Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Philadelphia Inquirer
March 23, 2008 By Trudy Rubin
Earlier this month, America's top military commander, Adm. Mike Mullen, named the place from which the next attack on the United States was most likely to come.
It wasn't Iraq.
"It would come out of the FATA," said Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, using the acronym for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of northern Pakistan, which border Afghanistan. The FATA is where al-Qaeda now bases and trains, where the Afghan Taliban hide out, and where Pakistani jihadi groups have sunk deep roots.
But here's the good news.
Pakistani elections recently returned a civilian government to power for the first time in a decade, which means Pakistan may finally adopt a comprehensive strategy to neutralize the jihadis in the FATA. Contrary to White House claims, America's longtime ally Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf never adopted such a strategy.
I've been talking by phone to Pakistanis about what that new strategy would look like, and how the United States can help.
The most exciting election returns occurred in the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan (NWFP), a rough-and-ready region that abuts the FATA. Its residents share the same Pashtun ethnicity as those in the tribal areas. NWFP voters threw out the alliance of religious parties that had governed their province and had looked the other way as jihadis set off bombs, closed girls' schools, and cut off heads.
The secular Awami National Party (ANP) won the most votes and is eager to take on the jihadi issue - but not just by military means.
The ANP's leader, Afranasiab Khattak, is a prominent human rights activist, lawyer and constitutional expert. "The recent elections have demonstrated that Pashtuns do not support extremism," Khattak said on a conference call organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
He said Pakistan needs "a holistic approach" to the tribal areas, "based on dialogue with tribal peoples to isolate the extremists. We need a package of reforms to bring the isolation [of the tribal areas] to an end."
The writ of Pakistani law barely touches the FATA at present. Khattak wants to see tribal residents fully integrated into Pakistan's legal and political system and permitted to vote for parties in national and provincial elections. "We must end this black-hole situation" for FATA, he insisted, a situation that allows unemployment, illiteracy and violence to thrive.
Some in the Bush administration get jitters at the mention of "dialogue" with FATA tribesmen. They recall that Musharraf made a deal with militants who then continued their attacks on Pakistani cities.
I raised this issue by phone with Khalid Aziz, a strategist for the Awami National Party who has had extensive dealings with tribes in the FATA. He dismissed Musharraf's deal with jihadis as "a cease-fire from a position of weakness" which "didn't mean anything except appeasement."
"There is no way to talk with the hard-core Taliban and hard-core al-Qaeda," Aziz continued, from Peshawar. "But there has to be strategic thinking about about how to encourage local resistance against those who insist on fighting.
"In the tribal areas there are large groups of villagers who are beginning to show their disgust at the Taliban. But they have to be supported because the other side is armed."
Aziz believes additional military action will still be needed against hard-core jihadis, but it should primarily be carried out by the Frontier Corps, a local force whose ranks are drawn from tribal Pashtuns.
Regular Pakistani army troops largely come from the province of Punjab and are looked on by Pashtun tribesmen as occupiers. As in the case of Iraq's Anbar province, the best resistance "has to be from the inside," says Aziz. The United States is helping to train and equip the Frontier Corps, but the process needs speeding up.
There are big hurdles facing Khattak's "holistic" strategy to fight terrorists.
First, the still-powerful Pakistani military must be persuaded to buy into the strategy. Elements of the army and Pakistani intelligence have been ambivalent about crushing the Afghan Taliban and other jihadis. These groups have been used in the past as tools against Pakistan's longtime enemy, India.
Civilian parties elected to power at the national level seem ready to renew the dormant peace process with India, however. U.S. officials should encourage the Pakistani army to follow this lead.
Second, Pakistan's new civilian leaders at the national level must focus on an antiterrorist strategy - and support Khattak's party. There is still strong popular sentiment in Pakistan that believes the war on terrorists is an American war that is being forced upon them.
However, the new government is developing a broad counterterrorism strategy that appears to parallel Khattak's positions. "Our policy is to talk to the tribes," says Husain Haqqani, an adviser to the winning Pakistan Peoples Party, "not to talk to the terrorists."
Third, the United States must play it smart, with military training, and with increased aid to community projects in FATA that wean youths away from violence. U.S. aid commitments are way up, though it's still hard to get aid into the tribal areas. The U.S. military command and American officials in Pakistan appear to grasp the need - and the strategy.
We now have the rare chance to help Pakistan's civilian leaders and army combat jihadis who endanger their society - and ours.
March 23, 2008 By Trudy Rubin
Earlier this month, America's top military commander, Adm. Mike Mullen, named the place from which the next attack on the United States was most likely to come.
It wasn't Iraq.
"It would come out of the FATA," said Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, using the acronym for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of northern Pakistan, which border Afghanistan. The FATA is where al-Qaeda now bases and trains, where the Afghan Taliban hide out, and where Pakistani jihadi groups have sunk deep roots.
But here's the good news.
Pakistani elections recently returned a civilian government to power for the first time in a decade, which means Pakistan may finally adopt a comprehensive strategy to neutralize the jihadis in the FATA. Contrary to White House claims, America's longtime ally Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf never adopted such a strategy.
I've been talking by phone to Pakistanis about what that new strategy would look like, and how the United States can help.
The most exciting election returns occurred in the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan (NWFP), a rough-and-ready region that abuts the FATA. Its residents share the same Pashtun ethnicity as those in the tribal areas. NWFP voters threw out the alliance of religious parties that had governed their province and had looked the other way as jihadis set off bombs, closed girls' schools, and cut off heads.
The secular Awami National Party (ANP) won the most votes and is eager to take on the jihadi issue - but not just by military means.
The ANP's leader, Afranasiab Khattak, is a prominent human rights activist, lawyer and constitutional expert. "The recent elections have demonstrated that Pashtuns do not support extremism," Khattak said on a conference call organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
He said Pakistan needs "a holistic approach" to the tribal areas, "based on dialogue with tribal peoples to isolate the extremists. We need a package of reforms to bring the isolation [of the tribal areas] to an end."
The writ of Pakistani law barely touches the FATA at present. Khattak wants to see tribal residents fully integrated into Pakistan's legal and political system and permitted to vote for parties in national and provincial elections. "We must end this black-hole situation" for FATA, he insisted, a situation that allows unemployment, illiteracy and violence to thrive.
Some in the Bush administration get jitters at the mention of "dialogue" with FATA tribesmen. They recall that Musharraf made a deal with militants who then continued their attacks on Pakistani cities.
I raised this issue by phone with Khalid Aziz, a strategist for the Awami National Party who has had extensive dealings with tribes in the FATA. He dismissed Musharraf's deal with jihadis as "a cease-fire from a position of weakness" which "didn't mean anything except appeasement."
"There is no way to talk with the hard-core Taliban and hard-core al-Qaeda," Aziz continued, from Peshawar. "But there has to be strategic thinking about about how to encourage local resistance against those who insist on fighting.
"In the tribal areas there are large groups of villagers who are beginning to show their disgust at the Taliban. But they have to be supported because the other side is armed."
Aziz believes additional military action will still be needed against hard-core jihadis, but it should primarily be carried out by the Frontier Corps, a local force whose ranks are drawn from tribal Pashtuns.
Regular Pakistani army troops largely come from the province of Punjab and are looked on by Pashtun tribesmen as occupiers. As in the case of Iraq's Anbar province, the best resistance "has to be from the inside," says Aziz. The United States is helping to train and equip the Frontier Corps, but the process needs speeding up.
There are big hurdles facing Khattak's "holistic" strategy to fight terrorists.
First, the still-powerful Pakistani military must be persuaded to buy into the strategy. Elements of the army and Pakistani intelligence have been ambivalent about crushing the Afghan Taliban and other jihadis. These groups have been used in the past as tools against Pakistan's longtime enemy, India.
Civilian parties elected to power at the national level seem ready to renew the dormant peace process with India, however. U.S. officials should encourage the Pakistani army to follow this lead.
Second, Pakistan's new civilian leaders at the national level must focus on an antiterrorist strategy - and support Khattak's party. There is still strong popular sentiment in Pakistan that believes the war on terrorists is an American war that is being forced upon them.
However, the new government is developing a broad counterterrorism strategy that appears to parallel Khattak's positions. "Our policy is to talk to the tribes," says Husain Haqqani, an adviser to the winning Pakistan Peoples Party, "not to talk to the terrorists."
Third, the United States must play it smart, with military training, and with increased aid to community projects in FATA that wean youths away from violence. U.S. aid commitments are way up, though it's still hard to get aid into the tribal areas. The U.S. military command and American officials in Pakistan appear to grasp the need - and the strategy.
We now have the rare chance to help Pakistan's civilian leaders and army combat jihadis who endanger their society - and ours.