Pakistan and the Future of U.S. Policy, Cato Policy Analysis No. 636

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A spreading Islamic insurgency engulfs theamorphous and ungoverned border betweenAfghanistan and Pakistan.Afterinitial victoriesbythe United States and the Northern Alliance inautumn 2001, hundreds of Taliban and al Qaedafighters fled Afghanistan to seek refuge across theborder in Pakistans rugged northwest. Since2007, the number of ambushes, militant offen-sives, and targeted assassinations has risen sharply

across Afghanistan, while suicide bombers andpro-Taliban insurgents sweep through settledareas of Pakistan at an alarming pace. For betterandforworse,Pakistan will remainthefulcrum ofU.S. policy in the regionits leaders continue toprovide vital counterterrorism cooperation andhave received close to $20 billion in assistancefrom the United States, yet elements associatedwithits nationalintelligenceagency,Inter-ServicesIntelligence, covertly assist militant proxy groupsdestabilizing the region.

Instead of surginginto this volatile region, the

United States must focus on limiting cross-bordermovementalongtheAfghanistan-Pakistanfrontierand supporting local Pakistani security forces witha small numberofU.S. Special Forcespersonnel. To

improve fighting capabilities and enhance coopera-tion, Washington andIslamabadmust increase thenumber of Pakistani officers trained through theU.S. Department of Defense International MilitaryEducationand Training program. In addition, U.S.aid to Pakistan must be monitored more closely toensurePakistans military does notdivertU.S. assis-tance to the purchase of weapons systems that canbe used against its chief rival, India. Most impor-

tant, U.S. policymakers must stop embracing a sin-glePakistanileaderorbacking a singlepoliticalpar-ty, as they unwisely did with Pervez Musharraf andthe late Benazir Bhutto.

Americas actions are not passively acceptedby the majority of Pakistans population, andofficials in Islamabad cannot afford to be per-ceived as putting Americas interests above thoseof their own people. Because the long-term suc-cess of this nuclear-armed Muslim-majoritycountry depends on the publics repudiation ofextremism, and our continued presence in Af-

ghanistan is adding more fuel to violent religiousradicalism, our mission in the region, as well asour tactics, our objectives, and our interests,must all be reexamined.

Pakistan and the Future of U.S. Policyby Malou Innocent

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Malou Innocent is a foreign policy analyst at the Cato Institute. She recently came back from a fact-finding trip toPakistan.

Executive Summary

No. 636 April 13, 2009


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Introduction

Since 2002, al Qaeda and the Taliban havefound sanctuary in the vast unpoliced region

of western Pakistan, known as the FederallyAdministered Tribal Areas. Pro-Taliban insur-gents cross FATAs highly porous border with Afghanistan to kill U.S. and NATO troops.The insurgency is spilling over into Pakistanstwo westernmost provinces adjoining FATA,Balochistan and North-West Frontier Prov-ince, with frequent reports of beheadedwomen, kidnapped Pakistani soldiers, andmutilated tribal elders. In some areas of FATA,relentless Taliban incursions have already ledto the complete collapse of civilian and tribal

administration. In addition, former CIA direc-tor General Michael Hayden believed the nextattack on the U.S. homeland is likely to origi-nate from western Pakistan. The danger isgrowing, withviolence spreading to Pakistanslarge urban centers, including Peshawar,Karachi, and Islamabad. Political observershave grown wary of the integrity of Pakistansmilitary command structure, and are con-cerned about militants taking over its nuclearweapons.

All three issuesthe nature of thespreading

insurgency,itsimpactontheU.S.-NATOeffortin Afghanistan, and the security of Pakistansnuclear arsenalare important to Americassecurity. But policymakers must remain flexi-ble with leaders in Islamabad. Paradoxically,our dependence on them constrains the use-fulness of their support. For example, three-quarters of provisions for U.S. and NATOtroops must travel via FATAs Khyber Pass.This tribal agency has experienced some of thegrisliest fighting. Because Khyber is the most vital military supply line into landlocked

Afghanistan, it will be jeopardized if securityconditions worsen. Other supply routes arebeing considered. An agreement with Georgiaand Kazakhstan has been reached, and talksare ongoing with Azerbaijan and Uzbekistanthe latter having expelled U.S. forces from itsterritory in 2005 in a dispute over humanrightsissues. Kyrgyzstansgovernmentrecently

voted toend Americas use ofits Manas air basefollowing Russias announcementofbillions ofdollars in new aid. While the move may havebeen political, after the closure of Uzbekistansair base, Kyrgyzstans is the only U.S. military

facility left in the Central Asia region.Given the aftermath of the August 2008conflict in Georgia, establishing a new northern corridor inside Russias sphere of influ-ence may require Washington to offer con-cessions to Moscow, such as offering anunofficial quid pro quo by halting furtherNATO expansion, or delaying the proposedinstallation of long-range ground-based mis-sile defense interceptors in Poland and a mid-course guidance radar in the Czech Republic.

Another alternative would be route

through Iran, which has linguistic, geograph-ic, and historical ties to Afghanistan. In recentdecades, Tehran has had more influence overthe countrys Tajik-dominated north ratherthan its Pashtun-dominated south. Despitethree decades of hostile U.S.-Iran relations,the interests of Tehran and Washington haveoverlapped occasionally, most recently whenIran quietly supported Americas effort tooust the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Butuntil Washington either withdraws fromAfghanistan or establishes warmer relations

with Iran or Russia, logistical and geopoliticalissues mean that U.S. policy in the region, atleast for the foreseeable future, will remainhostage to events inside Pakistan.

To make matters worse, Washingtonsdiminished leverage over Islamabad meanselements of its military and intelligence service may continue to take advantage oAmericas dependence by failing to tackle ter-rorism more vigorously. As former secretaryof state Condoleezza Rice once observed:

Americas al-Qaida policy wasnt work-ing because our Afghanistan policywasnt working. And our Afghanistanpolicy wasnt working because ourPakistan policy wasnt working . . . al-Qaida was both client of and patron tothe Taliban, which in turn was sup-ported by Pakistan. Those relation-

2

U.S. policyin the region,at least for the

foreseeable

future, willremainhostageto events inside

Pakistan.


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ships provided al-Qaida with a power-ful umbrella of protection, and we hadto sever them.1

Except for Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and

other tribally based militant groups strikingtargets in the Pakistani government, mostPakistani defense officials do not perceive theoriginalAfghan Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba,theHaqqani network, and other specific proxygroups as their enemies, but as a means ofextending their geopolitical reach into Af-ghanistan and throughout the region. Untilrogue elements of Pakistans state apparatusmake a fundamental shift in strategic priori-ties, U.S. and NATO attempts to stabilizeeastern and southern Afghanistan remain

futile.In the short-term, the highly porous

Afghanistan-Pakistan border will continue tobe used as a giant sieve, allowing militantsbased in FATA to graduallyexpandtheir polit-ical and economic influence inside Afghani-stan and undermine the efforts of coalitionforces. If U.S. strikes and incursions launchedinto FATA from Afghanistan are to be suc-cessful they must coordinate heavily with civil-ian and military officials in Islamabad.

In the medium-to-long term, Washington

must be prepared to accept a less-than-defini-tive victory in this region. Given the magni-tude of the atrocities unleashed on September11, removing both al Qaeda and the Talibanorganization that sheltered them was theappropriate level of retaliation. The questionof why we remain in Afghanistan, however, isseldom raised.

The Sisyphean task of nation building Afghanistan will undermine our economicand geostrategic interests. If we set ourselvesthe objective of creating some sort of a Central

Asian Valhalla over there,we will lose, warnedU.S. secretary of defense Robert Gates tomembers of the House Armed Services Com-mittee in January 2009. Because nobody inthe world has that much time, patience, ormoney, to be honest.2

Critics of U.S. military interventions havebeen too quick to invoke the Vietnam analo-

gy in the past. But in Afghanistan, it is quitepossible that U.S. and NATO forces couldfight for decades, win every discrete engage-ment, and still not achieve anything remote-ly resembling victory.3

The Recent History of theAfghanistan-Pakistan

BorderWhen considering what steps must be tak-

en to contain the regions insurgency, it helpsto understand the troubled history and theshaky foundation on which that region nowrests. One impediment to the areas long-termviability is the Durand Line, the nebulous bor-

der Pakistan shares with Afghanistan.In 1893, British civil servant, Sir Henry

Mortimer Durand, and his Afghan counter-part, Amir Abdul Rahman Khan, delineatedAfghanistan as a buffer with which to protectBritish Indias northwest frontier from Russianarmies. But like many acts of British colonialadministration, the Durand Line was born outof political and military expediency, as well as afundamental neglect of the regions ethniccomposition. Tribes, sometimes even villages,were divided, recorded Sir Martin Ewans, for-

mer British head of chancery in Kabul.4Because it was created without regard to

the wishes of native Pashtun tribes, theregions inhabitants ignored the border.Having endured successive waves of Persian,Greek, Arab, Turk, and Mughal invaders, thezealously independent and battle-testedtribes repeatedly repulsed Britains colonialarmies, leaving a thin slice of rugged territoryunconquered by the Raj. Because Britainsinterference only exacerbated conflict, andthe people of this region preferred to be gov-

erned by their own tribal customs, the Britishinstituted the colonial policy of noninterfer-ence, or masterly inactivity, in the internalaffairs of the Pashtun tribes.

Although each tribe was collectively re-sponsible for law and order in its own area,over time, the regions deep ravines and iso-lated valleys became a breeding ground for

3

Until rogueelements ofPakistans stateapparatus makea fundamentalshift in strategicpriorities, U.S.and NATOattempts to

stabilize easternand southernAfghanistanremain futile.


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smugglers and drug traders, outlaws and ter-rorists. The mountainous tribal belt strad-dling what would laterbecome the imaginaryborder between modern-day Pakistan and Afghanistan eventually earned the moniker

Yaghistan, or Land of the Rebels.

5

The region and the policy of noninterfer-ence were later inherited by the independentgovernment of Pakistan under GovernorGeneral Mohammad Ali Jinnah in 1947. Tothis day, this tribal area remains within theterritorial confines of Pakistan yet formallyoutside of its constitution.

Relations between Afghanistan and Paki-stan did not have an auspicious beginning.When Pakistan sought admission to theUnited Nations, Afghanistan cast the only dis-

senting vote.6

The main factor was a disputeover the Pashtun tribal areas adjoining bothcountries. Pashtuns are Afghanistans largestethnic group, about 13.5 million of the coun-trys 31 million people. Despite being a minor-ity in Pakistan, more Pashtuns live in Pakistanthan in Afghanistan (about 25.4 million).

Over the decades, various Afghan leadersrefusedto recognize the Durand Line and want-ed to annex Pakistans Pashtun-dominated trib-al regions, including FATA, Balochistan, andNorth-West Frontier Province, forming a sepa-

rate and independent Pakhtunistan.7 Bothcountries almost went to war over the issue in1954.

The Turning PointWith only a few minor periods of discord,

Washington and Islamabad were strategicpartners throughout the Cold War. But Paki-stan evolved from a marginal U.S. partner toa pivotal U.S. ally in December 1979, whenthe Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.8 ToWashington the invasion was a nightmare,

coming just one month after the seizure ofthe American embassy in Tehran and lessthan five years after Americas retreat fromVietnam. For many policymakers, the Sovietinvasion of Afghanistan solidified the im-pressionthat countries around the worldnei-ther respected nor feared the United States.9

In Washington, President Jimmy Carters

National SecurityAdvisor, Zbigniew Brzezinskiproposed a plan to counterthe Soviet offensiveIt was initiallya nonlethal propaganda andpsy-chological operations campaign, but it soonbecame a plan to bleed the Soviets dry.

At the time, the CIA had few intelligencesources in Central Asia, and Pakistan, a long-time ally sharing a border with Afghanistan,became the logical choice to assist the covertoperation. Pakistans leader, General Moham-med Zia ul-Haq, who only two years earlier hadoverthrown (and later hanged) civilian primeminister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, turned downCarters initial offer of $400 million as pea-nuts.10

General Zia was later rewarded with a five-year, $3.2 billion military aid package from

President Ronald Reagan, plus permission topurchase nuclear-capable F-16 fighters previ-ously available only to NATO allies andJapan.11 From 1982 through 1990, the UnitedStates gave over $4 billion in assistance toPakistan.12 Saudi Arabia agreed to match thataid dollar for dollar, as the Saudis were a long-time enemy of Moscow and a steadfast ally ofIslamabad.

Under this U.S.PakistanSaudi Arabiaalliance, the United States provided trainingcoordination, and strategic intelligence; the

Saudis provided the money and recruitmentof Afghan mujahideen (Islamic holy war-riors); and the Pakistanis provided their ter-ritory as a base of operations and acted as thesole liaison with Afghan forces.13

The Pakistani national intelligence agencyInter-Services Intelligence, funded by the U.SCentral Intelligence Agency and Saudi Arabiadirected the bulk of the money and militaryhardware to the most radical and intolerantfactions of the mujahidin, such as Hizb-i-Islami (the Party of Islam) led by Gulbuddin

Hekmatyar, a radical Afghan guerrilla leaderwho emerged as the ISIs most powerfulclient.14

ISI officers insisted to CIA officials thatHekmatyar was the most efficient at killingSoviets; they based their assessment onreviews of battlefield damage reports and themovement of weapons shipments, and they

4

To this day,this tribal arearemainswithinthe territorialconfines ofPakistan yet

formallyoutside of itsconstitution.


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discovered that the best organized fighterswere led by Hekmatyar.15 ISI officers alsoassumedthey could control Hekmatyar moreeasily than other mujahideen leaders.

The SovietAfghan War was yet another

chapter in an ongoing saga between Pakistanand Afghanistan. Islamabad viewedthe SovietAfghanWarasanopportunitytoensurethat anIslamic government aligned with Pakistan,rather than a secular pro-Soviet governmentaligned with India, would come to power inKabul after the Soviets withdrew. In addition,Islamabads recent memory of losing EastPakistan (which seceded with Indias assistancein 1971 and became the independent countryof Bangladesh) made many of its leaders evenmore fearful of irredentist Afghan leaders stir-

ring up trouble in its geopolitical back yardaloss of strategic depth they believed wouldleave their country even more vulnerable to thenext full-scale Indianassault.16

Given the CIAs limited knowledge of thelocalculture,they deferredtothePakistanis,theexperts in the region. But the CIA overlookedthat the ISI intended to exert its influence overAfghanistan and deny India a chance to gainpowerby supportingtheir preferredproxies. Tothis end, the ISI did not sponsor more tolerantAfghan nationalist factions of the resistance.

That decision profoundly shaped the missionand its aftermath. By aiding the most extremefactions of the mujahideen, the anti-Sovietjihad facilitated the emergence of Islamic fun-damentalism in Afghanistan and, later, theadvance of a Taliban government that wouldone day provide shelter to the al Qaeda organi-zation directly responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

Pakistans own religious character alteredsignificantly during the 1980s. School text-books were overhauled to ensure their ideolog-ical purity, writes Zahid Hussain in Frontline

Pakistan: The Struggle with Militant Islam. Booksdeemed un-Islamic were removed from syl-labuses and university libraries. It was madecompulsory for civil servants to pray five timesa day.17 GeneralZia also enacted Islamist ordi-nances within the court system, encouragedprayer in the barracks, and posted an imam inevery military unit.18 During Zias rule, the

countrys Sunni-Islamic push was geared notonly toward combating infidel Soviets, buttoward countering the rise of the Shiite revolu-tion across the border in Iran.

Before the SovietAfghan War, the tribes

and the independent government of Pakistanshared power in FATA. During the war, whenFATA and North-West Frontier Province func-tionedasthe rearbase ofthe Afghan resistance,a third entity emerged, that of jihadist mili-tants. In FATA, Pakistans army and ISI over-saw the mushrooming of religious schoolscalled madaris (plural of madrassah) financedby the Saudi government.19

While propagating militancy was not theoriginal intent when madaris were first estab-lished in 11th-century Baghdad, in the Paki-

stan of the mid-1980s madaris were aimed atindoctrinating Muslim youths in radical inter-pretations of Islam and propagating a militantanti-Western worldview.20 Ahmed Rashid,author ofTaliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Funda-mentalismin Central Asia, estimates that in 1971only 900 madaris existed in all of Pakistan. By1988, that number had swelled to 8,000withanother 25,000 unregistered.21

Jilted PartnerU.S. relations with Islamabad soon cooled

afterthe signing ofthe Geneva Accordsin April1988, which ratified the official terms of Sovietwithdrawal.22 In 1990, U.S. Ambassador toPakistan Robert Oakley went to Islamabad todeliver a sternmessage:Americawouldbe insti-tuting sanctions against Pakistan under thePressler Amendment of 1985, which specifiedthat no military equipment or technology wasto be sold or transferred to the country unlessPresident Reagan could certify that Pakistandid not have a nuclear device, was not develop-ing a nuclear device, and was not acquiring the

technology to make a nuclear device. 23

General Zia would later tell CIA directorWilliam Casey that being an ally of theUnited States was equivalent to living on thebanks of an enormous river: The soil is won-derfully fertile, but every four or eight yearsthe river changes course, and you may findyourself alone in a desert.24

5

The anti-Sovietjihad facilitatedthe emergenceof Islamic

fundamentalismin Afghanistanand, later, theadvance of aTalibangovernment.


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After the Soviets withdrew from Afghani-stan and America imposed sanctions onPakistan, ISI decided to redirect the proxymethods employed against the Soviets toward jihad against India in Kashmir. By 1992,

Afghanistans Soviet-installed regime col-lapsed and gave way to civil war among rivalguerrilla factions of the mujahideen. The twomost notable groups were a Sunni Pashtunmovement known as the Taliban, led byMullah Mohammed Omar, and the Tajik-dominated movement known as the NorthernAlliance, led by Ahmad Shah Massoud.25

The Taliban captured the importantsouthern city of Kandahar in the winter of1994, and seized Kabul in 1996. Pakistanwould be one of three countries to formally

recognize the Taliban as the official govern-ment of Afghanistan.26 In return for the ISIsassistance, the Taliban allowed Pakistansarmy to operate dozens of training camps inAfghanistan for the struggle against India inKashmir.

Former Pakistani president and retiredarmy General Pervez Musharraf said at a pressconference in Islamabad in 2000, Afghani-stans majority ethnic Pashtuns have to be onour side . . . the Taliban cannot be alienated byPakistan. We have a national security interest

there.27Throughout the 1990s, Washington put

little to no pressure on the Talibans biggestbenefactors: Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Evenafter the CIA documented links between theISI, the Taliban, and Osama bin Laden, theregion remained on the periphery of U.S. poli-cymaking. The U.S. embassy in Kabul wasclosed in 1988, and the regions closest CIAstation, based in Islamabad, did not even haveAfghanistan on a list of intelligence-gatheringpriorities. But Pakistans recognition of

Afghanistans repressive Taliban regime, cou-pled with General Musharrafs overthrow ofhis countrys democratically elected PrimeMinister Nawaz Sharif in October 1999,turned his country into an international pari-ah. Just as the anti-Soviet jihad 10 years earlierhadforgedclose ties between Washington andIslamabad, tectonic shifts in the geopolitical

landscape would bring the estranged alliestogether once again.

U.S.-Pakistan Relations,

Post-9/11Two days after the September 11th attacks

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State RichardArmitage handed a single sheet of paper toGeneral Mahmoud Ahmed, director general ofthe ISI and a vociferous supporter of theTaliban.28 Printed on the sheet were seven non-negotiable demands for Pakistans leaderGeneral Musharraf.In returnforWashingtonsrepeal of previous sanctions, a five-year aidpackage worth $3 billion, and the forgiveness

of outstanding debt to the United States andother Western nations, Pakistan would allowbasing, staging and overflight support for allU.S. aircraft for the war in Afghanistan, allowAmericaaccessto naval bases andairports, provideintelligencesharingandcooperation, dropsupport for the Taliban, and purge the upperechelons of its military and nuclear facilities ofreligious extremists.29 Musharraf acceptedWashingtons demands.

He also agreedto ban Kashmirirebel groupsLashkar-e-TaibaandJaish-e-Mohammad,which

had ties to al Qaeda predating 9/11.30 Jaish-e-Mohammadwasa jihadigroup formerlytrainedby the Pakistan army to fight in India-adminis-tered Kashmir; at the time of 9/11, the grouphad a large following among the lower ranks ofPakistans armed forces.31 Lashkar-e-Taiba, amilitant proxy group created by the ISI, allegedly trained militants responsible for theNovember 2008 Mumbai attacks, according toU.S.andIndian intelligence.Both organizationsare believed to be so big and well-financed theycanoperate independent of the state.32

Months after the official beginning ofOperation Enduring Freedom on the eveningof October 6, 2001, along with the U.S.-led aircampaign known as Operation CrescentWind, al Qaeda and Taliban militants pouredover Afghanistans border into Pakistan andfound refuge in FATA. The regionroughlythe size of Massachusetts and home to more

6

ISI decidedto redirect theproxymethods

employed againstthe Soviets toward

jihad againstIndia inKashmir.


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than 3 million Pashtunswas an ideal sanctu-ary. The tribes native to FATA adhere to thepre-Islamic tribal codeofPashtunwali,whichbycustom extends assistance to strangers whorequest protection.

FATA had once provided fertile recruitingground for foot soldiers waging jihad againstthe Soviet Union in the 1980s and againstIndia in Kashmir and the Northern Alliancein Afghanistan in the 1990s. Much of theregions inhospitable mountainous terraincan support only foot traffic or pack animals,making it difficult to infiltrate and to moni-tor militant activity.

By spring 2002, less than a year after theinitial invasion of Afghanistan, that sanctu-ary became even safer after President Bush

decided to pull most of Americas SpecialOperations Forces and CIA paramilitaryoperatives off the hunt for Osama bin Ladenso they could be redeployed for a possible warin Iraq.33All of these factors greatly alleviatedpressure on the remaining Taliban and alQaeda forces.

Between spring 2002 and spring 2008,militants were able to consolidate their holdover northwestern Pakistan. The growingpower of militants has had ominous implica-tions for the U.S.-led mission in southern

and eastern Afghanistan. Indeed, by the sum-mer of 2008, the situation in Afghanistanhad deteriorated significantly.

Afghanistan DestabilizedIn June 2008, the deadliest month of the

deadliestyear fortheUnited States andNATOsince the invasion, a sophisticated Talibanassault on a Kandahar prison freed 1,200inmates, including 350 Taliban. Attacks fromimprovised explosive devices (IEDs), devel-oped in Iraq and brought to the Afghan bat-

tlefield, have doubled in the past year. IEDsnow take U.S. and NATO lives more than anyother tactic.34

The Talibans presence is strongest in thesouthern provinces of Helmand, Kandahar,Zabol, and Oruzgan, and militant activity issignificant in the eastern provinces of Paktika,Khowst, Nangarhar, Konar, and Nuristan. In

many of these areas, the Taliban have usurpedthe traditional functions of a sovereign state,collecting taxes, enforcing order, and provid-ing basic services.35

NATOs International Security Assistance

Force ofnearly55,000troops and 25ProvincialReconstruction Teams are finding it increas-ingly difficult to combat a resurgent Talibanwhile simultaneously attempting to rebuildthe war-ravaged nation.36

Many commentators argue that the majorcause of Afghanistans deterioration remainspoor central governance from Kabul, as war-lords fill the vacuum left by President Karzaisweak and corrupt leadership. While these alle-gations may be true, President Karzai contin-ues to demand greater control over NATO

operations and has grown increasingly vocalabout the need to limit civilian casualties.Most recently, he offered direct talks withTaliban leader Mullah MohammadOmar andGulbuddin Hekmatyar, reportedly hosted byKing Abdullah in the Saudi city of Mecca.

President Karzai aside,Afghanistans patch-work of tribal factions, as those found inPakistans tribal areas, has proven historicallydifficult to govern. The only Afghan ruler ableto secure the allegiance of warring tribes wasAhmed Shah Durrani, who died in 1772. His

empire disintegrated soon after his death.Asidefrom pocketsofWild Westconditions,

another factor contributing to Afghan-istansdownward spiral is the de facto al Qaeda andTaliban sanctuaries in Pashtun and Balochiareas of western Pakistan. NATOs stalematewill continue so long as militants remain pro-tected across the border.

Militancy in Pakistan

Each of Pakistans seven tribal agencies areadministered by a political agent, who securestribal loyalties, maintains control through thecolonial-era Frontier Crimes Regulation, andanswers directly to thegovernor of North-WestFrontier Province, who himself answers direct-ly to the president of Pakistan, who claimsdirect jurisdiction over FATA.37 Traditionally,

7

NATOsstalemate willcontinue so longasmilitantsremain protectedacross theborde


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tribal leaders (maliks) form a meeting or assem-bly (jirga) to orchestrate consensus decisionsand to turn orders into workable policy.

But over the past several years, these tradi-tional tribal arrangements have been slowlybreaking down. The mutilated bodies of morethan 150 pro-government tribal elders havebeen found in FATAs scattered hamlets.38

Terrorists expand where security is thin, andoffer their own brand of swift justice and idealvisions of an Islamic state. Poverty, poor edu-

cation, and extremist sentiments haveempow-ered militant groups with whom the govern-ment has never competed. Tribes, clans, and

elementsof extended families not aligned withthe Taliban fear reprisal. Only some tribalmilitias (lashkars) are able to fight back.

According to senior U.S. intelligence offi-cials, the Taliban, al Qaeda, and allied terror-ist groups have established 157 trainingcamps along the tribal region, and have morethan 400 support locations in the tribal areas

8

Themutilatedbodies ofmorethan 150 pro-government

tribal elders havebeen found in

FATAs scatteredhamlets.

Figure 1

Pakistans Federally Administered Tribal Areas

Source: Government Accountability Office, Report to Congressional Requesters, Combating Terrorism: The United

States Lacks Comprehensive Plan to Destroy the Terrorist Threat and Close the Safe Haven in Pakistans Federally

Administered Tribal Areas, GAO-08, April 2008, http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08622.pdf, p. 7.


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and in North-West Frontier Province.39 Thesecurity situation in each of FATAs seventribal agencies has grown worse in the pastfew years.

Bajaur AgencyOne militant group that operates in theBajaur Agency, as well as in North-WestFrontier Provinces Swat Valley, is Tehreek-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM-Move-ment for the Enforcement of Islamic Laws),headed by Maulana Fazlullah.40 The area con-tinues to be a source of Taliban recruits. In2007, TNSM prevented children from gettingpolio vaccines, as they considered them to be aWestern plot to sterilize Muslims.41

In April 2008, TNSM tried to impose

Shariah lawformally inNWFPsMalakand dis-trict.ByAugustandSeptember2008, Pakistanisecurity forces equipped with heavy artilleryand gunship helicopters killed dozens of ter-rorists, including foreign fighters. The aerialbombardement displaced 200,000 locals.

Mohmand AgencyIn Mohmand, insurgents continually over-

run checkpoints and kidnap Frontier Corps(FC) soldiers, the local paramilitary forcesrecruited from the tribal region.42 In October

2007, militants publicly beheaded six allegedcriminals and flogged three others. In August2008, more than 75 villages were intheprocessof evacuation due to intense clashes betweentroops and local militants. Many of the mili-tants were equipped with Kalashnikovs androcket-propelled grenades.

During the summer of 2008, Pakistaniofficials announced a truce with local mili-tants: the tribes agreed not to shelter foreignmilitants and the military agreed not tolaunch operations without consulting tribal

elders.The deal was pursued because Pakistans

army and FC experienced disastrous losses inconfrontations with insurgents. Also, thearmy is more inclined to fight India, not acivil war within its borders. But since initiat-ed, this deal and others like it have failed, pre-cipitating a resurgence of Taliban hostilities.

The glaring weakness with the peace dealswas that they functioned more as appease-ment rather than a concerted effort to con-tain radicalism.

Khyber AgencyThe traditional invasion route betweenCentral Asia and the Indian Subcontinent,Khyber is the tribal agency through which 75percent of U.S.-NATO supplies must move inorder to resupply troops fighting in Afghan-istan. Supplies arrive in Pakistans port city ofKarachi, move north to Peshawar, and headwest before crossing into Afghanistan andarriving in Kabul.43 The rest of the suppliesarrive via air or through the Chaman bordercrossing point in Balochistan. According to

U.S. officials, American forces in Afghanistanhave stockpiled enough supplies to last a 60 to90 day severance of the supply chain.

Over the past year, jihadist groups haverepeatedly interdicted the supply route.44 InMarch 2008, dozens of oil tankers headed forAfghanistan were attacked in the tribal townof Landi Kotal. Sixty tankers caught fire and35 were completely destroyed.45 That samemonth, militants also set fire to over 40 oiltankers near the Torkham border post.46 Thatsummer, militant group Lashkar-e-Islam

repeatedly attacked NATO supply vehiclesentering Afghanistan.47 By November, insur-gents hijacked trucks carrying Humvees, fuel,and other supplies. In December 2008, gun-men torched more than 160 vehicles inPeshawar, located on the edge of the KhyberPass. It was the biggest assault yet on the vitalmilitary supply line. In February 2008, mili-tants blew up Khybers red metal bridge.

Orakzai AgencyIn September 2008, locals from eight vil-

lages formed a 2,000-man force to combatterrorism.48 In recent months, the headlessbodies of police cadets have been discoveredthroughout the agency. In the past, militantshave attacked military convoys using remote-controlled devices planted along roadsides.In Orakzai, FC soldiers have also been be-sieged at local agency checkpoints.

9

The securitysituation in eachof FATAs seventribal agencies

has grown worsein the past fewyears.


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Kurram AgencyKurram was the first point of refuge for al

Qaeda and the Taliban after the October 2001invasion of Afghanistan.49 The agency is alsowell known forits Shiite-Sunni violence,which

has now spilled over into neighboring OrakzaiAgency. In October 2006, a quarrel eruptedbetween the two factions over whether a shrineto the 18th century figure Syed Amir AnwarShah was meant for Sunnis or Shiites.50 InSeptember 2008, local newspapers reportedongoing violence between rival tribes.

Recently, tribal elders called on the gov-ernment of Pakistan to demolish madarisused for training militants, while one jirgaaccused the Afghan government, NATO, andIran of trying to kill Sunni Muslims.51

North Waziristan AgencyMany experts are firmly convinced that al

Qaedas two main leaders, Osama bin Ladenand Ayman al-Zawahiri, are based in NorthWaziristan, possibly near its capital, MiramShah.52 In late 2005, militants declared NorthWaziristan an Islamic state.53 Newspapers inthe region report that U.S. spy planes fre-quently conduct reconnaissance flights overthe area, and that mortar shells and rocketsfrom across the border in Afghanistan hit ter-

rorist training camps and centers operating inthe agency. These camps are believed to bereceiving direct commands from al-Zawahiri.

South Waziristan AgencyIn June 2008, Baitullah Mehsud, comman-

der of the tribal-based Islamic movementTehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, which operates asPakistans version of the Taliban, claimed theentire territory of South Waziristan.54 Mehsudhas been accused of playing a central role in awave of deadly suicide attacks that engulfed

Pakistan from November 2007 throughJanuary2008, and was named by CIA DirectorMichael Hayden as the prime suspect behindthe grisly December 2007 assassination ofPakistani politician Benazir Bhutto. Manytribes in this agency support the separation ofFATA from Pakistan. It has also been reportedthat the Taliban have three regional offices in

the area.55 South Waziristan is considered theoperations center of the Taliban and al Qaedaand local newspapers report that U.S. dronesare seen patrolling the agency.

Spillover and Response

Two of Pakistans provinces adjacent toFATA, Balochistan and North-West FrontierProvince (NWFP), have experienced spilloverfrom FATAs insurgency. NATO chief of stafffor southern Afghanistan, Colonel ChrisVernon, believes the thinking piece of theoriginal Afghan Taliban operates primarilyout of Quetta, the capital of Pakistans Balo-chistan province.56

In NWFP, in areas like Kohat, Taliban oper-ate out of local mosques and have emerged assubstitutes for Pakistani courts. Swat Valley,only a five-hour drive from Islamabad, is con-sidered thefirst settled district inPakistantohave fallen completely under Taliban controlThe raid by the Pakistani government on theRed Mosque (Lal Masjid) in Islamabad in July2007 intensified a wave of revenge attacksagainst the army and the government. Sincethen, loose networksof suicide bombers beganstriking Pakistans major cities, including

Peshawar, Karachi, and Islamabad.Beginning in 2004, the Pakistan Army

moved between 80,000 to 120,000 soldersinto FATA, and about 20,000 into NWFPsSwat Valley. The results have been mixedMany soldiers lack proper training, equip-ment, and communication gear.57 Like mostconventional forces, their army has sufferedsevere losses at the hands of elusive and adap-tive insurgents. Over a thousand Pakistanisoldiers have been killed in confrontationswith militants. One soldier told the BBC

This is a country where soldiers are slaugh-tered . . . Their bodies may be found, but nottheir heads.58

Militants also stage elaborate kidnap-pings. In August 2007, Baitullah Mehsudcaptured over 200 Pakistani troops whooffered little or no resistance.59 That embar-rassment was followed in October2007 when

10

Likemostconventional

forces, their armyhas suffered

severe losses atthe hands ofelusive and

adaptiveinsurgents.


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insurgents captured dozens of Pakistani sol-diers and paraded them in front of Westernjournalists.60 Some officers admit morale hasnot been this low since the army failed tostop East Pakistans secession in 1971.

A critical problem complicating U.S.-Pakistan relations and the NATO mission inAfghanistanis that under Musharraf, Pakistanwould target terrorists selectively, eradicatingindigenous Deobandi and Shiite militantgroups that did not share Islamabads broadervision vis--vis India, while turning a blind eyeto the Taliban to use them as a hedging policyin case the United States withdraws, and as aproxy force against Karzais regime in Afghan-istan that Pakistan accuses of being pro-India.61 Some analysts even suspect Osama bin

Laden escaped capture after the 2001 invasionof Afghanistan with a tip-off from ISI.62

But people in Washington who hadhoped Pakistans duplicity would disappearalong with Musharraf are likely to be disap-pointed. Musharraf should be understood asan extension of the military, as he reflects theconsensus view among the armys corps com-manders. Severing relations between the mil-itary and militants has proven difficult, notonly due to ideological and strategic sympa-thies, but because the army sometimes relies

on Pashtun militants as key informants inthe tribal region.63

U.S.officials acknowledge, however, that thePakistani government has captured more ter-roristsandcommittedmore troops thanalmostanyothernationinthewaronterror.64 FormerDirector of National Intelligence MikeMcConnell praised Pakistans cooperation, say-ing Islamabad has done more to neutralizeterrorists thananyAmerican partner.65

Recommendation 1:The Anbar Model

and Its LimitsIn late 2006 and through 2007, U.S. forces

in Iraqs al Anbar province teamed up withmore than 30 indigenous Sunni tribes to fightal Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). Sunni tribes agreed to

recruit thousands of men for the Iraqi armyandprovide intelligence to U.S. officials onthewhereabouts of AQI; in return, U.S. troopshelpedlocal tribesobtain water treatmentcen-ters and medical clinics, while Iraqs Interior

Ministry providedsupplies andother funding.Many commentators have drawn parallelsbetween Iraq and Afghanistan, and Iraq andthe Afghanistan-Pakistan border. But the dif-ferences between the two in terms of geogra-phy and socio-economic conditions willmake it difficult for U.S. forces to apply theIraq model to the region. Afghanistan is big-ger than Iraq in both size and population.Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan aremountainous and rural, whereas fighting inIraq is heavily concentrated in urban areas.

While it would be nave to assume that asolution in Iraq can be perfectly transplantedonto Afghanistan and Pakistan, it would beequally nave to assume that the conflictsshare no common elements. On both fronts,coalition forces confront adversaries who canmelt easily into the population. Both frontsare plagued by elements of criminal gang-sterism, sectarian violence, and jihadist in-surgencies, and both conflicts are ripe foremploying proven counterinsurgency tech-niques, such as recruiting indigenous allies,

maneuvering through tribal society, and cul-tivating legitimacy from the local populationwhile employing minimal force.

U.S. Central Command should seek toimplement some counterinsurgency tech-niques to the Afghanistan-Pakistan frontier.66

Pakistani security forces, with American tech-nical advice, should focus on protecting thepopulace and recruiting indigenous partnersto fight insurgents. It might even be necessaryto deploysmall numbersa few dozen to a fewhundredSpecial Forces personnel within

Pakistan as part of a larger covert operation insupport of local Pakistani security forces.

A lightfootprintis consistent with a centraltenet of counterinsurgency: applying militarypower preciselyand discriminately rather thanemploying overwhelming force. This coun-terinsurgency approach limits civilian casual-ties and lessens the possibility that U.S. tactics

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The armysometimes relieson Pashtunmilitants as keyinformants in thtribal region.


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will serve as a recruiting tool for militants.Moreover, civil unrest unleashed from a heavyU.S. combat presence in the tribal areas wouldstrain Pakistans army, forcing it to quell vio-lence and street protests elsewhere in the

countryat the cost of leaving thefrontier areaseven more unsupervised.While Pashtun loyalties have traditionally

lain with pro-Taliban militants, the murderand mutilation of hundreds of tribal leadershas created the potential for a backlash simi-lar to the anger indigenous Iraqi Sunnisexhibited against al Qaedas brutality andintimidation. Islamabad and Washingtonshould seek to exploit any manifestations ofsuch resentment among the tribes in FATA.

Tribal militias (lashkars) have succeeded in

standing up against the Taliban and al Qaedain the Lakki Marwat District of NWFP, andthe Char Dewal and Jalmai villages of theKurram Agency. But in areas like Khyber,Kohat, Waziristan, and Swat, there appears tobe no stopping the Talibans spread unlessmore support can be leveraged from Islama-bad.67 Building Pakistans counterinsurgencycapacity must be devoted to cultivating legiti-macy at the village level by earning the cooper-ation of local tribes and working together touproot common enemies.

In late spring 2008, a 40-page classifieddocument leaked to theNew York Times titled,Plan for Training the Frontier Corps, wasunder review at U.S. Central Command.68

Known as the Security Development Program(SDP), or train the trainers, the plan, initiat-ed in October 2008, was intended to improvesecurity by enhancing the fighting capabilityof the FrontierCorps.69 TheFC in Balochistanis roughly 80,000 strong. Approximately50,000 FC are split between NWFP and FATA.

Owais Ahmed Ghani, the Governor of

NWFP, recounted to the author during hervisit to Peshawar that the FC was conductingmajor military offensives against Islamicextremist strongholds in the Bajaur Agencyfor three days and nights with little water, nofood, and no sleep, thus exemplifying theirdedication. But other commentators aremore skeptical of the FCs capabilities.

One U.S. soldier said of them,the FrontierCorps might as well be Taliban . . . They areactive facilitators of infiltration.70

Essentially, FC soldiers are Pashtunsfighting fellow Pashtuns. If America does

decide to train the FC in counterinsurgencyoperations, it will take years, andmay stillnotresolve problems involving morale and moti-vation. To guard against tribal and clan loy-alties, FC may be directed not to fight in theirhome villages.71

During the late summer of 2008, a smallnumber of U.S. Army and special operationforces began training the Special ServicesGroup, a commando division in Pakistansarmy,to perform groundandairoperations inand around FATA. Working in coordination

with Pakistani security forces, more familiarwith the regions inhospitable terrain and thecultural and linguistic aspects of tribal societycan offer the mission in Afghanistan a higherlikelihood of succeeding. Putting a Pakistanirather than American face on operations inFATA is more likely to gain local support.

Aside from on-the-ground coordination isan emphasis on increased human-intelli-gence sharing. In March 2008, the first of six joint U.S.-Afghanistan-Pakistan militarintelligence centers were opened along the

Afghanistan-Pakistan border. The centers areintended to inhibit cross-border movementand coordinate information and tacticsamong U.S., Afghan, and Pakistani officials.U.S. Brigadier General Joseph Votel said threeof the centers will be built in Afghanistan andanother three inPakistan, at a cost ofabout $3million each. The centers will allow 20 peoplefrom each of the three countries to watch livevideo feeds from U.S. spy planes, which can beplayed back in real-time to ground forces onboth sides of the border.72

Unfortunately, less than a year later, U.Sofficials in Khyber report problems of lan-guage barriers, ongoing border disputesbetween Pakistani and Afghan field officers,and mistrust among all three militaries.73

Construction of the second intelligence sta-tion has been delayed due the recent spike in violence. Sealing the border is impossible

12

If Americadoes decide totrain the FC incounterinsur-

gency operations,itwill take years,and may still notresolveproblemsinvolvingmoraleandmotivation.


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given the hundreds of miles of rough moun-tainous terrainsome of the most formida-ble in the world.

General David Petraeus, chief of CentralCommand, has urged a major reassessment of

U.S. strategy in Afghanistan. Part of that strat-egy includes leveraging diplomatic initiativeswith countries in the region, as was done inIraq.74 This too will prove difficult. Pakistaniofficials claim Indias external intelligenceagency, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW),uses Indian consulates in Afghanistan tosecretly funnel weapons to separatists inBalochistan, and may have even had a hand inthe September 20th bombing of the Islama-bad Marriot Hotel. In addition to the connec-tion between Pakistans ISI and the Mumbai

terror attacks, U.S. intelligence officials allegethat elements of the ISI also provided supportto pro-Taliban insurgents responsible for theJuly 7th bombing of the Indian Embassy inKabul.

Any stoking of the ongoing rivalry withIndia will remain futile for Pakistan, asIndias military superiority will allow theIndians to keep hitting Pakistani pressurepoints. The conventional balance of poweron the subcontinent will likely remain withNew Delhi, given its enormous supply of

manpower and fast-developing economy. ForPakistan, the unparalleled level of suicideattacks has deeply undermined the countryscohesiveness. That combined with the coun-trys chronic political instability, growing civ-il unrest, and poor economic conditionsmeans Islamabad simply cannot afford tofight a long war on its northwest border andanother war with a country six times its sizeon the east.

Until hawkish elements associated withPakistans government and military estab-

lishments come to that conclusion them-selves, or U.S. policymakers successfullyassuage Pakistani fears of Indian hegemony,the United States and NATO will not havethe ISIs full cooperation. If Pakistans armyis unableor unwillingto neutralize FATAsinsurgency and U.S. forces continue attacksby unmanned Predator drones, the collateral

damage unleashed from such independentoperations will make the Taliban appear tobe a force against injustice and consequentlyundermine the very security Western forcesare attempting to provide.

During his campaign for the presidency,Barack Obama pledged to deploy moretroops to Afghanistan and to take the fightinto Pakistan. During the second presiden-tial debate, he said, if we have Osama binLaden in our sights and the Pakistani gov-ernment is unable or unwilling to take themout, then I think that we have to act and wewill take them out. We will kill bin Laden; wewill crush al Qaeda. That has to be ourbiggest national security priority.75

President Obama remains unequivocal in

his commitment to continue airstrikes. Buthe and his policy planners must recognizethat continuing airstrikes will undermine theauthority of President Zardari, as well asObamas ability to coordinate policies effec-tively with Pakistans civilian and militaryleaders. The presidents national securityteam must understand that the struggleagainst extremism would best be waged bybolstering Islamabads ability to competewith militants for political authority inFATA. If his administration simply increases

attacks from pilotless drones, it will onlypush more wavering tribes further into theTaliban camp, continue his predecessorspolicy of dictation, rather than cooperation,and undermine the perception within thePakistani body politic that Obama canchange U.S. policy toward the Muslim world.

Recommendation 2:Training

Marine Corps General Anthony C. Zinni,former chief of U.S. Central Command, saidthe following about Pakistans army beforethe U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee:

Because of the historic importance ofthe military as a source of stabilitywithin the country, I believe that isolat-

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The struggleagainstextremismwould best bewaged bybolsteringIslamabadsability to compewithmilitants fo

political authority inFATA.


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ing Pakistans influential militaryestablishment is and will continue tobe counterproductive to our long-terminterests in the region. When the U.S.isolates the professional Pakistan mili-

tary, we deny ourselves access to themost powerful institution in Pakistanisociety . . . I believe that our strategicinterests in South Asia and beyond willbest be served by a policy of patientmilitary-to-military engagement.76

However, the United States cannot rely onPakistans army in its present form to be aneffective ally against Americas terrorist adver-saries. To help overcome the armys sinkingmorale and poor performance, U.S. policy-

makersmust increase thenumber of Pakistaniarmy personnel trained at American militaryinstitutions through the U.S. Department ofDefense International Military Education andTraining program (IMET), which falls underthe DoDs Defense Security CooperationAgency (DSCA).

IMETs program for the Middle East,South Asia Division (MSA) provides finan-cial and technical assistance, the transfer ofdefense materials, training, and military-to-military contacts to build the capacity of

partner nations.77Atlantic Monthly foreign correspondent

Joshua Hammer spoke with Major GeneralShaukat Sultan Khan, Musharrafs press sec-retary until March 2007, who spent sixmonths in infantry school at Fort Benning,Georgia, in 1983. Khan explained how the American training shaped the mentality ofthousands of young officers of hisgeneration.It helps you to establish a better relationshipand more understanding [of the U.S. perspec-tive]. . . . It broadens your outlook. . . . It gave

us a connection.78

But after Congress imposed sanctions onPakistan following the discovery of its covertnuclear program in1990, Hammer found thatPakistani officers had little or no contact withthe U.S. military for nearly a generation.

Enhanced military relations may be espe-cially important because Americas relations

with Pakistans military threaten to get worsein the next few years. In Crossed Swords:

Pakistan, its Army, and the Wars Within, ShujaNawaz discovered that beginning in autumn2008, conservative elements within the army,

known asZia Bharti (Zias Recruits), are due totake over many senior leadership positions.General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, military

dictator during the Soviet-Afghan Warencouraged the rise ofIslamists inthemilitary,and many of the young recruits from thosedays are now reaching the pinnacle of theircareers. This conservative group within thearmy leadership may be disinclined to aidAmericans, in part because they were deprivedof advanced overseas military training whenWashington imposed sanctions. Military-to-

military training exercises engage youngerarmy officers by serving as a confidence-build-ing measure between the two armies. Trainingcan hone the Pakistan armys counterterror-ismcapabilities but also counter itstilt towardradicalism. Exchange programs can also havethe added benefit of boosting the professionalcompetence of an officer corps that is respon-sible, among other things, for managing thecountrys nuclear arsenal.

Joint military-to-military exchange programs are common. Many countries get some

type of military training in the United States,including Israel, Kuwait and Japan. In 2006,Pakistans army assigned 306 soldiers to trainin the United States, 157 of whom were juniorofficers.79 But this is a paltry number consid-ering that over 600,000 soldiers comprisePakistans army.80 Significantly increasing thenumber of Pakistani personnel who study inthe United States will require an increase ofthe State Departments International AffairsBudget, as IMET is conducted solely on agrant basis, but that seems an acceptable price

to pay given the importance of the struggleagainst Americas enemies holed up inFATA.81

To be truly effective at combating internalinsurgencies, some commentators arguePakistans army must completely re-orient itsforce structure away from conventionalthreatssuch as Indiaand toward the

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Pakistani officershad little or nocontact with the

U.S. militaryfor nearly ageneration.


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armys bigger challengedealing with thelow-intensity guerrilla insurgency that thearmy is presently ill-equipped and untrainedto fight. Reshaping the Pakistani armysconventional force structure for more adap-

tive military campaigns may be a step in theright direction. But nimbler forces might beinadequate for conventional warfighting.

A similar debate is brewing over the U.S.Armys organizing principle: whether to focusfuture operations toward Iraq-style counterin-surgencies or on force-on-force conventionalwarfare.Some militaryanalysts cautionthat theU.S. Armys present infatuation with stabilityoperations and nation building will erode itscapacity forconventional warfighting.82 Leadersin Islamabad may want to pay attention to this

debate. For Pakistan, a greater emphasis on alighter force could leave it vulnerable to inva-sions by India, large-scale internal subversions,or political destabilization caused by economicproblems. Ultimately, Pakistans own civilianleadersand defenseplannersmust determineforthemselves if insurgents or India poses a greaterthreatthe United States cannot, and shouldnot, decide that for Pakistan.

Recommendation 3: Greater

Oversight for U.S. AidStabilizing the tribal areas will also require

a more effective approach to the delivery ofeconomic assistance. In general, foreign aidtends to be detrimental to a poor countrysinternal development; it discourages account-ability and deters much-needed domesticreforms. But Washingtons objective is to gainIslamabads support for its policies in theregion. Because economic assistance is a quidpro quo for advancing U.S. policies, stopping

aid completely would shut a vital intelligencelink needed to neutralize regional terrorism.Ostracizing Pakistan would also marginalizemoderate elements within the army and ISI.

Moreover,sanctionsrarely achieve the objec-tivesweseek.U.S. relationswith Cuba,Vietnam,North Korea, and Iran showthat punitive mea-sures have rarely caused the target regimes to

make meaningful changes in policy.83 Indeed,the United States has better luck engagingthose countries, as it did with Vietnam andChina in the 1970s (with Pakistans assistance).Continuedcooperation with the Pakistani gov-

ernment is critical for advancing U.S. interests.However, the United States must be morediligent in how it manages aid. While a num-ber of programs are classified, it is safe to saythat since 9/11, Pakistan has received close to$20 billion in U.S. economic assistance.84 U.S.aid to Pakistan comes from four fundingstreams: coalition support funds, roughly 57percent of U.S.aid, considered reimbursementfor logistic, military, and other expenses insupport of U.S. counterterrorism operations;direct budget support, approximately 15 per-

cent of U.S. aid, which are direct cash pay-ments to the Pakistani government with littleaccountability; security assistance, roughly 18percent of U.S. aid, which allows Pakistan topurchase major weapons systems; and devel-opment aid, less than 10 percent of U.S. aid,which goes toward education, democraticinstitutions, and civil society.85

For now, there is no agreed-upon standardfor estimating aid flows from theUnitedStatesto Pakistan. The Prevention, Conflict Analysis,and Reconstruction Project of the Center for

StrategicandInternational Studiesasked near-ly 100 former and current U.S. officials howmuch they thought theUnitedStates providedto Pakistan annually. Replies ranged from$800 million to $5 billion.86 The problem isthat because U.S. aid is not centralized any-where within the government, different agen-cies only know pieces of the overall budget. Asa result, there is little oversight and it is impos-sible to properly monitor aid.

When the aid reaches Pakistan, much of itevaporates due to widespread corruption and

mismanagement. For example, for an eight-month period in 2007, the United States reim-bursed Pakistan $55 million for maintenancecosts of Vietnam-era Cobra attack helicopters.Later, the United States discovered that thePakistanarmy got less than half ofthat amountfrom the Pakistani government. That led someWashington lawmakers to believe Islamabad

15

Stopping aidcompletelywould shut a vitintelligence

link needed toneutralize regional terrorism.


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ties, won an absolute majority in NWFP, wasthe second largest party in Balochistan, andbecame the third largest bloc in PakistansNational Assembly. Despite many MMA mem-bers having close contacts with the Taliban,

Musharraf and his military co-opted MMA tobolster their own legitimacy.89

In September 2008, Asif Ali Zardari, thewidower of slain former Pakistani politicianBenazir Bhutto, was sworn in as the new presi-dent of Pakistan. His pro-American stance andhis reputation as Mr. Ten Percent,because ofthe numerous kickbacks he received from gov-ernment contracts while his wife was primeminister, are only some of the reasons whyZardaridoesnot hold the publics trust.Ontheother hand, oppositionleaderNawazSharif,of

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), hasseen his popularity soar due to his strongopposition to Islamabads assistance to theU.S. missionin Afghanistan, and his insistenceon reseating judges deposed by Musharraf,among other reasons.

No single Pakistani leader can or shouldbe the linchpinin that countrys fight againstal Qaeda and the Taliban, especially since thecountrys long-term success depends on thestrength of its civilian institutions and thepublics repudiation of extremism.

Fortunately, Barack Obama may under-stand that. During the second presidentialdebate, in October 2008, Obama said we mustchange our policies with Pakistan. We cantcoddle, as we did, a dictator, give him billionsof dollars and then hes making peace treatieswith the Taliban and militants.90

The new administration appears commit-ted to strengthening cooperation not onlywith the Pakistani Government but with thePakistani people. In July 2008, the SenateForeign Relations Committee approved the

Biden-Lugar Enhanced Partnership withPaki-stan Act of 2008. This bipartisan plan, dedi-catedto non-militaryspending andto supportthe countrys economic and democratic devel-opment, calls for $7.5 billion over the next 5years ($1.5 billion annually) and an additional$7.5 billion over the subsequent 5 years. InFATA, certainly broader access to education

and comprehensive study programs can helpto mitigate the spread of militancy amongyounger generations. But a coherent distribu-tion mechanism must be in place or else noone will benefit.

The majority of Pakistanis believe Americaspresence in the region is a threat to their coun-tryand that Washingtons goal istoweaken anddivide the Muslim world.91 U.S. policymakersmust recognize that Americas name is still tox-ic. Going forward, Washingtons best policywould be to quietly assist Zardaris newgovern-mentandencourage the rule oflaw,buthesitatetoembracehisleadership andmakehimappearto be beholden to the United States. If U.S. pol-icymakers support President Zardari toostrongly, he could meet the same ignominious

fate asMusharrafor worse, that ofhislatewife.

Nuclear Weapons:Assessing the Risk

without PanicNumerous and overlapping problems

make it difficult to shape a coherent U.S. pol-icy toward Pakistan. But an added reason toassist Pakistan, aside from the sharp rise inviolence in Afghanistan, is the fear that its 60

to 90 nuclear weapons may fall into terroristhands.92

Pakistans nuclear strategy is orientedtoward deterring a conventional militaryassault by India. Dr. Peter Lavoy of the Centerfor Contemporary Conflict notes that onefearamong Pakistani defense planners is the pos-sible deterioration of its conventional militarycapabilities, which could then lower theirthreshold for the use of nuclear weapons.93

The central tenet of Pakistans nuclearstrategic doctrine is minimum credible nuclear

deterrence.94 Lieutenant General (Ret.) KhalidKidwai,DirectorGeneral of PakistansStrategicPlansDivision,revealed certain scenariosunderwhich,if deterrence shouldfail, Pakistan woulduse nuclear weapons against India:

a. If India attacks Pakistan and con-quers a large part of its territory (space

17

NosinglePakistani leadercan or should bethe linchpin inthat countrysfight against alQaeda and theTaliban.


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threshold); b. India destroys a largepart either of its land or air forces (mil-itary threshold); c. India proceeds tothe economic strangulation of Paki-stan (economic strangling); or d. India

pushes Pakistan into political destabi-lization or creates a large-scale internalsubversion in Pakistan (domestic de-stabilization).95

Fortunately, due to security measures alreadyin place at the military bases that house itsarsenal of nuclear weapons, the danger of mil-itants seizing Pakistans nuclear weaponswhile possibleremains highly unlikely.96 Akey securitymeasure is the physicalseparationof nuclear components. Warheads, detona-

tors, and missiles are not stored fully-assem-bled, but are scattered separately across thecountrys 6 to 10 high-security military bases,each equipped with standard safeguards, suchas iris scanners, code-locked doors, andPermissive Action Links, a command andcontrol measure that precludes unauthorizedarming and detonation of nuclear weapons.97

A sophisticated attack by terrorists alsoassumes terrorists would have the necessarytrainingandtechnical expertisetoassembleandutilize a nuclear warhead. Because most terror-

ists possess only rudimentary military training,it is unlikely that militants can fully assemblethe nuclear components, even assuming suchweapons could be obtained.

Rather than a militant takeover of nuclearfacilities, a more worrisome scenario would begovernment insiders surreptitiously obtainingand then disseminating nuclear secrets to ter-roristgroups. Another wouldbe nuclear assetsfalling into thehands of radical Islamistswith-in the military, which manages the commandand control of the nuclear arsenal, or radioac-

tive materials being attacked and seized whilein transit.

Before 9/11, Pakistans nuclear bureaucra-cy lacked a stringent internal vetting process.From this system emerged Pakistans mostnotorious nuclear proliferator, Abdul QadirKhan, a European-educated metallurgistwhose black market network sold illicit urani-

um enrichment technology to Iran, NorthKorea, and Libya.98 In 2005, Pakistan institut-ed an American-style Personnel ReliabilityProgram (PRP) aimed at rooting out employ-ees with radical tendencies or affiliations.99

PRP screening measures include backgroundchecks, investigation of religious backgroundsurveillance of phone conversations, monitor-ing of overseas travel, and periodic psycholog-ical evaluations.100 Many officials are sur-veilled even after they retire.

But there isone potential problemwithpre-sent PRP screening measures. A.Q. Khan wasneither a religious zealot nor a conservativeIslamist, butratheran ardentPakistani nation-alist. The present system thus remains vulnera-ble to insiders secretly stealing sensitive infor-

mation. According to Lt. Gen. Kidwai, about70,000 people work in Pakistans nuclear facil-ities, including 2,000 with critical knowledgeof its nuclear infrastructure.101

Although fixed nuclear facilities may beresistant to militant infiltration, Abdul Man-nan, Director of the Directorate of Transportand Waste Safety at the Pakistan NuclearRegulatory Authority, argues that terroristsmay intercept spent nuclear fuel during trans-portation andshipment. Radioactive materialsin transit are harder to defend than stationary

materials, and the release of these nuclearmaterials could be extraordinarily danger-ous.102 Washington should urge Islamabad tofully review all of its transit procedures andoffer its own expertise about rectifying anypotential deficiencies.

Aside from its own methods of self-protec-tion, and despite the assurances from formerDeputy Secretary of State Richard Armitagethat America would notintercedeto prevent anIslamist takeover of Pakistans nuclearweapons, there remains a possibility that the

United States would directly intervene in theevent of a nuclear crisis.103 The U.S. Depart-ment of Energys (DoE) Nuclear EmergencySupport Teamis taskedwith responding to anytype of radiologicalaccident,and detecting andlocating weapons-grade material before it slipsinto unauthorized hands.104 The departmentsfull-time emergency response units, each com-

18

The danger ofmilitants seizing

Pakistans nuclearweaponswhile

possibleremainshighly unlikely.


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posed of scientists, technicians, and engineersarepreparedtodeploy anytime,anywhereintheworld and to respond to nuclear terrorist inci-dentssometimes on four hours notice.105

One potential impediment to this seeming-

ly far-fetched mission is a lack of interagencycoordination in the event of an unfoldingnuclear crisis. Another is that U.S. officialsadmit to having only limited knowledge of thelocationandconditions of Pakistansweapons.This blind spot, even with substantial assis-tance from the U.S. military, precludes theNuclear Emergency Support Teams ability toproperly execute a direct intervention.106

Yet another fear is that the nuclear arsenalmight fall to militants through the election ofa radical Islamistgovernment.This toois over-

stated. Supporters of al QaedaandtheTalibando not make up a significant political con-stituency. In fact, Pakistanis typically vote forpopulist-socialist, left-of-center political par-ties, such as the Pakistan Peoples Party. Forexample,although theMMA gainedcontrol atthe provincial level in 2002 (as mentionedabove), many have since lost those seatsbecause of poor governance.107 For the timebeing, Islamist parties do not have enoughpolitical traction to transform the countryspolitical environment.108

Given thenumber of physical security mea-sures in place, the armys robust commandand control operations, and Islamabads com-mitmentto havinga nuclear deterrentvis--visIndia, Pakistans nuclear arsenal appears to berelatively safe, at least for the time being.Gradual, covert transfer of nuclear secrets,rather than a sudden and dramatic prolifera-tion, is the more likely dangerand the onepolicymakers should watch for.109 Finally, thescenario of citizens electing radical Islamistparties that might be tempted to give nuclear

technology or materials to terrorist groupsremains unlikely for the foreseeable future.

Conclusion

During the years between the Cold War andthe war on terror, U.S. policymakers were

unable to shape a coherent policy in CentralAsia. The United States can no longer affordsuch confusion. Al Qaeda has regrouped, mili-tants freely traverse FATAs highly porous bor-der to attack U.S. and NATO troops in

Afghanistan,andthe regionsinsurgency isnowspreading to Pakistans major urban centers.Pakistans assistance has been critical for

preventing the convergence of global terror-ism and nuclear proliferation. In addition tomilitary operations assisted by Washingtonbut driven by Pakistan, the new administra-tion must increase the number of Pakistaniofficers trained at American military institu-tions through the U.S. Department ofDefense International Military Educationand Training program. Such a measure will

improve professionalism and limit the spreadof extremism in the army. This is particularlyimportant since the army is responsible forthe command and control of the nucleararsenal.

Washington will also have to continue toprovide financial incentives to induce cooper-ation. But assistance does not justify a blankcheck. Tracking where the funding goesbefore it even leaves Washingtonmust beginwith better coordination among U.S. govern-ment agencies as overseen by Congress.

Another difficulty is ensuringthat when fundsfinally do reach their destination, they are dis-tributed effectively and used to counter insur-gents.

Most important, Washington should stopembracing a single Pakistani leader or back-ing a single political party. America shouldnot try to pick Pakistans political winners,remake FATA, or expect Islamabad to toe theline on every conceivable issue. U.S. strategyshould be narrowly tailored to securing spe-cific objectives, and implementing the few

policies likely to achieve those goals.U.S. policy toward Pakistan is complicat-

ed and imperfect. But the proposals outlinedabove are critical to securing Americas coreinterests in this turbulent part of the world.While these steps can help limit radical activ-ity, U.S. leaders must be prepared to accept aless-than-definitive victory in this volatile

19

Gradual,covert transfer onuclear secrets,rather thanasudden anddramaticproliferation,is the more likelydanger.


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region. For the foreseeable future, no initia-tive can provide a silver bullet.

In the short and medium terms, coopera-tion with Pakistan will be vital for the successof Americas NATO mission in Afghanistan.

However, remaining in Afghanistan is an exor-bitantly costly strategy that relies on conflict-ing regional alliances, assumes that Westernvalues such as democracy and human rightsprevail over and above local considerations,and requires a prolonged U.S. military pres-ence in a perilous part of the world.

But America and its NATO partners will failinAfghanistanifU.S. andPakistanileaders can-not overcome their strategic differences andwork together to neutralize the insurgency.Unless Washington can make certain that ele-

ments associated with Pakistans governmentand military establishments are not activelyassisting militants, our attempts to stabilizeAfghanistan will remain mission impossible.

Notes1. There is no officially accepted spelling of trans-literated Arabic and Urdu names. For example, inthis paper we use al Qaeda, although al Qaidaor al Qaidah may appear in other sources. Forthe quotation, see National Security AdviserCondoleezza Rices Opening Remarks, Commis-

sion on Terrorist Attacks, Washington, DC, April8, 2004, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/04/20040408.html.

2. Ann Scott Tyson, Gates Predicts Slog inAfghanistan, Washington Post, January 28, 2009.

3. Ronald Neumann, Borderline Insanity: Think-ing Big about Afghanistan,AmericanInterest3, no.2 (November/December 2007): 52.

4. Sir Martin Ewans,Afghanistan: A Short History ofIts People and Politics (New York: Harper Collins,2002), p. 108.

5. Anthony Hyman, Nationalism in Afghanistan,International Journal of Middle East Studies 34, no. 2(May, 2002): 306.

6. Lawrence Ziring,Pakistanin theTwentieth Century:A PoliticalHistory (Karachi: Oxford University Press,1997), p. 88.

7. Ibid., p. 396; Syed Saleem Shahzad, Pakistan,the Taliban, and Dadullah, Pakistan Security

Research Unit Brief no. 3 (March 1, 2007), http//spaces.brad.ac.uk:8080/download/attachments/748/Brief5finalised.pdf.

8. The first Soviet deployments to Afghanistanactually began on August 7, 1978. December 27,1979, is when the first phase of Soviet operations

began.

9. George Friedman,Americas Secret War: Inside theHidden Worldwide Struggle between America and ItsEnemies (New York: Broadway Books, 2004), p. 7.

10. Dennis Kux, India and the United StatesEstranged Democracies 19411991 (Honolulu: Uni-versity Press of the Pacific, 1993), p. 369.

11. Dennis Kux,Disenchanted Allies: The United Statesand Pakistan, 19472000 (Washington: WoodrowWilson Center Press, 2001), p. 259.

12. Sen. John Glenn (D-OH), Testimony beforethe Senate Committee on Foreign RelationsU.S.Pakistan Nuclear Issues, July 30, 1992, http://www.fas.org/news/pakistan/1992/920731.htm.

13. Friedman, p. 13. Though this alliance was con-ceived of and initiated by the United StatesPakistans Inter-Service Intelligence placed rigidrestrictions on Americas interaction with themujahideen. ISI insisted that no Americans couldcross the border from Pakistan into Afghanistan;the dispersal of weapons would be handled exclu-sively by ISI; training of Afghan rebels would behandled by ISI; and ISI would retain control of all

Afghan rebel contacts. See Steve Coll, Ghost Wars

The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and binLaden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001(New York: Penguin, 2004), pp. 6364.

14. At least 75 percent of U.S. aid went to fourIslamic fundamentalist groupsand 50 percentof that amount went to Hekmatyars AfghanIslamic Party. See Marvin G. Weinbaum, Warand Peace in Afghanistan: The Pakistani Role,

Middle East Journal, 45 (Winter 1991): 78.

15. Coll, p. 120.

16. Neumann.

17. Zahid Hussain, Frontline Pakistan: The Strugglewith Militant Islam (New York: Columbia Univer-sity Press, 2007), p. 19.

18. Joshua Hammer, After Musharraf, AtlanticMonthly, October 2007, http://www.theatlanticcom/doc/200710/musharraf.

19. Shaun Gregory, The ISI and the War onTerrorism, Pakistan Security Research Unit Brief

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Cooperationwith Pakistan

will be vital forthe success of

AmericasNATOmission.


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no. 28 (January 24, 2008), http://spaces.brad.ac.uk:8080/download/attachments/748/Brief28finalised.pdf; George Crile, Charlie Wilsons War: The

Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation inHistory (New York: Grove/Atlantic Monthly, 2003),pp. 49192.

20. Husain Haqqani, The Ideologies of SouthAsian Jihadi Groups, in Current Trends in IslamistIdeology, ed. Hillel Fradkin, Husain Haqqani, andEric Brown (Washington: Hudson Institute, April2005), p. 21.

21. Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, andFundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven, CT: YaleUniversity Press, 2000), p. 89. Many students fromthese religiousschoolswere also trained to assistthe

Afghan mujahideen. See Kamal Matinuddin, TheTaliban Phenomenon: Afghanistan, 19941997 (Kara-chi: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 14.

22. The treaty was signed in 1988. U.S. covert

action in Afghanistan effectively ended on January1,1992. See JamesR. Kunder, acting deputy admin-istrator of the U.S. Agency for InternationalDevelopment, Testimony before the Senate Com-mittee on Foreign Relations Subcommittee onInternational Development, U.S. Assistance toPakistan, December 6, 2007, http://www.senate.gov/~foreign/testimony/2007/KunderTestimony071206p.pdf; Coll, pp. 176 and 233.

23. The Pressler Amendment, named after Sen.Larry Pressler (R-SD) and a modification of theSymington and Glenn amendments, forbade aidto countries pursuing nuclear weapons programs.

But some analysts allege that U.S. policymakersbelieved that the Soviet threat overrode nonpro-liferation concerns, and thus, some in Washing-tonwanted to continue funding Pakistan in orderto block Soviet expansion, regardless of Islama-bads desire for a nuclear weapon. Former Officeof Scientific and Weapons Research analyst RichBarlow alleges that by the early 1980s, the CIAhad obtained photos of floor plans and bombdesigns from a nuclear facility near Islamabad.See Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clarke, TheMan Who Knew Too Much, Guardian, October13, 2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/nov/20/worlddispatch.italy?commentpage=1; and Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-

Clarke, Deception: Pakistan, the United States, and theSecret Trade in Nuclear Weapons (New York: Walker,2007).

24. Joseph Persico, Casey: The Lives and Secrets ofWilliam J. Casey, From the OSS to the CIA (New York:

Viking Penguin, 1991), p. 226.

25. The Taliban was not exclusively Pashtun,but an indigenous movement of the region.

26. The other two countries to officially recognizethe Taliban were Saudi Arabia and theUnited ArabEmirates. See Neamatollah Nojumi, The Rise of theTaliban in Afghanistan: Mass Mobilization, Civil War,and the Future of the Region (New York: Palgrave,2002); and Paul Staniland, The Challenge ofIslamist Militancy in India, Combating Terrorism

Center Sentinel1, no. 2 (January 2008), http://www.ctc.usma.edu/sentinel/CTCSentinel-Vol1Iss2.pdf.

27. See Ahmed Rashid,Descent into Chaos: The UnitedStates and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan,

Afghanistan, and Central Asia (New York: Penguin,2008), p. 50.

28. Ibid., p. 24.

29. See TommyFranks,AmericanSoldier(New York:Harper Collins, 2004), pp. 256 and 273; CraigCohen and Derek Chollet, When $10 Billion IsNot Enough: Rethinking U.S. Strategy towardPakistan, Washington Quarterly 30, no. 2 (Spring

2007): 719; C. Christine Fair, Pakistan: AnUncertain Partner in the Fight against Terrorism,in The Counterterror Coalitions: Co-operation with

Pakistan and India (Santa Monica: Rand Report2004), pp. 964.

30. See Bruce Riedel, Al-Qaeda Five Years afterthe Fall of the Kandahar. Brookings Institution,

January 18, 2007, http://www.brookings.edu/articles/2007/0118terrorism_riedel.aspx.

31. See Hussain, p. 69.

32. Owen Bennett-Jones, U.S. Policy Options

toward Pakistan: A Principled and RealisticApproach, Stanley Foundation Policy AnalysisBrief, February 2008, http://www.stanleyfoundation.org/publications/pab/JonesPAB208.pdf.

33. According to Flynt Leverett, a career CIA ana-lyst who from February 2002 to March 2003served as senior director for Middle East Affairson President Bushs National Security Council,Clearly, the Bush administration failed to finishthe job against either the Taliban or al-Qaida in

Afghanistan when it had the chance. Indeed, inearly 2002, the administration withdrew the criti-cal special forces and paramilitary cadres thatwere spearheading the campaign to round up

Taliban and al-Qaida elements in Afghanistan sothat those forces could regroup, redeploy andbegin preparing the battlefield for Americasupcoming invasion of Iraq. Flynt Leverett andHillary Mann Leverett, Most Dems No BetterThan Bush on Pakistan, Salon, January 3, 2008,http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008

/01/03/pakistan_policy/print.html.

34. Inside the Green Berets, produced by Hog-

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gard Films for National Geographic Channel,2007.

35. Ashley J. Tellis, Pakistan and the War onTerror: Conflicted Goals, Compromised Perform-ance, Carnegie Endowment for InternationalPeace (January 2008), p. 20.

36. Paul Gallis, NATO Summit at Bucharest,2008, CRS Report for Congress, CongressionalResearch Service, RS22847, May 5, 2008, http:

//ftp.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RS22847.pdf.

37. Tribal agency is Pakistans term for thetribal-based administrative units. Pakistansother territories are referred to as provinces.

38. See Nicholas Schmidle, Next-Gen Taliban,New York Times, January 6, 2008.

39. Bill Roggio, Cross-Border Strike Targets Oneof the Talibans 157 Training Camps in Pakistans

Northwest, Long War Journal, August 13, 2008,http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/08/crossborder_strike_t.php.

40. Hassan Abbas, Increasing Talibanization inPakistans Seven Tribal Agencies, Terrorism

Monitor 5, no. 18 (September 27, 2007), http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?issue_id=4243.

41. Bennett-Jones.

42. Abbas, Increasing Talibanization.

43. Candace Rondeaux and Walter Pincus, U.S.Seeks New Supply Routes into Afghanistan,Washington Post, November 19, 2008.

44. Jane Perlez and Pir Zubair Shah, PakistaniForces Appear to Push Back Militants, New YorkTimes, June 30, 2008.

45. Dozens of NATO Oil Tankers Destroyed onPakistani-Afghan Border, South Asia News, March23, 2008, http://news.monstersandcritics.com/southasia/news/article_1396585.php/Dozens_of_NATO_oil_tankers_destroyed_on_Pakistani-Afghan_border.

46. Rondeaux and Pincus.

47. Perlez and Shah.

48. KOHAT: Villagers Set Up Force to CombatTerrorists, Dawn, September 6, 2008, http://www.dawn.com/2008/09/06/local6.htm.

49. Hassan Abbas, Profiles of Pakistans Seven Trib-al Agencies, TerrorismMonitor4, no. 20 (October 20,

2006), http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news %5D=891.

50. Pakistan Shrine Clashes Kill 17, BBC NewsOctober 6, 2006, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/5413680.stm.

51. Kurram Elders Call for Razing MadrassasTraining Militants,Daily Times, August 12, 2008http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008%5C08%5C12%5Cstory_12-8-2008_pg7_46.

52. Osama bin Laden Is Planning Something forthe US Election, April 2, 2008, Der Spiegel, http

//www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,druck-544921,00.html; National Intelligence CouncilThe Terrorist Threat to the U.S. Homeland, July2007, http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/20070717_release.pdf; Fareed Zakaria Transcript on

Anderson Cooper 360, February 11, 2008, http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0802/11/

acd.02.html.

53. Carin Zissis, Pakistans Tribal Areas, Councilon Foreign Relations, October 26, 2007.

54. Editorial: Framing Anti-Terror Policy inIslamabad, Daily Times, April 4, 2008, http://dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008\04\04\story_4-4-2008_pg3_1.

55. Abbas, Profiles of Pakistans Seven TribalAgencies.

56. Pakistan Sheltering Taliban, Says British

Officer, Guardian, May 19, 2006.57. M. Ilyas Khan, Taleban Spread Wings in Paki-stan, BBC News, March 5, 2007, http://newsbbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6409089.stm.

58. M. Ilyas Khan, Pakistan Armys Tribal Quag-mire, BBC News, October 9, 2007, http://newsbbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7036032.stm

59. Griff Witte, Pakistan Seen Losing Fightagainst Taliban and Al-Qaeda, Washington PostOctober 3, 2007; Abbas, Increasing Talibaniz-ation in Pakistans Seven Tribal Agencies, p. 4;and Hassan Abbas, A Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban

Pakistan, Combating Terrorism Center Sentinel 1no. 2 (January 2008), http://www.ctc.usma.edu/sentinel/CTCSentinel-Vol1Iss2.pdf.

60. Greg Miller, US Military Aid to PakistanMisses Its Al Qaeda Target, Los Angeles TimesNovember 5, 2007.

61. Pakistan Sheltering Taliban; Samina Ahmeddirector of International Crisis Groups South Asia

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Division,Stabilizing the Democratic TransitioninPakistan: Implicationsfor Domestic, Regional, andInternational Security, Statement before theCarnegie Endowment for International Peace, May2, 2008; Government Accountability Office,Combating Terrorism: The United States LacksComprehensive Plan to Destroy the Terrorist

Threat and Close the Safe Haven in PakistansFederally Administered Tribal Areas, April 2008,http://hcfa.house.gov/110/GAO041708.pdf;

Ahmed Rashid, Murdered by Extremists SheHelped to Create, Daily Telegraph, December 29,2007; and Tellis.

62. National Commission on Terrorist Attacksupon the United States, 9/11 Commission Report(New York: W.W. Norton, 2004), p. 117.

63. Hein G. Kiessling, The Pakistan Army: Top ofthe Pecking Order, India and Global Affairs,

JanuaryMarch 2008: 40. See also Hammer;Christina Lamb, Angry Pakistanis Turn against

Army, The Sunday Times of London, January 13,2008; and Rashid, Murdered by Extremists.

64. Fair, p. 27.

65. CIA Chief Confirms Waterboarding; al-Qaida Regrouping in Pakistan, Online NewsHour,February 5, 2008, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/terrorism/jan-june08/intelligence_02-05.html.

66. A version of this proposal first appeared in theAugust 2008 edition ofArmed Forces Journal, MalouInnocent,AModel forModern Insurgency,Armed

ForcesJournal, August 2008, p. 30.67. Mukhtar A. Khan,The Role of Tribal Lashkarsin Winning Pakistans War on Terror, Terrorism

Focus 5, no 40 (November 26, 2008), http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=34186.

68. Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker, U.S. PlanWidens Role in Training Pakistani Forces inQaeda Battle, New York Times, March 2, 2008.

69. Jim Garamone, Gates Urges Partnership withAfghanistan, Pakistan to Combat Terror Threat,American Forces Press Service, December 2, 2008,

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=52154.

70. David Montero, U.S. Military Prepares toTrain Pakistani Forces, Christian Science Monitor,

April 16, 2008.

71. Hampton Stephens, DOD to Spend up to$800Million TrainingFrontier Corps in Pakistan,World Politics Review, September 11, 2008, http://

www.worldpoliticsreview.com/blog/blog.aspx?id=2649.

72. Jason Straziuso, U.S.AfghanPakistanBorder Center Opens, Associated Press, March29, 2008; Karl F. Inderfurth, A New Compact:

Afghanistan, Pakistan and NATO, International

Herald Tribune, April 1, 2008.

73. CandaceRondeaux, U.S.Funded IntelligenceCenter Struggles in Khyber Region, Washington

Post, January 12, 2009.

74. Dan Sagalyn, Questions Linger over EngagingTaliban in Afghanistan, OnlineNewsHour, Novem-ber 14, 2008, http://www. pbs.org/newshour/indepth_coverage/asia/afghanistan/july-dec08/taliban_11-14.html.

75. The Second McCainObam

Documents

Pakistan and the Future of U.S. Policy, Cato Policy Analysis No. 636