Pakistan's "Mother Of All Battles"

After weeks, months really, of announcing, "We're coming! We're coming!" the Pakistani Army is finally moving into South Waziristan. The operation has been called--in imitation of Saddam Hussein's boast eighteen years ago--"the mother of all battles." As was the case with the late Iraqi dictator, the current Pakistani offensive is far more likely to be apparent than real. At least as regards its long term effects.

The Army had no choice but to finally send men (some thirty thousand according to reports) in on the ground considering the loss of military "face" in the series of attacks across the country last week. Actually, the Army had little choice following the 6 October television broadcasts of Hakimullah Mehsud, the new head of Taliban in Pakistan. The Army, it should be recalled, confidently declared Hakimullah dead, killed in a shoot-out with a rival. (The purported trigger pulling rival was on TV along with the AK-47 brandishing Hakimullah.)

The "boy general" as the twenty-eight year old Hakimullah has been dubbed wasted no time demonstrating that his televised threats were quite real. The coordinated series of highly embarrassing attacks convinced even the most denial laden doubters that there was more bite than boast in Hakimullah and Taliban alike.

The ponderous Pakistani ground offensive which features armored units, artillery, jet aircraft, helicopter gunships, as well as the far more useful infantry has moved with accustomed caution into the rugged and remote South Waziristan terrain. The offensive will be greeted by an estimated ten to fifteen thousand adherents of Taliban and al-Qaeda. With only a three to one advantage at best, the ground forces will not be able to range far or fast. And, every inch of the way they will be inhibited by the threat or the reality of ambushes, suicide bombers, and the ever present roadside IED.

It is also important to keep in mind when appraising the Pakistani offensive and its probable results that it is not aimed against threats beyond the Taliban and (a few, even a very few) al-Qaeda personnel. The Punjabi origin terrorist groups which were once trained and financed by either or both the Army and the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence for operations in the Kashmir are not in the cross-hairs. They are immune despite the fact that it was Punjabis and not folks from South Waziristan who executed the commando raid on the Pakistani "Pentagon" in Rawalpindi last week.

At the moment the public--or more accurately, the English speaking, educated, middle-class public--is in support of the new offensive. Whether the same can be said of the members of the public not easily accessible to Western media is highly questionable. In the past the opposition to military operations in Swat and elsewhere has come from the Pakistani hoi polloi not the Western oriented and educated elite.

The majority of the Pakistani Army ranks is drawn from the same voiceless element of Pakistani society. How long the snuffies will keep a will to combat once heavily engaged is also questionable. It is even legitimate to doubt that the rather road bound Army is physically up to the task of humping the bush of South Waziristan, particularly as casualties mount, the weather worsens, and results are hard to see.

The larger context also militates against any sort of definitive success crowning the new offensive. The Army (and ISI) do not see eye-to-eye with the civilian government. This lack of a unified vision came into sharp focus with the Army's severe criticism of the government for accepting the new US foreign aid package with its insistence on civilian supremacy and continuity of counter-insurgent efforts in return for a few billion more of our (borrowed) dollars.

Pakistan is a financial basketcase. It has survived (barely) on loans from the IMF and foreign aid. Industries are often silent because of electricity shortages. Healthcare in rural areas is non-existent. Education of a secular sort is available only to those who can pay, and pay well. The largest of Pakistan's provinces, Baluchistan, sits on vast amounts of natural gas and other extractable resources but remains both undeveloped and laden with political disaffiliation.

Then there are the "seminaries." Madrases litter the landscape. Religious education--much of it Wahhibist or Salifist in nature--is the only form of education available to many, perhaps most, Pakistanis. And, the record shows, these institutions are the wellspring of Islamist jihadism. In short, whether the current offensive fails completely or only partially (the most likely outcome) or succeeds beyond the wildest imaginings of its designers, the stockpile of up and coming jihadists will be replenished and then some.

The various Islamist jihadist groups in Pakistan which includes but is not limited to Pakistani Taliban have made the long term goal quite plain. The demand is for an Islamist state governed according to the strictest interpretation of Shariah. This means Islamist control not only of the state but of the Army and, last but far from least, the nuclear arsenal.

The Army by having picked up the gauntlet hurled by the "boy general" has mounted the tiger. Having climbed aboard, it has no easy way of getting off--unless the tiger is killed by the ride. This is not likely. At some point in the not very remote future, one can expect the offensive to simply peter out. The Army may declare victory but will probably limit itself to saying the goals of the offensive have been achieved.

If the Swat campaign is a fair example this will mean the Army has collected enough Taliban scalps to feel its honor has been maintained. The backstage reality will be, again in the mode of Swat, the slow pace of Army operations has allowed the heavyweights of Taliban as well as a good percentage of the trigger pullers and bomb carriers to exfiltrate at their leisure.

The Army will return to its cantonments. Taliban et al will stay undisturbed in their new locations and rebuild their structure in South Waziristan, provided the Army actually perturbed it in a noticeable way during the "mother of all battles."

At the same time the government will hold its begging bowl higher, maintaining it now has a greater claim on the resources of outsiders due to its having defeated the dreaded Taliban. Not much will change behind the public pretenses and diplomatic rhetoric.

Pakistan will continue to lurch from crisis to crisis unless and until the governing elite can convince an ever skeptical public by both word and deed that the status quo has both existential and functional legitimacy. The country will continue to be threatened by Islamist jihadism unless and until the government can meet the competing demands for an effective and non-corrupt rule of (admittedly Islamic tinted) law. The jihadists will continue to be both replenished and empowered unless and until the government can provide effective secular education for all who want it--and suppress the Islamist "seminaries."

Without basic, systemic changes, the outcome of the current offensive matters not in the slightest. Win, lose, or (most likely) draw, the government will not be more secure. And, Taliban and the others will not be more than temporarily discommoded.

That means President Obama had best not raise his (or our) hopes of a new day coming to the far marches of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. It ain't a going to happen, not this time. And, probably not in our lifetime.