I Wannabe A "Martyr"

The Pakistani Interior Minister has confirmed the long running buzz that Hakimullah Mehsud had joined his predecessor Baitullah Mehsud in Paradise courtesy of an American Predator strike. Almost immediately Taliban in Pakistan announced a new entry in the I-Wannabe-A-Martyr sweepstakes. The new guy is Noor Jamal who goes by the moniker, "Mullah Toofan".

"Mullah Toofan" is a very bad guy whose previous claims to fame have been based on his video performances in the roll of whip wielding thug and Decapitator First Class. His able right arm and skills with sword and knife have made him a feared figure among the Taliban's Mighty Warriors of Allah. His oratorical skills are also of the requisite sort as he has made many mighty threats against both the infidel "Crusaders" and the assorted "apostates" of Pakistan. While he has not yet reached the rarefied levels of Osama bin Laden as an analyst of American culpability in "global warming," he is very good at demanding death to Americans, Westerners, and indigenous perverting backsliders from Islam (as he understands the religion.)

With the official job title of "acting" capo d' tutti capi, "Mullah Toofan" can put his skills of "killing humans as others kill chickens" (as one local villager reportedly described matters) to work on behalf of an armed group which has seen hard times of late. The Pakistani Army did kill a number of Taliban trigger pullers during their less than blitz-like campaigns in Swat and South Waziristan even if it has been reluctant to say the least to continue the move into the sanctuary zone of North Waziristan.

It is highly probable that the new guy will continue the policies of his two predecessors. This means Pakistan will have more suicide bombings, more mass killings, more attacks on even presumably secure, hard targets such as military and police installations. It also means that Taliban will continue to make itself increasingly detested within large segments of the local population. Whether in the FATA or the major cities of the country, the Taliban's willingness to kill has become not a strength but a potentially fatal weakness.

"Mullah Toofan" will also have to deal with the effects of Operation Moshtarak. The US Marines, British Army, and Afghan National Forces are moving in on the Taliban stronghold of Marjah in Helmand province. While the fight will be tough, the end result will see a goodly number of surviving Taliban fighters cross the border into "Mullah Toofan's" territory. Given the nature of Taliban in Pakistan's command and control system, logistics, and overall organizational perturbation, the influx of defeated guerrillas from Afghanistan will be a further cause of overall weakness.

The Pakistani Army and government have long been apprehensive regarding the proposed US/ISAF/ANF operations in Helmand as it would cause a massive flow of turban-topped, bearded Koran wavers into the FATA--particularly North Waziristan. Now that push-comes-to-shove time is upon them, the Pakistani leadership will have to decide whether or not to reconceptualize the cross border movement as an opportunity rather than a threat.

The very best time to land a heavy, perhaps fatal, blow on Taliban in Pakistan is one of confusion and disorder within Taliban ranks. The combination of ever-new senior commanders, loss of many experienced mid-level personnel, past pressure from the army of Pakistan, and the arrival of a mob of defeated (but not necessarily demoralized) Taliban gun slingers beating feet ahead of the "infidels" provides the best possible basis for neutralizing the Thugs For Mohammad as a military force.

If the Pakistani Army (and its government) can show a capacity for movement faster than that of a snail with a hernia and an offensive orientation transcending that of a rabbit, the next four to six weeks could see Taliban put on the ropes as an armed threat to Islamabad. Of course the capacity to move aggressively requires a political will to do so on the part of the government and army alike.

It is legitimate to doubt that sufficient will exists or will exist in the near-term. There are too many Islamists in both the government and army for effective political will aimed at the ending of Taliban in either Pakistan or Afghanistan to take root and flourish.

Along with the presence of Islamists and sympathizers with Islamism there is another factor enervating any effective Pakistani focus on Taliban. That factor is India. More properly it is the apparent inability of the Pakistani elite to get beyond India as the only "enemy" confronting the country. Or, to narrow the focus slightly, the problem is the willingness of many in the political and military elites of Pakistan to risk the continuation of the country in its present form in order to pursue a chimera--the conquest of Kashmir.

Irredentism is a risky basis for policy. More than a few countries in the West have discovered this truth over the years. The astigmatism shown by many individuals in Pakistan regarding Kashmir show that they have not profited by the final failure of irredentism where it has existed before.

Between Islamism and irredentism there is no real probability that Pakistan will take full--or any--advantage from the opportunities being handed them by American Predators and Operation Moshtarak. That, bucko, is the unfortunate truth about our "allies" in the war against al-Qaeda and Taliban.

Push Comes To Shove Time For Taliban

Reversing the customary military practice of secrecy prior to the launch of a campaign, the US, UK, and their Afghan and NATO partners have announced in advance not only where but when they plan to open up in a major way on Taliban. The public announcements which have been carried around the world were not just a good idea, they were a brilliant ploy.

General McChrystal has made a priority of protecting Afghan civilians from war's devastation. The announcement has made sure that beaucoup noncombatants are leaving the projected zone of operations in Helmand province focusing on the city of Lashkar Gah.

Operation Moshtarak bodes to be not only one of the largest but perhaps most decisive actions in the long, long, long and previously poorly waged war. The exodus of civilians from the area, which has been a center of both Taliban strength and opium production for years, is an essential for the operations success. Knowing this the Talib forces have sought not only to prevent civilian departure but to so intimidate the local population that it could use civilians as shields against the allied troops.

No one has ever accused Afghans of being particularly slow on the uptake when it is their lives which are on the line. The last generation or so of constant warfare has honed the sense of self-preservation to a fine edge which has been in no way dulled by the Taliban's Islamist views of the love of death being more godly than a love of life. Thus, the massive display of a very timely "feet don't fail me now" mentality on the part of the civilians.

Encouragement for the flood of departure has been provided by the highly visible preparatory moves by the British troops as well as the US Marines. In this area the Brits have been the more deliberately obvious as they have staged "shaping" operations in recent days. There can be little doubt that any civilians watching these preparatory moves would find a potent reason to have important and pressing business elsewhere.

The British Army in large measure due to its superb training, very high quality leadership at all levels from the section to the brigade, unit cohesion, presents a picture of uncompromising, remorseless dedication to victory which gives it a powerful moral ascendancy over its opponents. While the Taliban are not the Argentinians of the Falkland Island fracas, they cannot be immune to the looming reality of defeat, purposeless "martyrdom," and final futility.

In a very real way the British Army is better than the legends of the Texas Rangers. (You might remember the yarn of a Ranger saying, "No one can stop a man who knows he is in the right and keeps on coming.") Even when let down by their political masters, provided with deficient or inadequate equipment, the British other ranks and the officers leading them are more than willing to "keep on coming" even against an enemy qualitatively superior. (Think Western Desert before Monty came along.)

The same may be said of the US Marines who are taking the biggest combat bite. As fighters the Marines are undeniably at the top of the heap. Looking back at the debacle in Vietnam, the historian can only conclude that the Marines of Eye Corps did the most successful, continuous, effective heavy lifting of the war--even though the Marine grunt had a bit less than a fifty-fifty chance of getting through his thirteen month tour both undead and unwounded.

With many civilians out of the way, both the Marines and the British Army have a good to excellent chance of macerating the Taliban despite prepared IEDs, fortified villages, and suicide bombers. Taliban will take a lickin' and most probably will not keep on tickin'.

Of course the operation will not be a walk over for either the Americans or the British. The good guys will take a hit--perhaps even a heavy one. In exchange the war in Afghanistan may very well have finally reached a necessary turning point. At the end of the op the Taliban may finally realize that there is no way it can achieve a military victory over the "infidels."

The biggest unknown of the upcoming fracas is the performance of the Afghan National Army. The attached Afghan force is comprised of units which have reached the highest level of training performance. But, as anyone who has felt his balls creep upward as an angry round flies by, "all training is simulated."

If the Afghan units perform successfully there is real reason to hope for the timely achievement of the minimum necessary American (and British) strategic goal: not-losing. A successful performance by the Afghan National Force would also provide substance to the concept of an Afghan polity. Finally, it would give Afghanistan a genuine national institution transcending most tribal, ethnic, linguistic identities. It would show the Afghan National Force to be what George Washington said of the post-Revolutionary War US Army, "a school for citizenship."

Should the US, UK, NATO, and Afghan forces come out way on top in the upcoming campaign, there is reason to believe that Taliban would seek to find a political accommodation with the Kabul government. As everyone realizes no internal war can be finally decided by only military means. Military operations may lead to hostilities termination but only a process of political accommodation can bring about conflict resolution.

In short, the military must smash Taliban sufficiently that the leadership is willing to accept the messy process of reaching compromise outcomes with the in-power regime. The regime must also accept that it cannot kill its way to unchallenged authority and settle for operational dominance of the nation.

At the moment Karzai seems inclined to accept that reality--if his words can be taken at face value. His less than spectacularly legitimate regime can do no other if it wants to stay in power--which it does ever so much.

Operation Moshtarak will not in and of itself bring about hostilities termination. That will take more operations, more yomping the mountains and deserts, more killing, more dying.

This implies that the essential nature of the contest in Afghanistan has not altered. At root, it is a battle of political will between the Afghan supporters of Taliban and the publics of the US, UK, and other Western countries. If we in the US or our counterparts in the UK and elsewhere lose heart before Taliban comes to grip with the new realities, then all the bravery, sacrifice, and effort will go for nothing.

While chewing on that basic truth we must consider another. When the day of conflict resolution finally arrives, the Afghanistan which emerges will not be some sort of imitation Western democracy with pluralism, tolerance, free institutions, an independent judiciary, and shopping malls. It will be a mess not unlike contemporary Iraq. When the shooting stops Afghanistan will still be heavily tribal, strongly Islamist, stone broke, and reactionary in many ways.

The best that can be hoped for is that Afghanistan in the future will not repeat the fatal error of Taliban chieftain Omar and extend "Islamic" hospitality and protection to an Osama bin Laden or a group such as al-Qaeda. Not a lofty end to envision, but a highly necessary one.