Is The United States Gearing Up To Go Into Pakistan?

In 2007, Barack Obama attracted controversy during his campaign by declaring that if elected, he would be willing to go into Pakistan if there is "actionable intelligence about high-value targets" in the country, and if the Pakistani government "won't act" against them.

During her three-day visit to Pakistan this week, Hillary Clinton seemed to indicate that those two criteria may now have been fulfilled.

On actionable intelligence about high-value targets, Clinton seemed confident that Al Qaeda's leadership is present in Pakistan: "Al Qaeda has had safe haven in Pakistan since 2002...it is just a fact that Al Qaeda had sought refuge in Pakistan after the US and our allies went after them because of the attack on 9/11...Our best information is that Al Qaeda leadership is somewhere in Pakistan."

On unwillingness to act, she suggested that Pakistani officials know where these terrorists are, but are hesitant to go after them: "I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn't get them if they really wanted to. Maybe they're not gettable. I don't know."

Even while commending Pakistan's military efforts in Swat and South Waziristan, she said that it was "not sufficient".

Meanwhile, President Obama has been "dithering" (as Dick Cheney put it) on a decision about how many more troops to send to Afghanistan, if any.

He may be listening closely to his vice president. Newsweek's recent cover story on Joe Biden started off highlighting the veep's concerns about resources and strategy in the region: "So I have a question. Al Qaeda is almost all in Pakistan, and Pakistan has nuclear weapons. And yet for every dollar we're spending in Pakistan, we're spending $30 in Afghanistan. Does that make strategic sense?"

The question is a good one, and Biden's observations are shared by others, notably National Security Adviser Retd. Gen. James Jones, who said of Afghanistan earlier this month: "The Al Qaeda presence is very diminished. The maximum estimate is less than 100 operating in the country, no bases, no ability to launch attacks on either us or our allies."

On Friday, the White House stood behind Clinton's blunt comments, calling them "completely appropriate".

While it may be too early to tell whether Obama will follow through on his 2007 campaign pledge, it does seem like his administration is setting the stage.

A Peek Into America's Possible Future Pakistan Policy

Four days after 9/11, Pakistani-British writer and political activist Tariq Ali wrote about an encounter he had with a Pakistani army general whom he asked about Islamist militants in the region.

Why had they been so receptive to American financing and weapon support during the Cold War, only to turn against the US overnight?

"Pakistan was the condom the Americans needed to enter Afghanistan," replied the general. "We've served our purpose and they think we can be just flushed down the toilet."

"The old condom is being fished out for use once again," wrote Ali at the time. "But will it work?"

He may have had a point.

Seven years later, the United States is quagmired in a violent insurgency in Afghanistan, while Pakistan, having surrendered part of its territory to Islamist militant control under a "peace deal", is on the verge of becoming a failed state. Triggered by the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore last week, Ali reiterated his contention about Pakistan in The Guardian: "The appalling terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan cricketers in Pakistan had one aim: to demonstrate to Washington that the country is ungovernable."

Americans have been paying more attention to Tariq Ali -- the man who in 1968 inspired the Rolling Stones song "Street Fighting Man" -- since he published his book, The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power, last fall.

One of them is Bruce Riedel, a senior foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution who previously served as a CIA official for almost thirty years.

Riedel, known for his harsh criticism of the Bush administration's policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan, was tapped as a foreign policy advisor by Barack Obama during his presidential campaign. Last month, Riedel was appointed by the Obama administration to head a White House review committee on policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan, an overhaul of which is to be completed before April's NATO summit.

In a glowing review of Tariq Ali's book, Riedel acknowledges Ali's assertion that the US has had a significant role in the peril that Pakistan faces today:

"Ali rightly notes that the United States has consistently chosen to back Pakistan's military dictators when they seized power from elected governments. Eisenhower and Kennedy backed the first dictator, Ayub Khan; JFK even gave him a state dinner at Mount Vernon and took him to Newport, R.I. Nixon famously tilted toward Yahya Khan during Pakistan's brutal attempt to crush Bangladesh. Carter and Reagan backed Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq to help defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan, inadvertently giving birth to the modern jihadist movement. And George W. Bush backed Pervez Musharraf in return for help fighting al-Qaeda, even through the general perverted election after election to stay in power. Blind U.S. support for these military strongmen has eroded Pakistan's civil institutions and rule of law, along with America's claim to support freedom and democracy in the Islamic world."

Riedel points out the part that both of his employers -- the CIA and the Brookings Institution -- have played in the genesis of Pakistan's current state, and also agrees with Ali's criticism of Barack Obama's pledge to unilaterally strike Al Qaeda targets in Pakistan in the presence of actionable intelligence and absence of cooperation from the Pakistani government. In an interview with Dubai-based Pakistani news channel ARY One World, Riedel, while acknowledging the success of recent US strikes in Pakistan near the Afghan border, noted that there was a "counterproductive element" to them, as they alienate the Pakistani people away from the United States.

While he calls many of Ali's policy suggestions "useful", Riedel is also cautious about his underestimation of the threat of Al Qaeda both to Pakistan and the United States, and warns of a possible sanctuary in Pakistan for terrorists who may bring about another world-changing event with dangerous consequences.

In contrast to the policy of the Bush administration, however, Riedel proposes an approach that is beyond just militaristic. "The Duel makes a strong case that the United States should back Pakistan's civilian leadership, flawed as it is, in an effort to build a modern Islamic democracy," he writes. "That will require much more economic aid, creative diplomacy to ease tensions with Afghanistan and India, straight talk about ending Pakistan's ties to terrorism, and patience. It will take time to recover from the Bush-Musharraf legacy, but we cannot afford a failed state in Pakistan, especially one that bears the label Made in the U.S.A."

Favoring a multi-pronged approach to the problems facing and arising from Pakistan, Riedel has stressed the need to look at them in a regional context. He emphasizes the importance of recognizing the influence that Pakistan's concerns about India has had on how it handles Afghanistan.

He also understands that all of this will need to be balanced delicately with a strategy to deal with the distrust that citizens in all of these countries have developed towards the United States in the last few decades. The people in the region still remember Ronald Reagan famously calling the Afghan Mujahideen (which literally means "those involved in a jihad") the "moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers" when they were helping the United States fight the Soviet Union -- and then turning on them as they became Taliban terrorists. As Tariq Ali points out in The Duel, if America once turned on the allies that helped it defeat the Soviets, many Pakistanis feel, what would stop it from turning on Pakistan?

"You... have to deal with [these problems] with a great degree of subtlety and sophistication," Riedel told ARY One World in January. "Because there are decades-old fears among all the parties about American intentions."

You can't effectively treat a condition without a diagnosis, and only time will tell if the new administration's management strategy will be effective. But in Bruce Riedel, the United States finally has a skilled diagnostician.

This is a positive start -- and it might serve as a good opportunity to do away with the need for more future used-condom analogies.

Why the Terrorists Could be Winning in Mumbai

Things had been going well for Islamic jihadist militant groups after 9/11.

Moderate and liberal Muslims worldwide - most of whom abhor the idea of terrorism - have long had legitimate grievances about the situations in Palestine, Iraq, and Kashmir. By successfully exploiting these issues while taking advantage of alienated Muslims' sentiments towards the Bush administration's foreign and domestic policies - including legislation such as the Patriot Act, which many American Muslims feel is discriminatory - terrorist groups were trying to get some of the more moderate Muslims over to their side.

And it often worked: the last eight years saw the worldwide burgeoning of homegrown terrorist cells (especially in Europe), the successful election of Hamas in Palestine, a competitive, well-funded and re-energized Hezbollah holding its own in its 2006 war with Israel, and an unshakeable (if now diluted) anti-US insurgency in Iraq that showcased nationalist Iraqis and al Qaeda fighting on the same side for the first time.

The goal that Islamists have always had is to create - and maintain - a clash of civilizations. To them, this is very much a war between Islam and the West, and this schism needs to be maintained. It's a little eerie to think that when George W. Bush told us that we could either be with him or against him, it may have been exactly what they wanted to hear.

Sure enough, as the Bush administration began its war in Iraq or broke unconditionally in favor of Israel, disillusioned Muslims - even the moderate, secular ones - found that they couldn't side with it. Amid the simplistic, black and white, this-way-or-that-way atmosphere that they were suspended in, they found that even their legitimate concerns - about legitimate issues - caused them to be lumped on the same side as the terrorists, who they couldn't side with either.

There was a reason why Osama bin Laden threw himself into 2004's US election. With John Kerry favored to win a few days before Election Day, bin Laden released a video that he knew would help play a role in re-electing George W. Bush.

Keeping Bush in power not only ensured that the alienation that moderate and liberal Muslims felt from the US government would stay intact, but - let's face it - it was one hell of a recruitment tool.

In declaring its support for John McCain this year across several websites, al Qaeda had hoped this would continue.

But it didn't.

Barack Obama's message resonated with billions worldwide. Not least among them were moderate and liberal Muslims who'd been in limbo during the Bush years. Obama's middle name didn't exactly hurt him here, but it was more than that: Obama seemed to have a sound understanding of the complexity of the geopolitical mileu that the war on terrorism is being waged in. His was the exact antithesis of the Bush approach. Fareed Zakaria said it best back in July:

"Obama rarely speaks in the moralistic tones of the current Bush administration. He doesn't divide the world into good and evil even when speaking about terrorism. He sees countries and even extremist groups as complex, motivated by power, greed and fear as much as by pure ideology. His interest in diplomacy seems motivated by the sense that one can probe, learn and possibly divide and influence countries and movements precisely because they are not monoliths. When speaking to me about Islamic extremism, for example, he repeatedly emphasized the diversity within the Islamic world, speaking of Arabs, Persians, Africans, Southeast Asians, Shiites and Sunnis, all of whom have their own interests and agendas."

Obama seemed to have the perspective that much of the world outside the United States - including most of the Muslim world - related to. With his election to the presidency, Islamic militant groups started to see millions of moderate Muslims begin to view the United States in a different light, joining Barack Obama's call for change instead of theirs.

In Iraq, al Qaeda had been given a front to fight the war it wanted, thanks to the Bush administration's knee-jerk response to 9/11. Bleeding the US military had been a stated goal of bin Laden, and now it was stretched thin - in two major wars. This didn't just help the al Qaeda folks in their jihad - it also strengthened the positions of countries like Iran, which was now able to both help finance and arm Hezbollah shockingly well in its 2006 war with Israel - and abet the Iraqi insurgency - virtually unhindered.

Now, as the newly elected US administration promises to shift its focus from Iraq to Afghanistan (a war that has never been opposed by Muslims even remotely as vehemently as the war in Iraq), Islamists are facing a problem.

Recently elected Pakistani president Asif Zardari has tacitly been approving US airstrikes on Pakistani soil. As relations with India warmed steadily, Zardari made some of the most conciliatory remarks towards India of any former Pakistani head of state. Last month, he referred to Kashmiri insurgents - for the first time - as "terrorists" instead of "freedom fighters". Then, after a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, he proposed a policy of nuclear non-proliferation between the two countries, ruling out first use of nuclear weapons in a potential conflict.

As much as Zardari's actions may have upset some in his own intelligence agency (the ISI) and Pakistan's military officials, they delighted the United States, for whom better India-Pakistan relations would translate into a reduction of Pakistani troops at its India border in favor of an increased presence at its border with Afghanistan.

Suddenly, there was a lot of love in the air, and that wasn't exactly helping the Islamist agenda. So they decided to throw a wrench into the whole thing last week by descending on Mumbai.

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Could they be getting what they were aiming for?

At the street level, emotions are still running high in a city where moderate to liberal Hindus and Muslims have been able to coexist relatively peacefully. Now, there are signs of an emerging cleft between the two.

India has placed blame on Pakistan for the attacks, and no one can really blame them for thinking so. (Pakistan has long supported organizations like the banned-since-2002 chief suspect Lashkar-e-Toiba, and its intelligence and military establishments are known to contain terrorist sympathizers.) As India handed Pakistan a list of names of terrorism suspects to turn over, it also announced its plans to increase troop presence at its border with Pakistan in a show of strength.

Both Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Senator John McCain are visiting India this week to show solidarity, and probably to help ease the tension - a shift of Pakistan's focus from the Afghani to the Indian border doesn't exactly help the United States' interests in the region.

The perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks knew that well. We may not know for sure who they are, but it is pretty clear what they want - and so far they haven't had much reason to complain.

They want Pakistan and India to play the blame game. They want to effectively reverse the recent progress that has made in the countries’ relations. They want for Hindus in India to feel unsafe, and for Muslims to feel alienated. They want fresh lines of separation to be drawn. They want a shift in Pakistan's focus (and troops) towards India and away from Afghanistan. They want to inject fresh energy to keep their clash of civilizations alive.

They know they can't destroy their enemy, but they can handicap and fragment it, by manipulating its politics, targeting its economy, bleeding its military, and coaxing it into war.

We have all seen that happen with the United States in the last eight years, and it wasn't fun for anyone except those who instigated it.

If the world can't rise above it this time - and again takes the bait - who wins?