Monday
Feb162009
Updated: Pakistan - Can You Balance Sharia and Missiles?
Monday, February 16, 2009 at 15:30 
Linking two items from our recent updates:Pakistan agreed on Monday to restore strict Islamist law in the Swat valley to pacify a revolt by Taliban militants, and a suspected U.S. drone fired missiles in the region killing at least 26 people.
So does the political gesture of legal autonomy in northwestern Pakistan outweigh answer over the lack of autonomy when a missile hits your house?
The answer, at least for US envoy Richard Holbrooke, lies in the notion that "good locals" can easily be separated from and set against "bad extremists", be they the foreign or home-grown variety. He said in New Delhi today,
India, the U.S. and Pakistan all have a common threat now. I talked to people from Swat and they were frankly quite terrified. I attempted to discuss Swat a lot, Swat has really deeply affected the people of Pakistan not just in Peshawar but in Lahore and Islamabad.
Nice in principle, but does that mean that if sharia was the choice of "good locals" rather than "bad extremists", Washington will accept the decisions?
And equally important, how do US missiles distinguish between good and bad?
Reader Comments (2)
The Pakistani government assumes that it can undercut some of the support for the insurgency in the Swat Valley by enacting elements of the insurgents' own platform, namely Sharia Law. There is something to be said for this logic. On the one hand they would be granting the wishes of large parts of the population and taking away one the insurgency's greatest tools for garnering support- its apparent ability to enforce law and order where the Pakistani security forces cannot. But if the US continues to hit the area with missiles, the insurgents' appeal will only grow. So you will have both Sharia law and a strenghtened insurgency. A lose-lose situation.
Just a further indication of two 'allies' pulling in very different directions
interesting development on this story:
'In return for the imposition of Sharia, the pro-Taleban (Sufi Mohammad) cleric is expected to persuade Mullah Fazlullah, his son-in-law, who is spearheading the insurgency, to lay down arms. '
From the Times: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5762527.ece