Pakistan Wins Some--And Loses Elsewhere

Operation "Path to Salvation" has been working surprisingly well in South Waziristan. The Pakistani army has cleared the majority of cities and moderate sized towns in the region, squeezing the ever-retreating Taliban into mountain refuges. The pressure will continue for a few more days until the snow brings active operations to a near halt.

Behind the advancing army the Pakistani government has been attempting to address the problems of (re)establishing effective government, gaining functional legitimacy, and providing basic services. So far the Army's part of the clear-hold-build operational concept has been working better than the government follow-on. However, the government must be given credit for making the attempt--and succeeding to some degree.

The success of the Army in South Waziristan more than its previous operations in Swat show that it is a more capable counterinsurgency force than most (including the Geek) thought it to be. It is possible, even probable, that the Army learned from Swat. That being the case it must be given credit for a very rapid assimilation of the lessons learned.

The readiness of the Army to maintain a presence in cleared territory resembles its previous behavior in Swat. The probability of a long term Army presence in South Waziristan has been boosted by the announcement by the Interior Minister ten days ago that additional forces are being deployed in the area. This decision will help assure that the local population believes that the government will stay and keep the Taliban survivors at bay. It will also provide an effective matrix for the development of an enhanced capacity local defense and constabulary force.

Powerfully assisting the success of the operation to date has been the local population's disenchantment with Taliban. Until two years ago the Taliban was very popular within South Waziristan. But, as was the case with the Afghanistan Taliban and the Islamist jihadists in Iraq, the Taliban in South Waziristan proved to be their own worst enemy. The excesses of repression, the love of flogging, stoning, maiming and killing people for "religious" malfeasances soured the locals. Also turning the locals against the jihadists and their expansive view of Shariah was the prohibition of fun.

So far the indications point to the Pakistani Army and, more importantly, Air Force having killed relatively few civilians. Care in targeting is part of the reason. Another, larger factor was the increased employment of foreign manufacture precision guided munitions. As a result of the smaller non-combatant butchers' bill, the locals have been very welcoming of the incoming Army and government personnel.

The intelligence collection and usage of the Inter-Services Intelligence and Army has also improved markedly over the Swat operation. The reasons are obscure but probably focus on two considerations. ISI has sources within Taliban. The Taliban command, control, and communications systems rely on cell phones including those with a "push to talk" capacity, and this means the commo is wide open to interception and exploitation.

While Path to Salvation is not to its end yet, the Pakistanis deserve a strong thumbs-up for their success to date. As long as the locals (and the larger Pakistani population) continue their support of the operation it is probable that the military and government will not quit before a reasonable approximation of suppressing Taliban in the Agency has been accomplished. Then, of course, it will be necessary to repeat the processes in other parts of the FATA.

One of the non-FATA places where the Army and government will have to employ their newly developed counterinsurgency skills is Balochistan. The sparsely populated, economically underdeveloped but resource rich area of Balochistan is currently the venue of a three way contest.

The belligerents are the Baloch separatists, Islamist jihadists including both al-Qaeda and Taliban, and, of course, the central government. While the Islamist jihadists are recent and not particularly welcome arrivals, the separatists have been active since the days in 1948 when the infant Pakistani Army conquered the previously independent Balochistan.

Since then, a sporadic, usually very low intensity defensive insurgency having the goal of establishing a (re)independent Balochistan has been underway. In recent years the insurgency has been chronic as well as having grown in intensity.

Over the past eight years the situation in Balochistan has grown increasingly perilous from the point of view of Islamabad. The turbulence surrounding the aftermath of the US led invasion of Afghanistan spilled heavily into Balochistan with results which both benefited the indigenous insurgents and brought the Islamist jihadists into the mix.

The provincial capital Quetta has become a vital center of support operations including the movement of drugs, arms, personnel, and money to and from Afghanistan. The US believes that assorted Taliban and al-Qaeda heavies have been hiding out in Quetta or nearby. The Pakistani government denies this, of course.

It is the US conviction that a number of "WANTED--Dead or Alive" figures are in Balochistan which propelled the recent request by Washington that Islamabad allow an expansion of our UAV shoot-to-kill operations into Balochistan. This request has perturbed the Pakistani government greatly as it suspects our long range intentions regarding the province.

A leading political figure in the Baloch separatist movement, Hyrbyair Marri, has stated publicly that the goal was an independent, secular Balochistan. He has noted rather pointedly that the secular orientation of a new state of Balochistan would fit well with the policy objectives of the US and other Western nations. He drew a sharp distinction between Islamic Pakistan and the nature of a secular state as is proposed for Balochistan.

Marri's position outraged the Islamist jihadists of Taliban and al-Qaeda with the result that violence of the Muslim on Muslim sort has increased. This has exacerbated further the ethnic and linguistic tension between the native Balochs and the Punjabi Pakistanis.

In any event the government is currently in third place in the race for supremacy between the three contestants. There is no real probability of this changing in the near- to mid-term. The ground truth is simply that the Islamabad government has neither functional nor existential legitimacy in the eyes of the Baloch population. While some Baloch adhere to the Islamist jihadists of Taliban, this will change if the Islamist jihadists continue to rely upon the attacking of soft, civilian targets or insisting on a version of Shariah which exceeds Baloch desires.

It is the presence of the Baloch insurgency which provides the best basis for a Pakistani alliance with Iran. The latter country has its own Baloch problems as was dramatically shown not that long ago with the attack on a meeting of Revolutionary Guard heavyweights.

It must not be overlooked that Afghanistan has a bull in the herd as well since the Baloch presence extends into that country--including Helmand province where the British and US Marines have been engaged in a prolonged and far-from-bloodless operation. When joined with new forces from the recently authorized Obama Surge, Helmand and other provinces adjacent to Balochistan will become more battle torn with the result that a refugee surge into Balochistan can be anticipated.

The further destabilizing of Balochistan is what bothers Islamabad most of all when the implications of the Obama Surge are considered. Any new turbulence will make the job of containing the insurgency all the more difficult, not to say impossible.

There is an irony in play which concerns Islamabad. Even as the Army suppresses Taliban and the government extends its writ into the FATA, the probability of losing the very rich area of Balochistan becomes more and more elevated. At the end of it all the Pakistani government faces the strong likelihood of exchanging the mountains of FATA for the oil and natural gas laden flatlands of Balochistan.

No wonder the lads in Islamabad are not really happy campers right now. There is no way in which a victory over Taliban in the FATA makes up for losing Balochistan.

Well, that's tough. History shows that the Pakistanis had their chance in Balochistan. And, that they blew it.

It Couldn't Have Happened To A More Worthy Bunch.

The Jundallah (Soldiers of God) have been waging a very low intensity defensive insurgency in the southeast of Iran, the section claimed as part of the latent state of Baluchistan. From time to time the Jundallah bombers and trigger pullers have staged a mediagenic event. The last time around it was an attack on a Shia mosque which resulted in a fair number of civilian casualties.

This time the suicide bomber took on a far more worthy target. The man in "tribal costume" (to quote the LA Times) penetrated the gymnasium where five high ranking commanders of the much feared Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps were holding a "solidarity" meeting with a view to bringing the Baluchi Sunnis and the Persian Shia together in harmony. When the man pushed the clicker he took the five heavyweights and a number of others with him.

At nearly the same time a second bomber took out a vehicle containing another bunch of Revolutionary Guard thugs.

The televised images of the carnage at both sites reportedly rocked Iran. The event(s) must have rocked the Revolutionary Guard even more as it showed their vulnerability at the very time they have been riding very high in the saddle.

Not surprisingly the first reaction of the regime in Tehran was to blame the US and the UK for the twin bombings. Being completely unable (not to mention unwilling) to acknowledge that the Baluchi of Iran, not unlike their ethnic and religious fellows in Pakistan and Afghanistan, are pursuing the goal of an independent Baluchistan, the Iranian elite went instantly to the default position: The Great Satan did it.

There can be little if any doubt that the US government is quietly pleased with Iran's discomfiture--up to a point. While anything which weakens the regime's hold on power is to be welcomed, the timing of today's incidents is disquieting. Iran is scheduled to hold yet one more round of talks with the US and its partners in the P5+1 tomorrow. The potential exists for the Iranians to use the twin bombings as an excuse for further delay. As if they really need one.

A State Department spokesman did the expected. The US deplored and condemned the attack and denied any connection with the Soldiers of God. The Brits have probably done the same.

The geographical, political, and social realities produced both the insurgency and its latest expression of political will and military capacity. The lines on the map which split the Baluchi into three national jurisdictions were made without regard for the desires and self-identification of the local inhabitants. For a mort of years this did not matter. More recently, say in the past thirty or forty years, it has not only mattered greatly, it has inspired resistance to all three national governments.

The Baluchi are a readily identifiable nationality. They are ethnically and, to a large extent, linguistically distinguishable from the other peoples inhabiting each of the three states. The Baluchi are also religiously distinguishable in Iran from the majority Shia. The Baluchi in all three countries but particularly in Pakistan and Iran believe with good reason that they have been discriminated against by the governments.

The combination of political disaffiliation and a developing national consciousness gave rise to the pursuit of a state of their own: A unified Baluchistan under the sole control of the Baluchi. As established states are not known for their willingness to voluntarily disassemble, an insurgency of the defensive sort was inevitable.

The existence of hydrocarbon deposits as well as other extractable resources assures that an independent Baluchistan would be economically viable at least in the near- to mid-term. Unlike many independent nation-states of the "decolonised" world, a Baluchistan would have both an economic reason to exist and the means by which existence would be assured. In this way as in features of self-identification, tripartite division, and a resort to defensive insurgency, nascent Baluchistan is identical to another latent state, Kurdistan.

The geopolitical realities of the Baluchi like those surrounding the Kurds presents the US with a set of seemingly irresolvable problems. The ancient, more honored in the breech than in the observance American policy of "self-determination of nations" would seem to require Washington to support fully the aspirations of Baluchi and Kurds alike. At the same time the existence of American agreements with the governments of Turkey, Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan make support impossible.

Justice as much as such exists in the international arena is on the side of the Baluchis as it is with the Kurds. Both are identifiable nations, both have long standing aspirations for statehood, both have been mistreated, discriminated against, and generally ignored by the sundry national entities, and both have waged long insurgencies for the same reason the American colonials did. But, none of this matters.

As Turkey, Iraq, and Iran cannot continence the amputation of their Kurdish components, Pakistan and Iran cannot admit of losing their Baluchi majority provinces. Nor can the US or any other power give assistance either open or covert to the insurgents.

This means that no matter how much the US might like to contribute to the dismemberment of Iran, it cannot do so. The insurgencies of Kurd and Baluchi alike are not fungible. That means we cannot support an anti-Iran effort without simultaneously supporting the insurgencies directed at our "allies," Pakistan, Iraq, and Turkey.

There is no practical way to assure that any assistance granted to the Soldiers of God in Iran would not translate into aid to their counterparts in either Pakistan or Afghanistan. Our personnel turn a blind eye to movement of arms, drugs, or men across the Afghan-Iranian border only at the risk the same will ultimately flow to anti-Islamabad fighters in Pakistan.

The best, most determined efforts to control an insurgency will finally fail. We have learned that lesson before. There is no need to repeat it, particularly given the instability resident within both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The pooch in Baluchistan or, to err on the side of accuracy, Sistan-Baluchistan Province, is one which the Tehran regime will and have been screwing--royally. The Persians are a bare majority in Iran. While the Kurds are only seven percent of the sixty-six million and the Baluchi a mere two percent, they are quite set upon their goal of national independence. It may be only a matter of time before the other ethnic and linguistic minorities take the road pioneered by the more factious Kurds and Baluchi.

The regime in Tehran cannot tolerate any dissent. The mullahs and their stooges have shown that repeatedly. The US government might hope that disaffiliation and dissent continue and grow as such might have positive policy implications, but there is nothing that Washington can do directly to foster or support separatist movements.

That is an unfortunate but very real ground truth. And it will remain the truth unless and until the US is willing to embrace the Wilsonian notion of "self-determination" even at the expense of critical countries such as Turkey, Iraq, and Pakistan.

The presence of this governing reality does not, however, preclude discrete applause for the Baluchi bombers of the Soldiers of God. It does not prevent saying of the dead and maimed members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, "It couldn't have happened to a more deserving bunch of guys."