Update: Obama and Pakistan

Last week I wrote about the US’s military’s use of unmanned drones to carry out air strikes in Pakistan. The air strikes have caused an increase of anti-Americanism in Pakistan, and I suggested that President Obama work with Pakistani authorities rather than ignore them. Amazingly, he has done just that—today, Obama agreed to consult Pakistani military leaders before performing air strikes in the country. With any luck, this should prevent more anti-Americanism from forming in the region by making the US seem more benevolent and cooperative. However, this is not the only thing I would like to talk about today—the White House has just released their new Afghanistan/Pakistan strategies, and I would like to discuss these. 

The main theme seems to be combining the plans for Pakistan and the plans for Afghanistan into a “coherent whole.”  Obama is making it very clear that the war will continue, but the way we handle it will change. This is not a “surge,” but an ongoing effort to pursue Al-Queda and put Afghani and Pakistani security forces in control of the situation. It will require more US troops to be sent overseas, but there is a clear exist strategy in mind: subdue the terrorists to the point where the local authorities can take over. There is clearly far more emphasis on reconstruction compared to the Bush Doctrine—as I understand it, the original plans for the Iraq War assumed that the Iraqis could rebuilt their country in 6 months.

The report also calls for more cooperation between US agencies and organizations in order to form a more concrete strategy. I believe that this is the most important point, since it is lack of communication that made the war in Iraq such a disaster. The US was woefully unprepared for the kind of war it was fighting, and there was no clearly defined exit strategy. If we can get the various branches of the military to communicate with each other and with other agencies (such as the CIA, FBI, NSA, etc.) I believe we will be fighting far more effectively. I am particularly concerned with the NSA—I suspect they have a gold mine of information about terrorist cells that the operational branches of the military have not tapped into yet.  

It is also clear that the US is going to call on other, non-NATO nations, such as China and Russia, to help out (or at least not oppose) with the war effort. I doubt this part of the report will have any significance—though Obama has a better repertoire with other heads of state than Bush did, I doubt he will be able to convince nations to commit themselves to a war means very little to them. 

Overall, will this strategy work? I think it might, but not as perfectly as Obama hopes. I believe his policy of better communication and will work far better than Bush’s “War on Terror,” which was ignorant of the fact that the nations the US is invading are not happy about the fact that their homeland is being meddled with. However, I don’t think that this new policy will destroy Al-Queda or the Taliban completely. It is almost impossible to completely snub radicalism in the Middle East, and it is going to take at least several years for local security forces to be able to handle this fight themselves. Additionally, Al-Queda is a worldwide organization—though we are eliminating some of their cells and cutting off their influence in two major Arab nations, we are not destroying the organization entirely. Sadly, in order to do so a much more interventionist policy is needed, one that would undoubtedly have the world spite the United States.