Now that is what I’d call a prime target:
Last week, after months of Pakistani delays, about 30 U.S. military trainers were permitted to set up operations north of the [Federally Administered Tribal Areas], a U.S. official said. The trainers will provide counterinsurgency instruction to Pakistani army soldiers, who in turn will train members of the Frontier Corps, the government’s paramilitary force in the FATA.
Pakistan Will Give Arms to Tribal Militias
Those 30 ‘trainers’ better watch their back.
Pakistan will provide arms to some parts of the tribes in FATA, who will then fight other local powers called ‘Taliban’. Guess where those arms will end up when, as usual, this or that group changes its allegiance.
The policies in and around Pakistan are again full of inconsistencies. During the last weeks the U.S. has some 12 times used drone-missiles to bomb targets in FATA. Today, it killed nine people in such an attack.
Only yesterday after two weeks of negotiation the two houses of parliament unanimously adopted a resolution calling for "an urgent review of the national security strategy and revisiting the methodology of combating terrorism in order to restore peace and stability through an independent foreign policy."
The resolution also said:
The challenge of militancy and extremism must be met through developing a consensus and dialogue with all genuine stakeholders.
…
That Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity shall be safeguarded. The nation stand united against any incursions and invasions of the homeland, and calls upon the government to deal with it effectively.That Pakistan’s territory shall not be used for any kind of attacks on other countries and all foreign fighters, if found shall be expelled from our soil.
That dialogue must now be the highest priority, as a principal instrument of conflict management and resolution. Dialogue will be encouraged with all those elements willing to abide by the Constitution of Pakistan and rule of law.
Somehow that resolution does not fit with arming tribal forces and U.S. missile attacks on Pakistani ground.
But the Pakistani president Zardari, now as despised as the General Musharraf was before him, does not care about what the parliament or the people think.
That could for now be excused as Pakistan is only weeks away from defaulting on its debt. All ‘friends’ of Pakistan have so far declined to lend money. Zardari is on his way to Saudi Arabia to ask again while his prime minister is in China to again beg for help. The humiliating walk to the IMF seems inevitable. But even before the economic crisis Zardari has never shown any distance to the politics proescribed from the U.S.
The continued U.S. attacks on FATA may well incite even more tribal people against the Pakistani government. One suspects they are planed with the aim to keep them busy against the Pakistani state so they will leave the occupation forces in Afghanistan alone.
That would be a miscalculation. By now most Taliban action in Afghanistan seem to be indigenous and the line of supply for these forces in south and west Afghanistan is coming from the south through Quetta, not from the eastern FATA.
With severe economic problems like daily electricity blackouts getting worse and coming additional IMF strictures one can easily imagine that Pakistan will soon be again in a struggle against a U.S. influenced ruler who acts against the interest of his people and the expressed will of the parliament.
China Hand asks if military rule will come back to Pakistan within the next year. I find that more likely by each day.