With great
passion last year, Pakistan's
Interior Minister Rehman Malik said, "I categorically deny the presence
of Osama bin Laden, his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, and even Mullah Omar in any
part of Pakistan."
Now, with the
capture of bin Laden in Pakistan
-- only 40 miles from Malik's office - it's more difficult than ever to
consider his statements, and those of his civil and military counterparts,
credible. Since 9/11, Pakistan's leaders have been lying to the United States,
neighboring countries, their own people, and even to one another about fundamental
elements of the war on terror.
If there was a
protagonist in the WikiLeaks cables released last week, it would be a petite, blond,
Arkansas-born career diplomat, Anne Patterson, who until recently had been the
U.S ambassador to Pakistan.
Senior
Pakistani and U.S. officials meet today in Washington to start what's being
billed as the third in a series of high-level "strategic dialogues" between the
two war on terror partners.
Over
the remainder of this week, thirteen working groups on a wide variety of issues,
ranging from energy to women's empowerment, will finalize their recommendations
for enhancing cooperation and furthering objectives that are said to be mutually
shared. A few major transactions, including a new $2 billion
military aid package, will reportedly be announced. But the pomp,
circumstance, and scale of the pledges belie the reality that Islamabad and
Washington are as much strategic competitors as they are partners.
In a nationally televised address on Thursday, Pakistan
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani announced a three-year extension for the
country's powerful army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who had been
scheduled to retire this November.
Gilani stated that the move was necessary to ensure the
continuity of counterinsurgency operations in Pakistan's
border region with Afghanistan.
He described Kayani as "pro-democracy" and said that the success of military
operations in Swat and elsewhere was made possible by the army chief's
leadership.
That the Pakistani prime minister made his announcement in a
rare televised address to the nation was significant. Earlier in the week,
Gilani tried to project the image that he alone would decide Kayani's future, telling a
journalist, "Let me decide it [whether or not to give Kayani an extension];
it is my prerogative; you need not to worry about this matter."
South Waziristan -- home of Baitullah Mehsud, the slain don
of the Pakistani Taliban -- is the next stop in Pakistan's war on terror.
Though Washington has been
encouraging an operation in the lawless Waziristan
area since early summer, the Pakistan Army has decided to go into Mehsud
country at a time of its choosing and based on its own reasoning. Pakistan's largely American-funded
counterinsurgency is, to a large extent, being conducted on Rawalpindi's
terms, not Washington's.
The probability of the Pakistan Army going beyond taking care of its own enemy
in South Waziristan, the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan, and making an honest
effort to go after America's foes engaged in attacks on coalition forces in
Afghanistan, is low.
Preparation for the operations began in June, when the
Pakistan Army -- aided by suspected American drone strikes -- started
"softening" the terrain with airstrikes and mortar fire and choking off the
TTP's supply routes into South Waziristan. The
United States,
armed with Pakistani intelligence and Predator drones, took out Baitullah
Mehsud in a strike on August 5, which has been a considerable blow to the TTP's
cohesiveness.
Precision air and drone strikes have eliminated key TTP
operatives and facilities, reducing the quality and scale of terrorist activity
inside Pakistan.
Operation Rah-e Rast, which targeted the TTP in the Malakand division, also in
northwest Pakistan,
and a series of smaller scale operations throughout the tribal areas, have
reduced the TTP's operational space. Much of its leadership is currently confined
to the greater Waziristan area.
At the same time, the Pakistani government has been playing
hardball with the Mehsud tribe, trying to get it to turn against the TTP. This
effort, which includes attempts
to form anti-TTP lashkars, has yielded limited success.
But the Pakistan Army apparently feels that now, as winter
begins in Waziristan, is an opportune time to
seriously debilitate the TTP. The local population in Mehsud country has been
ordered by radio to evacuate the area; tens of thousands have left. Heavy
ground operations could begin sometime in October. The window of opportunity is closing. As the
New York Times' Ismail Khan notes, the
rugged region is generally hit by snow starting in late November.
The Pakistan Army, it is said, distinguishes between the
"good" and "bad" Taliban. But such language mischaracterizes the decision
making process in Rawalpindi.
The Pakistan Army is a coherent, modern organization with a cold, rational
outlook on its surrounding landscape. It is interested in furthering its
strategic objectives. For the Pakistan Army, some Taliban groups can be seen as
strategic assets, while others, such as the TTP, are more clearly enemies.
And so as the Pakistan Army heads into South Waziristan to
give the TTP network a decisive blow, there is little likelihood that it will
target the networks of commanders like Maulvi Nazir, Hafiz Gul Bahadur, and
Jalaluddin Haqqani, all of whom chiefly target coalition forces in Afghanistan rather
than the Pakistani state or military. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine that
the Pakistan Army would begin operations in South
Waziristan without the confidence that these three networks would
not attack it in defense of the TTP.
The reasons for this are, in part, economic. It's easier to
target one group focused in a single area, rather than four or more groups each
located on opposite ends of North and South Waziristan.
But beyond this, the Pakistani military-intelligence establishment remains
concerned with its security predicament in a post-America Afghanistan.
It would like to see
a coherent and non-hostile government in Kabul
that can, at the very least, serve as an energy and trade corridor from Gwadar
and Karachi to the ancestral lands in Central Asia of Babur, the founder of the Mughal Empire.
Rival India is emerging on
the world stage, and Pakistan
would like to restrain the growth of the Indian presence in its own backyard.
Add to this the shared population and borders between the two countries, and it
becomes clear that no country in the world is as impacted by developments in Afghanistan as is Pakistan.
Recent reports
that the United States and
NATO members have come to terms with another Karzai presidency have proven Pakistan's contention that to shape events in Afghanistan,
you need an allied Pashtun on top. Karzai is the least incapable of America's
Pashtuns. But Pakistan,
whose relations with Karzai have improved in the past year, also has Afghan Pashtuns
of its own, the most important of whom is Mullah Muhammad Omar, head of the Afghan
Taliban. And with the Afghan Taliban ascendant, it is not realistic to expect Pakistan
to turn against it and affiliated networks just yet. Why would the Pakistan
Army ditch a rising Afghan Taliban for a sinking Karzai and his band of
kleptomaniacs? The Pakistan
army might see itself as betting on the winning horse in the long run.
Arif Rafiq is the
president of Vizier Consulting, LLC and a regular contributor to the Pakistan Policy Blog.
On Friday, a Taliban commander claimed that the shura, or advisory council, of the
Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) selected Hakimullah Mehsud as the group's
amir, or supreme commander, in place of the dead (or, as the group claims,
ailing) Baitullah Mehsud.
However, rather than providing definitive answers to
questions regarding the TTP post-Baitullah, the announcement -- for a number of
reasons -- furthers uncertainty over the group's future. Not only is the TTP's
media relations apparatus a basket case, but its operational command continues
to be in disarray.
