An Asian-American friend (a Muslim Canadian-U.S. academic born in India) wrote to me in alarm recently, and we had a dialogue:
Pakistan is really scaring the hell out of me. Swat has been overrun by the Pak Taliban (the region is roughly 3 hours from the capital city of Islamabad). The sad thing is that this Taliban is not a throwback to a medieval epoch. It is a very new and modern phenomenon. I still don’t understand why the Pak military is powerless. It actually supports the Afghan Taliban against the Afghans and supports jihadis against the Indians. In some painful sense the chickens are coming home to roost. But the real price will and is being paid by civilians, especially women and girls.
What about when our drones go in and kill people, what effect does that have?
The drones actually turn the broader public opinion, which is already rabidly anti-American, more into the militant’s camp. But most people are starting to realize that these guys are bad news. They are shutting down girls schools, mutilating the bodies of those they’ve killed, and spreading terror. It isn’t a Hezballah and Hamas but something much more primitive. Hamas would seem suave and cosmopolitan by comparison.
What about Gaza?
I noticed Arab and Muslim friends now paying more attention to Gaza
than say human rights and democratization in Egypt. I now agree with them (this only applies to the Middle East) that until the Palestinian
question is resolved, societal development will remain stunted.
American foreign policy (and Obama is no different) focuses on regime
stability and ensures that regional stability (aka Israel gets to screw
over the Palestinians without Mubarak fussing) is maintained. Mubarak
and other regional actors aren't stupid. They understand the game. They
get to repress as long as they stay quiet while receiving the cheque
for service rendered from the US taxpayer.
What about the neocons?
Their solution is an alliance with India to bash Pakistan, which would turn the country decisively against the West. Then average Pakistanis would join the Taliban. This is the opposite of what counterinsurgency experts propose- break off the enemy. Partition it into local smaller pieces – cooptation. Richard Holbrooke is somewhat enlightened about this, here in the FT. But here’s Bibi Netanyahu in the Wall Street Journal:
fanatical ideology that seeks to reverse the course of history and
throw the civilized world back into a new dark age. The struggle
between militant Islam and modernity — whether fought in Afghanistan ,
Iraq , India or Gaza — will decide our common future. It is a battle
we cannot afford to lose.
He wants war everywhere, which is what David Frum wants. He doesn’t want the bailout plan – he wants the military bailout plan – Iraq and other military bailout plans.
One thing is for certain: the Americans, NATO, and Pakistan do not
propose the “Gaza solution." Gaza actually is used by the Taliban for
recruitment in Afghanistan.
