U.S. Role in the World

The FPA’s Pakistan blog notes that conditions are dire in Pakistan’s quake zone. Given the fragility of the U.S. alliance with Pakistan (due in part to recent drone attacks), there is an opportunity here to work on relationship building. An immediate and substantial offer of humanitarian assistance by the U.S. would go a long way toward winning the hearts and minds of the local population. Let’s demonstrate that the U.S stands by allies in times of trouble.

Sarah Palin seems to be the topic of the week as the country prepares for the vice-presidential debate tomorrow. The debate is highly anticipated and many are saying that it may well be most watched debate in television history. I’m not going to give into the temptation to stray into partisan territory here, and instead will focus on our topic of foreign policy, specifically U.S. relations with Pakistan. As this article in Foreign Policy makes clear, Palin’s recent comments on the subject proved to be controversial for the McCain campaign and raised larger issues involving international law and state sovereignty (Sarah Palin’s Hot Pursuit):

A recent series of raids and missile strikes by U.S. Special Forces against Islamic militants in the lawless tribal areas along the Durand Line have strained U.S.-Pakistani troops to the breaking point. Pakistani paramilitary troops are even rumored to have shot at U.S. helicopters. And throwing more gas on the fire, vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin said she supported the controversial strikes, a view at odds with that of her running mate. In a Sunday interview with ABC’s This Week, John McCain clarified that her comment was not a “definitive policy statement.”

Though the Alaska governor’s off-the-cuff remarks were widely seen as a gaffe, Palin—and before her Barack Obama, who was pilloried for saying much the same thing in August 2007—may have inadvertently stumbled upon one of the key unresolved questions of the brave new world of terrorism, international criminal networks, and drug traffickers: Should a country be allowed to temporarily violate another country’s sovereignty to go after, say, wanted terrorists or war criminals?

The article goes on to note many examples of such border violations and considers the legal basis of the right of “hot pursuit” as it relates to cross-border raids without really answering these questions. We can hope that such important questions will be addressed in the appropriate international forums by diplomats and military experts and that the world will not be alarmed that matters of policy will be based on campaign slogans and bellicose rhetoric.

Catching Osama bin Laden has become an issue on the campaign trail, with both Barack Obama and John McCain using the fate of the elusive terrorist mastermind to attack each other (CBS News - McCain And Bin Laden). Osama bin Laden is widely believed to be hiding somewhere in the mountainous tribal areas of Pakistan along the border with Afghanistan. In their latest issue Foreign Policy magazine asked five Pakistani experts to offer their strategies for catching Osama bin Laden. How important is it for the U.S. to capture Osama?

The United States paused today to note the anniversary of the 9-11 terrorist attacks. This is an opportunity for reflection and resolve. We look back on those attacks (the archive of The New York Times report can be found here) from this safe distance seven years later and marvel at the national unity that arose in the aftermath of those attacks. I was particularly impressed with the international support offered to the United States. Who can forget the French newspaper Le Monde expressing solidarity with the headline “We Are All Americans” or the candlelit vigils in capitals all over the world, even in Tehran. If we have allowed that good will to erode over time, perhaps the U.S. can work to restore that support, to work more closely with allies and forge pragmatic alliances with those who would not ordinarily cooperate with the United States.

This anniversary is also a time for resolve, for taking stock of our progress and evaluating the strategies we have used, build on the winning strategies and discard those that have failed. When President Bush declared the War on Terrorism he invited the support of allies working under the principle “you are either with us or against us.” That organizing principle helped motivate countries like Pakistan, a most unlikely ally, to firmly declare their support for the American effort. Pakistan, under President Pervez Musharraf, became a key ally and over many years helped take the war to the mountains and caves where the al-Qaeda leadership was thought to be in hiding. The alliance with Pakistan was fraught with difficulties and now that we are entering the post-Musharraf era in Pakistan, those difficulties have grown (ISN - Terrorism Index 2008):

The experts at the Center for American Progress and Foreign Policy magazine were hit broadside with a development they didn’t foresee when compiling their annual Terrorism Index, released on 19 August: the resignation of Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf the day before. The fourth annual Index, which was gathered from opinion surveys of US foreign policy and security experts across the ideological spectrum, suggested a ray of optimism. A year ago, 91 percent of the experts said they believed the world was growing more dangerous for the US; this year, that figure fell to 70 percent. But Musharraf’s resignation added a major element of uncertainty to the picture, acknowledged participants in the survey effort at a press briefing in Washington. It highlighted one of the major conclusions suggested by the Index: Pakistan now represents the central front on the war on terror.

As we move forward from this 9-11 anniversary we have an opportunity to resolve to work more closely with allies, to restore some of that international good will offered to the U.S. in the aftermath of 9-11. With Pakistan, we are confronted with a stark and immediate choice to work with the new government of President Zardari in fighting al-Quada and the Taliban or act unilaterally and disregard the sovereignty of Pakistan. How we make this choice may well determine the shape of the next phase of the war on terrorism. Early indications are that President Bush has decided to act unilaterally, a decision that could radicalize thousands of new jihadist fighters in the mountains and tribal regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan. We have a very narrow window of time to use this 9-11 anniversary as an opportunity to thank all of those allies that stood with us seven years ago and who stand with us now, to say to them that our motto is no longer “you are either with us or against us” but is now “we are all in this together.” That, I think, would make a fitting resolution on this day of remembrance.

The president of Pakistan has resigned and his departure threatens to throw Pakistan into political chaos (The New York Times - Pakistani Parties Clash Over Reinstating Judge):

Political order in Pakistan frayed further on Tuesday, the day after President Pervez Musharraf resigned, raising questions about who in the deeply divided civilian government would be in charge and for how long.

The instant deterioration in relations within the government became evident when Nawaz Sharif, the leader of one of the two major parties in the governing coalition, the Pakistan Muslim League-N, walked out of a meeting here over the restoration of the chief justice of the Supreme Court, who had been dismissed by Mr. Musharraf. He then headed back to his home in Lahore, a four-hour drive away.

[…]

Even by the standards of Pakistan’s hard-boiled and volatile politics, the public discord between the political leaders was surprising, politicians said, a sign that opposition to Mr. Musharraf may have been the strongest thread tying them together.

From the days when he was just a general, to the coup, his uneasy reign as both president and general, and then to his final days as politically side-lined president, it has been a long and dramatic journey for Pervez Musharraf. He had a tough line to walk, navigating between a populace and a military heavily sympathetic to Islamic insurgents and a U.S. ally asking for help in defeating those same insurgents. Add to the mix a volatile relationship with neighbor and nuclear competitor India and you have the making of a rather thankless job. In the end, neither his American allies or his own people supported him. He was a patriot who placed his country first and tried to steer a middle path between multiple competing interests. I’m willing to bet that history will be kind to Musharraf, especially if his absence proves just how adept he was at keeping Pakistan stable. I hope that the United States will come to appreciate and honor the assistance that Musharraf provided in the War on Terrorism and that for all his failings (and there were many) we will look back on him as an able and valuable ally.

The Washington Post reported today that the Taliban insurgency is gaining ground in Pakistan (Clashes Escalate in Third Day of Violence in Pakistan):

Violent clashes between extremist insurgents and Pakistani troops escalated Wednesday in the country’s fractious northwest as Taliban leaders threatened to withdraw their support for peace deals brokered earlier this year with Pakistan’s new government. […] It was the third consecutive day of violence between pro-Taliban extremists and government troops in the formerly serene Swat Valley. After skirmishes erupted near the town of Matta, Pakistani security forces began enforcing a 24-hour curfew on the area, a military spokesman said.

Given the increasing frequency of Taliban cross-border raids into Afghanistan, what can the U.S. do to help Pakistan in this struggle with the Taliban? In “A Pro-Taliban Threat,” Malou Innocent, a Cato Institute foreign policy analyst, writes:

Pro-Taliban militants are currently in talks with one of Pakistan’s provincial governments to enforce Shariah, or Islamic law. Though the deal is meant to stop the spreading Islamist insurgency on Pakistan’s western border with Afghanistan, if passed, the deal will only embolden radicals and undermine U.S. interests in Afghanistan. […] Instead of toothless peace deals, a better strategy would be to isolate and contain the militancy through ‘clear and hold’ operations. Since America has a vested interest in a secure Pakistan, and the capabilities of Pakistan’s Army must be improved substantially, Washington can assist Islamabad by raising the professionalism of Pakistan’s army by increasing the number of joint military-to-military training operations, and enhancing human-intelligence sharing in the tribal areas.

This is a great idea and deserves consideration at the highest levels, but I fear the window may have closed for these kind of joint operations. Such military-to-military operations may have worked better when the U.S. was more closely tied to Gen. Pervez Musharraf rather than the more loosely defined security structure that now exists in Pakistan. Don’t get me wrong, I supported our brief flirtation with Benazir Bhutto and support democracy in Pakistan, but we should also remember the law of unintended consequences. Democracy is messy and often blurs lines of accountability, something we need more of, not less, in a society defined by tribal and clan loyalties. How loosely defined is the internal security situation in Pakistan? According to this report in today’s New York Times, there are fears that Pakistan’s intelligence service has gone rogue, is no longer accountable to the civilian political leadership and is actively supporting the Taliban. If that is the case, the U.S. and allies operating in Afghanistan now have a far larger problem to deal with than a few bands of al Qaeda militants hiding in the northwestern mountains of Pakistan.