A report in The Washington Post says that the US has suddenly stepped up air strikes against what it claims are al Qaeda targets in Pakistan's tribal areas. The US is said to want to draw maximum benefit from a tacit understanding it had arrived at earlier this year with the Musharraf government, giving it a free hand to carry out strikes against al Qaeda elements and their allies.
What has triggered the escalation, apparently, is the question mark hanging over President Musharraf's own political future. Washington strategists seem to have decided to make hay while the sun shines. It is another matter, though, that the strategy is likely to create more problems than solve any.
There is no reason to believe that the militants have congregated in the areas at this moment of political change in Islamabad to invite American attention and consequently attacks. What is known is that many innocent people, including women and children, have been killed.
Needless to say, the US air strikes in our tribal areas evoke a strong sense of outrage and anger. People in general see them as an attack on their national sovereignty and dignity. Those directly affected thirst for revenge as per an age-old tradition of pursuing blood feuds for generations, inflating the number of foot soldiers for extremist causes.
And of course, the upsurge in air strikes is ill timed too, coming as it does at a time a newly elected government is in the process of settling down. The changeover has also ushered in new dynamics of doing business.
As the leaders of the majority parties in the new Parliament have been saying, Pakistan's policy vis-à-vis the so-called war on terror, which has brought the fighting right into our cities with horrific consequences, calls for a review. They want to formulate it afresh from the perspective of Pakistan's own interests.
US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, who along with Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher, has just concluded a four-day visit to this country, raising many eyebrows, noted at a news conference in Islamabad that the extremist threat in Pakistan "occurs not only in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, but it has spread to the settled areas as well."
Unsurprisingly, though, Negroponte who is part of Washington's neo-conservative inner circle, expressed disappointment over the new government's leaders' statements about talking to the extremists. He did not know, he said, how to deal with extremists not willing to listen to reason and talk about peace. Negotiating with them is not going to be an easy task. But we also know that the use of military means alone has only aggravated the problem.
The 'extremists' fall in two main categories, one comprising what has come to be known as the local Taliban and the other al Qaeda elements. The government must do all it takes to appease the local militants and alienate the al Qaeda types. Towards that end, it must adopt a two-pronged policy aimed at political as well as economic rehabilitation of those directly or indirectly connected to the local Taliban.
So far as the question of changing the mindset through economic upliftment programmes is concerned, a lot of emphasis is being laid at present on education, which, of course, is the most important step towards progress and development.
But some people have been using it to create the suspicion that outsiders advance their allegedly unsavoury objectives on the pretext of promoting education. The upliftment policy for the tribal areas may work better and create less unwarranted suspicions if it adopts a different route, that of beginning with the provision of such basic facilities as clean drinking water and healthcare and then moving on to the education sector.
But first of all, the US must allow the new government time and space to work out a fresh policy to address extremist violence. Its air strikes will only exacerbate the problem.