The Dangers of Pakistan’s Defeat

The ongoing war between the Pakistani army and the Taliban movement is no ordinary war, and the army’s victory there will not be easy. It is a complex war in which elements of internal fragmentation in Pakistan’s political makeup intertwine with the Taliban resuming their activity in a bloodier and bolder manner, whether in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province or in Pakistan’s Punjab region, this after their leader Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a US raid last August. It is a war in which Pakistani security forces estimate 28 thousand of their soldiers are participating, at a time when reports indicate that the Taliban force in Pakistan reaches up to ten thousand men. In addition, there is the interpenetration and impact of this war on US strategy, which considers any blow against the security situation in Pakistan tantamount to the complete obliteration of its efforts to confront the Taliban in Afghanistan. This explains President Barack Obama ratifying a law that allows spending seven and a half billion dollars on aid to Pakistan over the next five years, to be added to the enormous amounts which the Afghan adventure now costs Washington, which is estimated to be spending 65 billion dollars on this war in the coming year 2010. Following up on the attacks waged by the Taliban movement in the past two weeks against highly fortified army and police locations in Pakistan does not only indicate the movement’s desire to prove its capability and the fact that it remains effective under its new young leader Hakimullah Meshud (31 years old). It also indicates something more dangerous: the possibility that this extremist movement, which enjoys strong ties with Pashtun clans, has infiltrated the Pakistani army, which in the view of observers would explain how members of the movements managed to enter major strongholds, such as for instance army command headquarters in Rawalpindi a week ago, holding two members of the military prisoner inside. The rising intensity of these attacks comes at a time when the leadership of the Pakistani army is announcing that it plans to wage a campaign against Pakistani Taliban sites in the region of Southern Waziristan. All of this is taking place before the very eyes of the US Administration, which is looking for a solution to its Afghan predicament. Indeed, the collapse of the security situation within its closest ally, Islamabad, is of no help to the internal battle waged by Obama against his military commanders, his Republican opponents, and some of the leaders of his own Democratic party as well, over increasing the US’s military involvement in Afghanistan. Added to this of course is the issue of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and the extent to which the authorities in this country can guarantee that none of them will fall into the hands of a terrorist organization the likes of Al-Qaeda or of extremist Islamist groups in Pakistan, who consider these weapons to be an asset that can be used in the conflict with their Indian adversaries. Perhaps these weapons are the object of dire concern for the Obama Administration, in addition to concerns over Afghanistan, and thus it does not tire of repeating that it requires assurances that these weapons are out of the reach of those capable of misusing them. The most recent of such assertions is what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the media a few days ago, which is that Washington is confident that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are in safe hands. Asif Zardari’s government would be unable to bear any defeat in the face of the extremism spreading within Pakistan, whether it is the political extremism represented by his rivals in the Jamaat-e-Islami party on the inside, or the extremism of the Taliban, expressed through their open war against the state’s security and political apparatus, accused of allying itself with Washington against the movement. It is true that Pakistani intelligence played a significant role in supporting the Taliban after they took power on the other side of the border, but the movement’s violent and mounting activity today within Pakistan no longer threatens a particular government, but represents a threat to the survival of the country and to the protection of its institutions and its regional and foreign relations. This reveals the dangerous nature of the ongoing war between the Taliban and Pakistan.