Faced with a desperately brittle situation in Pakistan, the American government is now considering a plan to incite violence between tribal factions and al-Qaida elements along the Afghan border. A key element:
The proposal is modeled in part on a similar effort by American forces in Anbar Province in Iraq that has been hailed as a great success in fighting foreign insurgents there. But it raises the question of whether such partnerships, to be forged in this case by Pakistani troops backed by the United States, can be made without a significant American military presence in Pakistan. And it is unclear whether enough support can be found among the tribes, some of which are working with Pakistan's intelligence agency.
The fact that this plan is modeled explicitly on the Anbar effort - the so-called "awakening" - is crucial. Read on ...
Because the Anbar effort itself is modeled on what might as well be called the "American military fallback strategy", wherein we provide support to one rebel faction to fight another rebel faction as part of a somewhat confusing effort to strengthen a central government that neither side of the provincial battle supports in the first place.
The problem, of course, is that if the narrow effort is successful - if the people we support prevail over the people we oppose - there's still the pressing "so... what now?" question to answer. And viewed over a long time horizon - as issues like providing arms to unfriendly militants ought to be - the historical facts are there: this didn't work in Afghanistan, didn't work in Iraq and Iran, didn't work in Afghanistan again, is likely not working in Iraq as we speak, and won't work in Pakistan, at a moment when the Musharraf government is about as popular in that country as al Maliki's is in Iraq.
