Stating that the United States cannot fight radicalism in Pakistan, an American expert has urged the United States to support President Asif Ali Zardari's strategy in combating the menace.
"America should give him the latitude he needs to succeed - and even a little trust. We cannot defeat radicalism in Pakistan. But if Zardari gets the support he needs, he can," said Thomas Houlahan, Director of the Military Assessment Programme of the Centre for Security and Science, a think-tank.
Noting that Zardari's strategy reflected his philosophy of dealing with conflicts, he said:"He plans far ahead, and on any problem he thinks things out thoroughly before he acts. "He has also never been afraid to negotiate. So long as the other side is willing to negotiate in good faith, Zardari has been willing to go anywhere, up to the 11th hour and 59th minute, for peace talks."
Houlahan said almost the minute that the Pakistan People's Party formed a government after the elections, it (new government) found itself under intense pressure from the US to launch a major offensive in the areas where insurgents were active. "When it found that an immediate offensive was not in the offing, the US government began levelling charges of appeasement and claiming that Pakistan was allowing terrorists 'safe havens.'
But the PPP government knew what it was doing. While it was not going to be pressured or taunted into throwing wild punches by the United States, it had a clear view of the situation - and a better strategy for dealing with insurgents than a government on the other side of the planet that knew next to nothing about what was going on in the tribal areas.
So, rather than launch an immediate general assault with massive collateral damage and the possibility of turning the tribal areas against the government, the PPP government offered an olive branch to any insurgent band inclined to accept it by laying down its arms. Many accepted.
But with the olive branch came a stick. When it became apparent which groups were not interested in negotiation but intent on cold-blooded mass murder, the Pakistani government hit them hard. The army engaged them on the ground, while Pakistani Air Force F-16s pounded them from the air. In just a few weeks, more than 700 insurgents have been killed.
The results of the anti-insurgent strategy demonstrated its soundness. It hit the guilty while avoiding harm to the innocent. It also limited disruption, though even this focused offensive required the evacuation of more than 300,000 civilians. One can imagine what chaos would have resulted had Zardari and his government given in to American pressure to launch a hasty general offensive.
"Insurgent anger in Pakistan will not soon dissipate - as this weekend's terror bombing of the Islamabad Marriott so brutally reminds us - but it is Zardari, not (President George) Bush or John McCain or Barack Obama, who knows best how to contain it and eventually defeat it".
"By almost any objective measure, Pakistan is fully engaged in the war on terror. One of every four insurgents killed in the Afghanistan Pakistan insurgency has been killed by Pakistani security forces. And for every American service member who has died in that insurgency, three members of Pakistan's security forces have died.
"Yet the president is not intimidated. Immediately after the Marriott bombing, orders went out for the Pakistani Army to send more troops to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and to step up the intensity of its attacks on insurgents there."
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