The Sultans of Swat

One of the world’s trouble spots that is going to be resolved one way or another in the next four to eight
years of the Obama Administration is the region of South Asia. It comprises a matrix of conflicting issues:
India-Pakistan, Pakistan-Afghanistan, The Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and Al-Qaida sort of
lurking in, around and through all of the above. Nothing has been lost yet, all the issues are in play and
much of what will be written about the success or failure of the Obama Administration’s foreign policy will
be judged by how things get resolved here, in Iraq or Iran and the Middle East.

The Indians have reacted very negatively to this regional strategy that began under President Bush. The
Americans want a solution to Kashmir, and the Indians do not want linkage between the Kashmir dispute
and the problem in Afghanistan. The problem is that there is such linkage because the Pakistan army is not
taking the Al-Qaida/Taliban extremist threat seriously. It considers the India threat more serious and it still
wants a settlement of Kashmir. Until you have better India-Pakistan relations and a solution to Kashmir,
you're not going to convince the Pakistan army to go against the extremists. So, it's a Gordian knot of issues
on the edges which you've got Iran, China, Russia, and the Central Asian republics. They all fit into this
regional strategy.

What makes the issue even more vexing is the weakened nature of the Pakistan state which speaks with
two, three or four minds on an issue. If ever a house were divided, this is it. There is a lot of depression and
unease in Pakistan amongst its peoples. The biggest issue Pakistanis see is a total lack of leadership, either
political leadership or military. The civilian politicians came in a year ago with great hope after the
elections and the tragedy of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination. After eight years of military rule they were
welcomed. Much of that hope has dissipated with a succession of political squabbling over total
nonsensical issues. After a year or more, to them it appears, the extremist threat, the dangers about war with
India over the massacre in Mumbai, the dangers of the extremists in the tribal areas, all this is secondary to
what has been political squabbling. The second biggest issue in Pakistan, long ignored by Islamabad, has
been the economy. It is going down the tubes with massive inflation and massive joblessness. All of which
had nothing to do with the global economy. Pakistan’s economy was going down the tubes at least a year
before the global crash last autumn. It was never addressed by the civilian government nor the military
government that preceded it. When you look at the military today, you see this kind of continuing desire to
make India as the main enemy, and to not take seriously the extremist threat which is now occupying so
much of Pakistani territory. There is no comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy, no dealing with the
problems.

My personal suspicion has always been that in semi-failed states like Pakistan (and now Mexico) you will
find the presence of an international drug trade that has pretty much bought off the military and any civil
administration. The first and only order of business is the drug trade itself. You don’t read very much about
drug trade politics, probably because anyone who chooses to write about it has been shot.

I read an interview with the late John Updike the other day that capsulated in a few sentences the American
political experiment:

…at bottom (this is) a matter of trusting the citizens to know their own minds and best
interests. "To govern with the consent of the governed": this spells the ideal. And though
the implementation will inevitably be approximate and debatable, and though
totalitarianism or technocratic government can obtain some swift successes, in the end,
only a democracy can enlist a people's energies on a sustained and renewable basis. To
guarantee the individual maximum freedom within a social frame of minimal laws
ensures -- if not happiness -- its hopeful pursuit.

The absence of all of this is the viper’s nest that greets an American administration in Pakistan.
When I say absence I am not referring to the yearning for the freedom to have it that exists with
the Pakistani people. For some reason St. Augustine flits through my mind:
 Almighty God,
you have made us for yourself,
and our hearts are restless
till they find their rest in you;
so lead us by your Spirit
that in this life we may live to your glory
and in the life to come enjoy you for ever;

Hearts are restless in Pakistan for democracy and freedom. Don’t get me wrong, God does not back one
political experiment over another on this earth. Borrowing from John Updike, I would see the American
political experiment flourishing in Pakistan as the end game of our foreign policy goals there -- particularly
if the expenditure of American blood and treasure in neighboring Afghanistan is part of the calculation of
that end game.

Last night I was listening to an interview with the journalist Ahmed Rashid who lives in Lahore, Pakistan,
and has written several books about Islamic extremism in the region, including "Taliban," "Jihad," and his
latest, "Descent into Chaos: How the War Against Islamic Extremism Is Being Lost in Pakistan,
Afghanistan and Central Asia." He was reporting of a new and very strategic shift in the last few weeks. It
appears the Pakistani Taliban, helped by Afghan Taliban, Central Asians and Arabs, have retaken the Valley
of Swat.

Swat is adjacent to the North-West Frontier Province, and borders large settled areas of northern Pakistan.
There are hundreds of villages and agriculture and considerable population, which then builds up as you
come closer to Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Swat was the tourist destination for Pakistani and for foreigners.
It has wonderful climbing and walking and beautiful scenery. And because it was so popular amongst
foreigners, it is the most highly developed valley in the country.

Swat has 100-percent literacy. There are roads, electricity, email; this is not the stark, austere mountains
between Afghanistan and Pakistan where al-Qaeda and the Taliban were hanging out, where there was
nothing, no civilization whatsoever, and food had to be brought in on pack animals and taken up the
mountains for days at a time. We’re talking about a valley, which has road access direct to Islamabad in
three hours. It's a very highly developed place, just the kind of ideal place that you would like to set up a
terrorist base. So it is a very strategic valley about 100 miles due north of Islamabad and quite far away
from the tribal areas and the border with Afghanistan.

There has been a back-and-forth battle between the army and the Taliban in Swat over the past year. The
Taliban had it, the army took it, then lost it, and now the Taliban have retaken it again. And they’ve retaken
the whole valley. They forced out tens of thousands of people; they've lynched hundreds; set up their own
judiciary and police system. They've ordered all bureaucrats and state policemen, lawyers and judges to
leave or be executed. Dozens of people have been executed in public. And like the Taliban in Afghanistan,
all the girls' schools have been shut down. Actually more than shut down -- some 200 girls' schools have
been blown up so that nobody can ever go back to these schools and start education there again.

There are very strong rumors – which Rashid was unable to confirm – that a lot of the leaders of al-Qaeda,
the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistani Taliban who were hanging out and hiding in the tribal areas and had
been feeling the effects of the American drones, have now actually moved into the Swat region. If that is
true, it's pretty devastating news. Devastating because Swat is very far away from the Afghan border. If
Americans were to use drones to cross the border from Afghanistan you would be crossing almost half of
northern Pakistan before you reach Swat -- politically speaking, a difficult thing to do. You might think of
the current drone campaign in the tribal areas as an incursion into Pakistan territory. To get to Swat would
be the political equivalent of an invasion, something that would have unknown repercussions, all negative.

So, the upshot of this is that the U.S. will become reliant on the Pakistan military to suppress this new
development. The terrorist leadership is now well away from U.S. missiles and ascendant in a valley that is
strategically placed: access to the fertile areas where millions of people live in northern Pakistan; access to
Islamabad, the capital; access to Kashmir; and access back to the tribal areas. In short, the challenge to the
Obama Administration has increased a hundred fold. This is a full blown crisis, now ongoing, while the
new Administration’s attention is focused on domestic politics.

Pakistan is a frail democracy, if it can be called even that. Many commentators have referred to it as a
“failed state that cannot be allowed to fail” because of its nuclear program. The timing could not be more
disastrous for U.S. interests -- massive inflation, massive joblessness, an economy going down the tubes
soon facing more political and economic unrest. This has nothing to do with the global economy which will
be unable to provide any real help. Pakistan’s problems date back to over a year before the global slide into
recession and depression.

Ahmed Rashid was issuing a warning.

I’ve read nothing about Swat or this new strategic shift in balance. It should be interesting to see how the
Clinton State Department reacts to this situation and how our media responds to this warning. So far I
haven’t seen or heard a thing.

In fact, this is the sum of anyone’s knowledge on February 3rd:

FEBRUARY 3, 2009, 2:40 A.M. ET

Pakistan Military Kills 35 Militants
Associated Press
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Pakistan's military says it has killed at least 35 Islamist militants in a
northwestern valley increasingly overrun with insurgents.
The army said in a statement Tuesday that the militants died in an overnight operation in Khawaza Khela
town in the Swat valley.
It says security forces used helicopter gunships and artillery in the attack.
Swat was once a popular tourist destination, but about two years ago militants began a violent campaign to
enforce Taliban-style Islam there.
The state responded with force, but residents say militants increasingly hold sway.
Copyright © 2009 Associated Press

This is straight news, no interpretation. Maybe (hopefully) this is the unspoken reason why we are building
up troops in Afghanistan; it couldn’t come at a better time, that’s for sure. They say the Islamic Bomb is a
year or more away from development in Iran. Pakistan could put Osama in control of nuclear weapons
within months.