One of the great saws of counterinsurgency warfare is to get – via guile, show of strength, cash under the table, influence-peddling or expression of naked self-interest – the locals to do the fighting for you.  And the war on terror is nothing if not the biggest counterinsurgency war in history, with a fair chunk of the world as the battlefield.
One of the BDS-addled left’s great straw-warhorses in the war so far has been “why invade Iraq when Pakistan is the real enemy?”

Of course, it’s not – and Pakistan is certainly a society that is dealing with a very difficult problem with Islamic radicalism, and elements in Pakistani society certainly are most definitely enemies to the US.  But there’s a better-than-fair case to be made that there’s a majority in Pakistan – one that enjoys the material benefits of the post-seventh-century world – that can be eventually turned against the terrorist and the radicals among whom they hide.

And it looks like Pakistan is going to take a whack at it:

An all-out battle for control of Pakistan’s restive North and South Waziristan is about to commence between the Pakistani military and the Taliban and al-Qaeda adherents who have made these tribal areas their own.

According to a top Pakistani security official who spoke to Asia Times Online on condition of anonymity, the goal this time is to pacify the Waziristans once and for all. All previous military operations – usually spurred by intelligence provided by the Western coalition – have had limited objectives, aimed at specific bases or sanctuaries or blocking the cross-border movement of guerrillas. Now the military is going for broke to break the back of the Taliban and a-Qaeda in Pakistan and reclaim the entire area.

Question:  Granted, Pakistan had to take some action after the attempt on Benazir Bhutto that killed over 130.  But do you think that if the war in Iraq and Afghanistan were going badly – that if actual defeat were anywhere in the cards – that the supremely pragmatic Musharraf would expend the political and social capital required for an offensive like this is being portrayed?

(Presuming, of course, that it takes places as described in the usually-reliable Asia Times)?

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Sunday, October 21st, 2007 at 12:06 pm and is filed under War On Terror. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.