil, not to be violated, when said sacred soil is sanctuary and recruiting ground for people we are trying to kill and who are trying to kill us. If he puts our guys in a box he is going to have to take over Pakistan to get them out, or arrange some sort of face saving withdrawal, read surrender. I hope it turns out well, but I think we are looking at an end game here.
Mar 29, 2009 - 8:56 pm 6. Lifeofthemind:In my bones I think that we cannot keep 70,000 Americans in Afghanistan unless we have 30,000 Americans in Gwadar. Only sieven problems with that: the Pakistanis, the Baluchis, the Pashtuns, the Iranians, the Americans, the Russians and the Chinese.
The Pakistani government is attempting to sew together a balloon while it is being shot full of holes from the inside. The odds on their welcoming an American base are between slim and none. Our best bet might be to tell “our friends” that we will need the base to evacuate them when everything collapses. Unfortunately “our friends” will not be in a position to deliver whatever we want from them.
The Baluchis are the regional population and have been subject to autonomy carrots being dangled by cynical outside powers (especially the Soviets) for decades. Why should they align with the soon to vanish Americans and play Kurds for a Day?
The Pashtuns are the 40 million plus tribe that thinks of Kandahar as its territory and have every intention of dissolving the governments in Pakistan and Afghanistan while looting American supply caravans and depots. It is what they do.
The Iranians think of Baluchistan and most of Afghanistan as break away bits of their empire. They are just over the border to the West and if you think that they can be trusted to protect a supply line for Americans then I want your bank account number, social security and credit card quick because you are about to get cleaned out and it might as well be me that profits.
The Americans are now under the command of Barack Obama. No one expects them to stay beyond the second bloodletting.
The Russians have been angling to get a warm water port in this area for over two hundred years. On the long term level that has not changed even if the demographic realities do not support those ambitions. On the more immediate basis an American base to the South reduces the value of the Russian controlled supply lines to the North. As noted before they have a long history of manipulating the tribal politics. The Great Game continues.
The Chinese happen to be the people who built the port, have their own ambitions and intentions with regard to the region and its mineral resources and have spent decades also in building ties in the region to counter the Americans, Russians and Indians.
The Indians could be the only natural friends that America has and I would be doubtful that they would trust Obama enough to stick their necks out for him.
Mar 29, 2009 - 10:00 pm 7. Lifeofthemind:Shows you, I upgraded from six to seven and ended up with sieven. Like the benefits of the Roman Empire to the People’s Front of Judea (or were they the splitters?) the list keeps on growing.
Mar 29, 2009 - 10:03 pm 8. blert:Is there no reset to the ISI button?
Mar 29, 2009 - 10:25 pm 9. blert:You mean the Judean Peoples Front…
Mar 29, 2009 - 10:29 pm 10. Elroy Jetson:If our President wants to increase our troop strength in Afghanistan, so be it. I will support Obama and our troops with the same intensity as I did during OIF 2003-present. Our brave men and women deserve at least that if not more.
Mar 29, 2009 - 10:34 pm 11. Habu:However, as Lifeofthemind outlined very well in the post above, an escalation in this region has the potential to become at least as complex than Iraq was. Obama may require a powerpoint presentation as well as his teleprompter to explain the nuances of the conflict in the future- especially if, God forbid, we start taking an increasing number of casualties. It would be a welcome change from the previous administration.
It may well be up to the so-called “neo-cons” (myself included)to come to Obamas’ defense if things get dicey in the region.
OK, I’ll repeat it …irradiate the tribal areas with enough dirty bombs to get the job done and keep the area hot for a hundred years.
Do any of you really believe the Paki’s are going to do anything? F-em and get the job done. Neither China nor any other nation will intervene because we dirty bomb those areas….
Or we can be talking about this for another 20 years.
Mar 29, 2009 - 10:36 pm 12. Possumtater:no.naw mizeah Habu, let’s gum the problem to death. People are too afraid something might go boom. We’re a nation of sheep ya know,real metrosexual sheep girlie men
Mar 29, 2009 - 10:38 pm 13. whiskey:Walt, on the contrary, our men are walking into a trap.
Because Barack HUSSEIN Obama wants them to fail and really, when it comes down to it, be massacred. So he can dismantle the military and create his own socialist haven in the US.
The military is a threat to him, he does not understand it, hates it, and has all his life. He hates military men, the mission, even the nation. Yet he is Commander in Chief.
The finest fighting men in the world, with the finest equipment, cannot beat anyone with a guy like Obama doing everything he can to insure defeat.
Let’s be honest. The goal for Obama is a catastrophic massacre of the US military so he can say it’s a failure, demand it be dismantled, and construct his own “civilian force just as well armed and well equipped as the military” as he said in the campaign.
Mar 30, 2009 - 12:09 am 14. weSwinger:whiskey, that is some truly scary s**t. I pray that that is what it is. I believe that the O is first and foremost a politician who will do what he thinks it takes to get reelected, bugger his “base” and those who “sent” him.
Mar 30, 2009 - 3:31 am 15. Jules Crittenden » About That ISI Problem:[...] housecleaning topping both lists, and holding back any payments until that happens. Discussion at Belmont Club
Mar 30, 2009 - 5:40 am 16. dan:Habu – i think maybe some smallpox, preferably stolen from the former USSR, would be a better weapon? It’s probably true though: we’ve just got to kill a ton of the f-ckers.
Sorry, censor. This is the ancient world here, not the modern, and that’s how the modern was born. It ain’t our fault.
Mar 30, 2009 - 6:05 am 17. Xena:One guy (Osama bin Laden) is tying down 70,000 US troops in Afghanistan looking for him? Strategic victory for al-Qaeda.
Mar 30, 2009 - 6:23 am 18. bear1909:I dont trust our ineligible foreign born commander in cheats. Afghanistan will be an unmitigated disaster: i predict 20,000 dead. And the little bitch will say that it was Bush’s fault for getting us involved in the first place.
70,000 troops in Afghanistan is sheer lunacy. the supply lines entrusted to Iran- are you shitting me?
Mar 30, 2009 - 7:18 am 19. Alexis:Either Pakistan will assert complete sovereignty over the Northwest Frontier or it will not. One or the other. If Pakistan is responsible for what happens in the Northwest Frontier Province, it must be held responsible for what comes out of there. If Pakistan is not responsible for what happens there, Pakistan’s claim over the Northwest Frontier Province is null and void.
It is critically important that we not allow al-Qaeda to hide under a Pakistani nuclear umbrella. It is also critically important that we not allow al-Qaeda to hide under the ambiguousness of Pakistani sovereignty. If Pakistan is truly interested in stopping the Taliban, it must do it. There is no room for excuses.
Mar 30, 2009 - 7:44 am 20. SpeakEasy:Pakistan is the target. Afghanistan can wait. A true comparison of the two, logistically, shows only one true option. Securing nuclear weapons in the hands of extremists is compelling enough a reason to start. After taking control of Pakistan, and I mean full-out, overrun of the first order, Afghanistan can be engaged effectively with plenty of options. It is the only move that makes sense to me.(And that an opening move)
Mar 30, 2009 - 12:18 pm 21. veracious:Alex 19,
Totally… Pak either controls it’s territorial claims or it is by definition, no-man’s land; real simple.
Mar 30, 2009 - 12:40 pm 22. buddy larsen:Got to nod along with Walt @ #5 –we’re dealing with hostage masters. Hostages are the notorious weak link of individual-worth peoples. Iran clearly but the Kremlin too –witness Georgia, with the high ground of Russian-occupied South Ossetia the site of missile batteries pointed down at Tbilisi. The Russians have as well as interdicted the pipelines further south, as they’re now on the south side of the mountains and an easy march away from cutting off Europe from fuel, should something displease them, as anything can be shaped into pretext, and now with Georgia a hostage, Kremlin can pick and choose if and when. Meanwhile, the west walks on eggshells, as always when the bad guys have the drop on your people.
Mar 30, 2009 - 1:18 pm 23. buddy larsen:i wish i could laugh at Whiskey and call him a nutcase.
Mar 30, 2009 - 1:23 pm 24. buddy larsen:but, these admin people love crisis –they’re all Cloward-Piven people (did you know that professors Cloward and Piven were standing behind –on the stage i mean –Bill Clinton as he signed ‘motor-voter’?). Gen’l Petraeus needs to expand his strategic vision into places few commanders have ever been before, at least since the Thirty Years War, when personal armies and duchies flipped on whim and better offer.
Note that the three week market rally collapsed badly today, on O’s public beheading of Prince Rick of Wagoner. The traders reacted not to the firing, but to the intended signal sent in doing it so publicly. The signal the traders hear is “whim is coming”. Cloward-Piven. Crisis, upset, inability to plan, demoralization –all seem intended. Esp when one considers that had AIG been allowed to mark to model, as it was for the previous 70 years before mid-2007, the recovery would’ve started months ago, from a higher base, with far less ruin.
Mar 30, 2009 - 1:38 pm