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May 8, 2009
Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan and Pakistan since 2008 has focused on eliminating the sanctuaries of anti-Western insurgents through joint Pakistan-North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) operations regardless of borders or ethnicity. The discourse of fear of the unnamed "experts" from the military-security apparatus is that Pakistan is a failing state on the eve of another Islamic revolution. Ayatollah Khomeini's 1979 revolution in Iran is tacitly invoked.
We also have the specter of "Talibanisation", the equation of Taliban with "al Qaeda", and the "Taliban gets Muslim nukes". The worst case scenario is left unsaid-- jihadi atomic bombs regularly going off in American cities.
So the US drone war against Pashtun peasants in in Pakistan's borderlands continues, and there is the new round of military operations in and near the Swat Valley in North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) by Pakistan is designed to prevent Pakistan's collapse. The security situation in Pakistan is deteriorating, as the Taliban advances in Buner, with thousands of refugees flee their homes in Swat valley and nearby areas due to the Pakistani's army flattening villages.
Pakistan is at the epicentre of the US's global war on terror and the Obama Administration is demanding that Pakistan "take the fight" to the Taliban forces because they are posing an existential threat not only to Pakistan, but even to the US homeland itself.
Leunig
Is this discourse of fear part of Pentagon's PR campaign in its long war to prevent the end of liberal civilization as we know it? Is the "global war on terrorism" in the "arc of instability" being rebranded? The anti-occupation coalition in Afghanistan and Pakistan is branded as "Taliban" who "threaten US national interests in the region and US safety at home".
As Steve Clemons points out at Washington Note it is the US drone attacks that are fueling the growth and popularity of the insurgency -- and so the tactical is undermining the strategic. The Taliban, in response, have been able to successfully combine the public outrage over the drone attacks with an anti-American nationalism that is appealing to a broader array of Pakistani citizens.
One can reasonably ask: what are the US national interests in the region? I have to admit that I am somewhat vague about that. If the situation in Pakistan is a "mortal threat" to the US, and its most vital national security interests are at stake, then what are these undefined interests? What US national interests are under threat if the Taliban take over the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan? None. That is when the Taliban nuke card is played.
The fear discourse makes Pakistan, a democratic country allied to the United States, as one of the "biggest threats to U.S. national security" in the world just behind Iran and North Korea. The inference is increased US intervention in Pakistan.
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Unfortunately Gary the US is so firmly trapped in the disastrous strategic adventure it launched in 2002 that it has no good exit strategy. Like all aggressor nations in the modern era whose ambitions turned out to be over-reach their ability to achieve them, they're faced with either defeat or humiliating withdrawal. Naturally, then, they keep persuading themselves that 'victory' is still possible. The more sophisticated no doubt intend that over time, the purpose of the whole exercise can be incrementally changed a la Iraq so that eventually they can pretend it was all a smashing success and withdraw with honour.
I forget who it was - Yglesias or Hilzoy I think - who recently pointed out how bizarre it is for the US to have to encourage the Pakistani government to resist an insurgency. I mean if the Taliban are truly dedicated to overthrowing the government, wouldn't you expect them to take on the Taliban in their own interests, without any urging from Washington? It bespeaks the fact that the situation is a lot more complex than the decision-makers in the US (or here) comprehend ... a good description of their whole approach to the Muslim world, actually.