Don't Look Over There
by digby
In the course of a discussion of another of Fred Kagan's shrieking justifications (in which he now calls war opponents "hyper-sophisticates" which is really funny coming from an AEI think tanker) Kevin Drum poses a question today that I wonder about all the time, particularly in light of Joe Biden's awesome Perry Mason moment yesterday:
I think most of us hyper-sophisticates believe that Iraq is more than just a distraction from fighting al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan. There's a much broader argument here about the effective use of American military power that Kagan ignores. Still, he's got a point about Pakistan. That is where al-Qaeda is mostly holed up these days, and no one — not liberals, not conservatives, not anyone — really has any bright ideas about how to root them out. Long story short, it's not clear if the U.S. military could do it even if we wanted them to, and in any case, no one wants to start a war with Pakistan.
Obviously this isn't a reason to stay in Iraq. If anything, it's yet another demonstration of the limits of military force. Still, it's a good question: what should we do about al-Qaeda in Pakistan? Nobody ever seems to want to talk very concretely about that.
I've actually found this to be a frustrating question since the beginning of the Mighty GWOT. Pakistan really is a problem and nobody knows what to do about it. As Kevin says, it's a perfect example of the limits of military power. I'd be interested in knowing if any Very Serious people have other ideas, particularly since the Strong Man the democracy loving Bush administration backed is losing power.
One thing we do know is that US policy for the past seven years has not been successful, except to the extent that we haven't had a nuclear war. (Small favors.) There's a reason for that:
The roots of the crisis go back to the blind bargain Washington made after 9/11 with the regime that had heretofore been the Taliban's main patron: ignoring Musharraf's despotism in return for his promises to crack down on al-Qaeda and cut the Taliban loose. Today, despite $10 billion in U.S. aid to Pakistan since 2001, that bargain is in tatters; the Taliban is resurgent in Afghanistan, and al-Qaeda's senior leadership has set up another haven inside Pakistan's chaotic border regions.
The problem is exacerbated by a dramatic drop-off in U.S. expertise on Pakistan. Retired American officials say that, for the first time in U.S. history, nobody with serious Pakistan experience is working in the South Asia bureau of the State Department, on State's policy planning staff, on the National Security Council staff or even in Vice President Cheney's office. Anne W. Patterson, the new U.S. ambassador to Islamabad, is an expert on Latin American "drugs and thugs"; Richard A. Boucher, the assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs, is a former department spokesman who served three tours in Hong Kong and China but never was posted in South Asia. "They know nothing of Pakistan," a former senior U.S. diplomat said.
Current and past U.S. officials tell me that Pakistan policy is essentially being run from Cheney's office. The vice president, they say, is close to Musharraf and refuses to brook any U.S. criticism of him. This all fits; in recent months, I'm told, Pakistani opposition politicians visiting Washington have been ushered in to meet Cheney's aides, rather than taken to the State Department.
Assuming we can avoid disaster until Deadeye Dick is happily ensconced back in Wyoming counting his ill-gotten gains, what to do? Has anyone read a good book on the subject? Have any bright ideas themselves?
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