Pakistan

[Matt Mill]

I think that before we can confront Pakistan's role in this conflict
the United States must first define "success" for the expedition in
Afghanistan. The President usually only speaks of success in vague
terms. "Stability" or "leaving Afghanistan in such a state where it is
not a haven for terrorists," are not really clear nation building
goals. Mix in tribal/sectional conflict, the drug trade, and the
historical fact that a central government has never exercised control
over the Afghan hinterland for more than a generation and you have a
social mess. The United States is in a quagmire which was in a great
degree caused, in my opinion, by the hasty way the Karzai government
and Constitution were set up.
For a government in Afghanistan to be viable there has to be room for
the state to delegate power to tribal warlords. The problem is that
the warlords are already perceived to have a legitimacy that the
Karzai government lacks. Remember that the Karzai government is new,
while the warlords are old. The warlords don't see this as a return to
democracy, they see it as a unification war that they are resisting.
Tribalism isn't something that has to be destroyed, it can be
something that the United States turns to its advantage. Note the
amnesty program that the United States has set up for former
insurgents. Although relatively few mid-level Taliban commanders have
surrendered to US forces, the ones who have did so because of tribal
connections to members of the central government. Men they trusted
told them that amnesty was their best option and they threw down their
arms.
The government of Afghanistan may not be predisposed toward being a
democracy, which the United States needs to recognize. It is more
important to eliminate violent competition among elites. We need to
start looking at options that will treat the dynamic between Karzai
and the warlords like the dynamic between King John and his barons.
Pakistan is considerably more difficult to figure out, since it
already has a fractured government in power. The Pakistani civilian
government, military, and ISI do not always have a unity of purpose.
They are playing power politics, exploiting the conflict in
Afghanistan to destabilize their neighbor, in an attempt to make their
proxies the most powerful political entities in the country. Cutting
off all aid is not the answer, but Pakistan needs to be reminded that
they need us, that Afghanistan is our war and that we are in charge.