UPDATE: Mehsud Claims Responsibility for Lahore Attack; 18 Dead

The Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud (pictured has told the BBC that his organization carried out Monday's attack on the Lahore police station, in which 18 people died, ""in retaliation for the continued drone strikes on by the US in collaboration with Pakistan on our people". Eight attackers were among the dead; another four have been detained.

There is a wider significance to Mehsud's statement, missed by the BBC. Last month, a coalition of Pakistani insurgent groups in the Northwest Provinces agreed to suspend attacks within the country, concentrating instead of the fight against American troops in Afghanistan. The news came shortly after reports that Mehsud had been "sacked" by Afghanistan Taliban Mullah Omar for refusing to halt internal operations.

Thus the Obama Administration, as it launches its new strategy for Pakistan, faces some local groups who are devoted to fighting battles in Afghanistan and also the challenge posed within the country by Mehsud. Already a "two-front" war is developing.

Two-Step Analysis of Mr Obama's War Plan: Step One in Pakistan

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Related Post: Two-Step Analysis of Mr Obama’s War Plan: Step Two in Afghanistan
Related Post: Mr Obama’s War - Today Proves Pakistan is Number One

The spin is in. The allies (NATO) and no-longer-allies (Afghan President Hamid Karzai, in a phone call from Barack Obama) have been briefed. So today, in time for Hillary Clinton's showcase conference on Afghanistan at The Hague and the NATO summit over the next two weeks, the grand Obama strategy on Pakistan and Afghanistan will be unveiled.

STEP 1. TO THE CORE IN PAKISTAN

That's right. All the early-Administration scrapping over Afghanistan --- how many troops? nation-building or no nation-buiding? Karzai or no Karzai? --- is still significant but it's not the priority in this plan.

"One official" fed the line to CNN: "Disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda and destroy the safe haven that has developed in Pakistan and prevent it from rebuilding in Afghanistan."

Destroy in Pakistan first means the US stops "al Qaeda" in Afghanistan later.

Forget for the moment the obvious: "al Qaeda" in Afghanistan is not the primary challenge (my own suspicion is that's a spectral excuse). Give the benefit of the doubt to the Administration: attention to the safe havens is occuring because they are underpinning the Afghan insurgency --- it is not occurring as a diversion/alternative to the failure of the American political-economic-military approach in Afghanistan.

How will the destruction of these safe havens, presumably by an expansion of US airstrikes and pressure on the Pakistani military to up its ground operations, lead to stability in Pakistan?

The Administration's answer will be the accompanying increase in economic aid, tripling to $1.5 billion per year. Yet that in itself ignores the obvious: Pakistan has been receiving big, big bundles of American cash since September 2001? Given past allegations that US economic aid has been swallowed up by corruption and mis-expenditure, that it has been diverted to other projects unrelated to the "War on Terror", that the current Government of Pakistan is led by a President who has been convicted elsewhere for financial impropriety (and charged with the crime in his own country), how does this version of the Obama "stimulus package" differ from those over the last seven-plus years?

And while we're raising an eyebrow over the easy narrative of a new US-Pakistan co-operation (We Bomb; You Build), how does this square with Thursday's story from the New York Times?

The Taliban’s widening campaign in southern Afghanistan is made possible in part by direct support from operatives in Pakistan’s military intelligence agency, despite Pakistani government promises to sever ties to militant groups fighting in Afghanistan, according to American government officials.

The support consists of money, military supplies and strategic planning guidance to Taliban commanders who are gearing up to confront the international force in Afghanistan that will soon include some 17,000 American reinforcements.

Support for the Taliban, as well as other militant groups, is coordinated by operatives inside the shadowy S Wing of Pakistan’s spy service, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, the officials said. There is even evidence that ISI operatives meet regularly with Taliban commanders to discuss whether to intensify or scale back violence before the Afghan elections.

So somehow the US has to turn the "good" elements in the Pakistani Government against the "rogue" elements in the ISI. That lead, however, cannot come from President Asif Ali Zardari, who has effectively been sidelined both by Washington and by his internal travails. Another New York Times story tipped off the US head-scratching over a political solution:

Now, as the Obama administration completes its review of strategy toward the region this week, his sudden ascent has raised an urgent question: Can [Nawaz] Sharif, 59, a populist politician close to Islamic parties, be a reliable partner? Or will he use his popular support to blunt the military’s already fitful campaign against the insurgency of the Taliban and Al Qaeda?

Instead of working through this complex political equation, the US option will probably be to find its "good" elements in the Pakistani military, who may happen to benefit from the increased American aid. The Pakistani military commander, General Ashfaq Pervez Kiani, has been across the world from Washington to Kabul to Islamabad in consultations with US officials, and it is notable that CIA Director Leon Panetta was in Pakistan last Sunday for further talks.

The same General, however, has not been on board publicly with an offensive against the "safe havens", and the Pakistani Army in its limited operations in recent months has been firmly rebuffed by local forces. The default position has been a tacit acceptance of the US aerial assault, even though that has not brought a marked change in the political situation. To the contrary, the autonomy of local leaders, symbolised by the declaration of sharia law, has increased.

Could the Obama Administration really be pushing for a tacit strategic takeover by the Pakistani military? In exchange for bowing to the US demands to take a more aggressive approach to the "safe havens" in the northwest provinces and to curb the ISI, the "good" allies would get a healthy cut of US assistance and an enhanced internal power.

Mr Obama's War: The Spin is...It's Not Afghanistan. It's Pakistan.

Related Post: Pakistan Military, Prime Minister Act Against Zardari

We've found an intriguing article in Time, "The Afghanistan Problem: Can Obama Avoid a Quagmire?", valuable not as much for Joe Klein's analysis as for the inside information fed to him.

The immediate impression is of an Administration effort to build up the urgency of the Afghanistan crisis. So we get a glance at the first, "pretty alarming" meeting on the country, held three days after Obama's Inauguration. Of course, the President "was extremely cool and in control", rather than screaming wildly or crying in the corner, "but some people, especially political aides like Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod who hadn't been briefed on the situation, walked out of that meeting stunned". To sum up, from another participant, "Holy s***."

No spin surprises there, but then we get good stuff. Such as that General David Petraeus, the mastermind heading US Central Command, is pissed off he didn't get his way on policy. Trashing Obama's decision not to accept the recommendations from Petraeus' review, one of the General's acolytes complains about the meetings, "You had people from the Department of Agriculture weighing in. There were too many cooks. The end result was lowest-common-denominator stuff. The usual Petraeus acuity wasn't there."

Obama's people threw the criticism right back at Petraeus, praising instead another study by General Douglas Lute, the Bush Administration's "war czar", which was "very skeptical about the Pakistani army's willingness to fight the Taliban and equally critical of the Karzai government in Afghanistan" They added, however, that the report "didn't provide much detail about what to do next".

So the President has commissioned another review, headed by US envoy Richard Holbrooke and Bruce Riedel, who was his campaign advisor on South Asia and is now outside the Administration in the Brookings Institution.

And here's the stinger. Even though that review isn't due until end of review, its conclusions (or what Obama's officials will spin as its conclusions) are already being leaked:

Afghanistan pales in comparison to the problems in Pakistan. Our primary goal has to be to shut down the al-Qaeda and Taliban safe havens on the Pakistan side of the border. If that can be accomplished, then the insurgency in Afghanistan becomes manageable.

Klein gets a bit fuzzy at this point, primarily because the Administration is still fuzzy on what a Pakistan-first effort means. It can throw in the $1.5 billion/year authorised by Congress, running over five years, in economic aid, but officials are unsure how to distribute the money to have any effect. (It is irrelevant, of course, that Pakistan has a President who was charged/convicted in various countries with corruption.)

So what to do? This paragraph offers the most enlightening, but most disturbing, scenario:

"We have to re-establish close personal relationships with the army," said a senior member of the National Security Council, who was involved in an intense series of meetings with the Pakistani military leadership during the first week of March. "We have to be sure they're on the same page as we are. Based on what I saw, they aren't yet."

So, does this mean that the Pakistani military is kicking up a fuss about the US missile strikes and proposed American strategy in the Northwest Frontier Provinces? Or does this farther, with Washington envisaging a Pakistani military running Islamabad's policy, either behind the scenes or quite openly after toppling President Zardari?

Watch this space.

In response

Pakistan: Zardari Maintains His Wiggle Room Against Washington, Domestic Rivals

In yesterday's Wall Street Journal, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari (and the very capable PR agency behind him) set out a high-profile position on the issues of the Pakistani insurgency, Afghanistan, and terrorism. However, the Journal's headline, "Pakistan is Steadfast Against Terror: We aren't appeasing the Taliban or terrorists in Swat", wondrously missed the point of Zardari's opinion piece (which is reprinted below).

Zardari did open by praising Islamabad's role in the Washington review process: "Last week....Pakistan, the U.S. and Afghanistan agreed on a coherent military and political strategy to isolate and deal with those intent on destabilizing our region and terrorizing the world." He "began with a fact: Pakistan's fight against terrorism is relentless," citing the killing of "high officials" and hundreds of fighters of Al Qa'eda and the Taliban.

Then he added his stinger: "In the highly volatile Swat Valley, our strategy has been to enter into talks with traditional local clerics to help restore peace to the area, and return the writ of the state."

His Government is trying to separate those clerics from the bad guys: "The clerics with whom we have engaged are not Taliban. Indeed, in our dialogue we'd made it clear that it is their responsibility to rein in and neutralize Taliban and other insurgents." And, addressing the issue of sharia in the autonomous territories, Zardari posted a symbolic limit on how far the clerics could go: "We have not and will not condone the closing of girls' schools."

So Zardari's first mission was maintaining his manoeuvring position not against the "Taliban" or the clerics, but Washington. It is unclear what the Obama Administration's private line is on the talks with local leaders in the Northwest Frontier Provinces, but publicly US officials have been sweeping in their denunciation of "caving in" to sharia and other demands.

The Pakistan President may have had a more important mission, however, against a much different enemy: his political and judicial opponents. The second half of his article was devoted to his supposed defense of an "independent judiciary", with a restoration of almost all judges dismissed by his predecessor, Pervez Musharraf. He proclaimed:

My government had taken legal steps to overturn a lower-court decision that would not allow former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his brother to serve in public office. The Supreme Court, however, chose to uphold the lower court decision. This is the nature of an independent judiciary, and this is the process of rule of law.

One has to admire Zardari's audacity as he feigns his sadness. The chief demand of many lawyers and judges in Pakistan is the restoration of the Chief Justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry; the suspicion is that the Supreme Court is the same one packed by Musharraf in his attempt to cling to power and the same one that allowed Zardari to take office by wiping away the long-standing corruption charges against him. The President's public game is to claim his legal support of his chief political rival, while privately knowing that the judicial odds have been stacked against Sharif.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Zardari is completely above board with this defense of "democracy". The point is that few outside Pakistan have looked behind the cloak of "terrorism" to see the equally critical issue of the political storm brewing in Islamabad. And the question is --- if there are no more attacks on Sri Lankan cricketers to deflect attention from that conflict--- will that storm threaten to sweep away the President?

Pakistan Is Steadfast Against Terror
We aren't appeasing the Taliban or terrorists in Swat.
ASIF ALI ZARDARI

Last week's trilateral meeting in Washington between U.S. leaders and the foreign ministers, military and intelligence leaders of my country and Afghanistan was a crucial step forward in the war on terrorism and fanaticism in South and Central Asia. For the first time, Pakistan, the U.S. and Afghanistan agreed on a coherent military and political strategy to isolate and deal with those intent on destabilizing our region and terrorizing the world.

By reaching agreement, we have overcome the past legacy of distrust that has characterized Pakistani-Afghan relations for decades and has complicated strategic planning and common goals. Monday's terrorist attack against the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore shows once again the evil we are confronting.

But if Pakistan, Afghanistan and the U.S. are to prevail in the ongoing battle against terrorism, straight talk is essential. And this straight talk begins with a fact: Pakistan's fight against terrorism is relentless. Since the election of a democratic government last year, we have successfully conducted military operations in our Federally Administered Tribal Areas and other parts of the country, capturing or killing high officials of al Qaeda and the Taliban, as well as hundreds of their fighters. In the highly volatile Swat Valley, our strategy has been to enter into talks with traditional local clerics to help restore peace to the area, and return the writ of the state.

We have not and will not negotiate with extremist Taliban and terrorists. The clerics with whom we have engaged are not Taliban. Indeed, in our dialogue we'd made it clear that it is their responsibility to rein in and neutralize Taliban and other insurgents. If they do so and lay down their arms, this initiative will have succeeded for the people of Swat Valley. If not, our security forces will act accordingly. Unfortunately, this process of weaning reconcilable elements of an insurgency away from the irreconcilables has been mischaracterized in the West.

Moreover, we have not and will not condone the closing of girls' schools, as we saw last year when militants closed schools in pockets of Swat Valley. Indeed, the government insists that the education of young women is mandatory. This is not an example of the government condoning or capitulating to extremism -- quite the opposite.

Our transitional Pakistani democracy is still restructuring after decades of episodic dictatorship. One of the most critical institutions that needs to be resurrected is an independent judiciary. Recent decisions of the Pakistani Supreme Court have been criticized by many in my country, and indeed by some in my political party. In particular, my government had taken legal steps to overturn a lower-court decision that would not allow former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his brother to serve in public office. The Supreme Court, however, chose to uphold the lower court decision. This is the nature of an independent judiciary, and this is the process of rule of law.

An overwhelming majority (57 out of 63) of superior court judges dismissed under the previous government's emergency rule has returned to the court. The judiciary of Pakistan has been restored, and is independent. In a mature polity, when one loses in court, one respects the decision of the court and moves on, seeking other constitutional remedies. It is not the nature of democracy to appeal court decisions to the streets. This is part of the culture of cynicism and negativity that for too long has permeated Pakistani politics.

When the U.S. Supreme Court decided the presidency in Bush v. Gore, Vice President Al Gore did not call for his millions of supporters to take to the streets to try to overturn by force the ruling of the court. He and the Democratic Party accepted the Supreme Court's decision and moved on. The Democrats later regained the Congress and now the presidency. That is the mark of a successful democracy. The recent agitation in the province of Punjab (supposedly in favor of Mr. Sharif) is an attempt to destabilize our democracy and a major distraction from Pakistan's critical problems, which include reviving our economy and fighting violent extremism.

I have long fought for democracy in my country. Thousands in my party and other parties have died through the years fighting against dictatorship and tyranny. The greatest champion of democracy in my country, my wife Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, gave her life fighting for the values of liberty. This is an existential battle. If we lose, so too will the world. Failure is not an option.