Going To Hell In A Bucket

To paraphrase a mantra of the early (1920s) self-help movement, the Mideast and coterminous regions appear "in every way and every day to be growing worse."  For those of us who are fans of collapse and chaos, these are the glory days for the benighted folk living in the vast arc from Pakistan to the Persian Gulf and beyond to the point where sand dunes meet the surf in Morocco.

Pakistan remains what it has been for some years now, a national definition of the old military term SNAFU.  You almost have to feel sorry for the Pakistanis.  In the rush to use Islam of the Wahhibist flavor to unify the nation, the result was not only to undercut whatever potential for unity might have existed but to assure the place would dissolve into a bloody froth of differing views of what sort of Islam held the total truth for the Pakistani national identity.

The crimson foam of theological disputation conceals but does not mitigate the other divisions which constitute the political and social terrain of Pakistan.  Corruption is an ever present "flavor of the day," providing the basic diet of politics and business.  The Baluch defensive insurgency refuses to simply go away despite the fervent desires of Islamabad.  The national judiciary would provide much comic relief were it not for the tragic results of its combination of lethargy and incompetence.  The national fisc is a disaster area such that the country depends upon international aid (aka protection money and bribes) so that the army can continue to prepare for the hoped for next round of war with India.

Arguably, the real world challenges of inefficiency, bankruptcy, insurgency, corruption, broken government, and general poverty would be solvable were it not for the more powerful threats presented by the aforementioned religious disputes.  Stripped to the politically incorrect essentials, Pakistan is rumbling dangerously close to the cliff of failed state status due to the Islamic tendency to stay stuck in a war of religions, or, more properly, a war of competing sects not all that unlike those which left the German states in utter ruin nearly four hundred years ago.

The same dynamic of warfare between conflicting interpretations of theology threaten to turn the "Arab Spring" into an endless winter of very violent discontent in Egypt and, perhaps, Libya, as well as other countries--here Syria comes to mind.  No matter the gloss applied by Western journalists, academics, and politicians, the ugly face of conflict between adherents of austere Islam, Salifists, Wahhibists, and others of similar ilk with adherents of less austere forms as well as "secularists" can be seen easily.

Bad ideas do not die.  It does not matter to the True Believers of austere Islam that the appeals of their form of Islam have been shown in Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, and elsewhere to have a short life in the real world.  The seeming exception of Iran can be explained easily by reference to the numerous and well equipped internal security forces.  The lesson of life remains the same.  Austere Islam is not acceptable to the vast majority of Muslims and can be imposed and maintained only by robust, eternal repression.

Taliban in Afghanistan had outworn its welcome before the Americans arrived a decade back.  Al-Qaeda in Iraq rapidly expired as a direct result of its dreadful behavior in Anbar province.  Even in Somalia, the "kids" of al-Shabaab have insured their own ultimate defeat by their efforts to forcefully impose an unacceptably harsh interpretation of Islam on a people who previously wore their Islam lightly.

These lessons are lost on the Salifists of Egypt, a group which has not garnered the attention in the West lavished on the better known Egyptian Brotherhood.  It might be noted that a self-proclaimed voice of Salifism in Egypt, a man named Ismaili, has a very good chance of becoming Egypt's first democratically elected president.  The Salifists are dead set against peaceful relations with Israel.  Rather they are fully committed to seeing an end to the Jewish state.  Even more than the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's Salifists are anti-West, anti-American.  They are also of the view that the current regimes in the region are apostate and must be overthrown.

The Salifists of Egypt are four square in favor of Shariah.  They are equally firm in their opposition to making any accommodation to the West (or Western tourists.)  Some would go so far as to treat the monuments of Egypt's long pre-Islam history as "unlawful" suitable to be treated as Taliban did the great statutes of the Buddha.  Others would allow them to exist--hidden behind protective screens.

The Salifists are not so evident in their presence in Libya.  The invisibility doesn't imply absence.  Rather, it is indicative of caution, the same sort of caution which impelled the Renaissance Party in Tunisia to deny its goals and interim agenda for weeks after the collapse of the old regime.  It is a caution bred of the hard experience of Salifists and kindred souls in the deadly war between them and the Algerian army twenty years ago.  While the old regime in Egypt suppressed Salifists as it did the Muslim Brotherhood, the Algerian armed forces obliterated these advocates of political Islam.

The Salifists, the Brotherhood members, the Wahhibists, all those who espouse austere and politically oriented forms of Islam learned the lesson and keep their heads well down until such time as they can be raised with impunity at the least and an expectation of victory at best.  Splits between "secularist" militias and those representing the advocates of austere, political Islam are already apparent in Libya.  There is not yet fighting between militiamen without beards and those whose faces are bearded (but lack mustaches--a clear sign of Salifist tendencies), but there is no reason that today's lack of inter-group trust will not degenerate into exchanges of fire in the not too distant future.

Egypt, Tunisia, Libya all face very large problems in the wake of their respective adventures in regime change.  Big as the problems might be, seemingly insurmountable as the challenges seem, there is no reason to believe that each state and its people would not be able to overcome them.  That is, there would be no reason were it not for the presence of religious disputes.  The dynamic pitting those of powerful austere beliefs against all others bodes well to assure that each case is more likely than not to fail in achieving the goal of a more or less open, more or less democratic, more or less free market society, polity, and economy.

Once again it may be politically incorrect but it is not inaccurate to observe that each of these states is likely to dissolve in a welter of sectarian violence not unlike that which occurred in Iraq.  This eventuality is not in the interests of regional or global stability--to engage in an exercise of belaboring the obvious.  It is also an eventuality which cannot be halted or mitigated by Western action or inaction.

The takeaway?  To paraphrase the campaign mantra of Clinton in 1992: "It's the religion, stupid!"

Afghanistan Or Pashtunstan--A Back-to-the-Future Ending

Overshadowed by the Great Debt Ceiling Battle, the Great Downgrading, and the Miracle of the Job Free Recovery, the US has reached a very critical crossroad in Afghanistan.  In truth we haven't just reached it, we have pushed for it, rushed to it, and sought it with the eagerness of a drowning man clawing for the sky.

The US wants out of Afghanistan in the worst sort of way.  With the exception of some military people, most but not all of senior rank, the current political leadership of the US along with most of We the People want out, right now if possible, but tomorrow at the latest.  This is the ground reality regardless of President Obama's patent bromide about pressing on regardless delivered in the wake of the Chinook shoot-down and the deaths of more than two dozen men from Boat Six.

Of course, We the People, the congress, and the Clueless Guy in the Oval would like it best if the US can get out of Afghanistan with a modicum of dignity and a sufficient simulacrum of success to offset the billions of bucks spent and the hundreds of lives sacrificed on the alter of "nation-building."  Congressman Ron Paul was speaking for many besides himself at the Iowa debate when he denounced the American adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan while warning against any repeat in Iran.  Heads no doubt nodded in agreement across the country as he delivered his neo-isolationist message for the umpteenth time.

One unnecessary and unjustifiable war is reaching its quite unsatisfying conclusion.  As the Iraqi excuse for a parliament dithers over whether or not to invite American "trainers" to remain in country after the last day of this year, it has become brilliantly clear that only Saddam Hussein lost to a greater extent than did the US over the course of this long, bloody exercise in regime change.

Iran has emerged as the big winner in the contest as shown by Baghdad's alignment with Tehran over the question of Syria.  This is simply the most recent, most dramatic example of the triumph of Shia faith over all other considerations in the deeply divided human terrain of Iraq.  But, far outside of international politics, in the quotidian dealings of business, it is instructive that US companies have lost out repeatedly and consistently to competitors from China, Russia, and Europe for the lucrative opportunities available in the country which was--we were assured--going to pay for the costs of liberation, rejoice in new democratic freedoms, greet American troops as the French did after D-Day, and generally rally to the American flag.

Not to put too fine a point on it, the US lost in the Iraqi gambit.  And, now, we face losing in Afghanistan as well.  No, we will not be defeated in the field by Taliban, the Haqqani network, and their Pakistani backers.  There are simply not enough lucky shots by RPGs to do that.  Rather, we will conspire in our own defeat at the hands not of Taliban alone, nor by the combination of Taliban and Pakistan but rather by the joint efforts of "our man in Kabul," Hamid Karzai, the Pakistanis, and Taliban.

Karzai wants out of the war with a fervor which surpasses even that of the US and its partners in the ISAF.  To this end he has been seeking a species of separate peace with Taliban for some time now.  He has been seeking this goal not through the public means of the Supreme Peace Jurga, a large, unwieldy and totally implausible group, but through low key, private, and ever-so-discrete conversations in the presidential palace as well as out of country locations.

The glue which would hold any peace agreement together is simply that Karzai as well as the overwhelming majority of Taliban is Pashtu speaking.  They are all good Pashtuns on the Secret Peace Bus.  As the Pakistanis understand and support the Pashtun super-tribe due to its domination of the key border areas of the FATA, there is no doubt but Islamabad is well represented on the Peace Bus as well.  This means their strategic political position in Afghanistan will be protected in full.

The ethnic Uzbeks, Tajjks, and Hazaras constituting the majority of the population in northern Afghanistan are not represented on the Karzai-Taliban-Pakistan All Pashtun Peace Express.  These are the same people who suffered the most under the rule of the Taliban and whose Northern Alliance comprised the bulk of the indigenous fighters cooperating with the American invaders ten years ago.

It is not surprising that the old Northern Alliance is silently reforming.  It is no surprise that the non-Pushtu population is rearming at a great rate of knots. Nor will it be surprising when renewed civil war greets the announcement of a peace brokered by Pushtuns for the benefit of Pushtuns.  Last of all, there will be no surprise when the US greets the peace with loud applause and the ensuing internal war with a complete and utter silence.

It is not that the Deep Thinkers around the Oval are unaware of what is taking place in Kabul.  Even if the totality of American intelligence assets was detained on matters of tactical and operational focus, the US is aware of both the ongoing Karzai effort and the probable outcome(s.)  The former head of Afghanistan's premiere intelligence service, Amrolah Saleh, has been all but shouting it from the minarets since he was forced from office last year by Karzai.

Saleh is not only very highly respected by intelligence professionals from the US, the UK, and elsewhere, he is personally honest, not at all corrupt, and, most important, committed to the notion of an Afghanistan which includes all the several ethnic groups on a basis of equality before the law as well as in politics.  He is post-tribal to a fault.  And, in Afghanistan, being post-tribal in worldview is a grave fault.

Saleh's message is simple, easy to corroborate, and very well rooted historically.  Should the Great All Pashtun Peace Express arrive at its destination, the result will be fatal for Afghanistan.  In short, Afghanistan will return to what it was the day before the first American boot hit Afghan soil.  A predominantly Pushtu, religiously predicated, and robustly violent Taliban will run the southern two thirds of the country to the advantage of Islamabad while the reconstituted Northern Alliance will fight a defensive insurgency based upon ethnic identity in the final third.

A decade or more of war, hundreds of American lives, billions of dollars to say nothing of the indescribable sufferings of the Afghans caught in the crossfire, will finally result in a back-to-the-future ending.  Worst of all, there is virtually nothing the US can do about it.

We were doomed in our efforts the moment George W. Bush and his neocon ninny crew decided to engage in nation-building in Afghanistan in lieu of a simple, straight forward punitive expedition.  In the rush to invade Iraq so as to teach the Arabs a lesson in how to elect good men which was not needed or indicated, the men of the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld administration assured we were on a mission-impossible in Afghanistan.

Now we must reap the harvest of the seeds those intellectually challenged, ideologically driven men planted.  We can see the crop now, a government which is a broken, rotten travesty, a people demoralized and victimized by a war in which none have a direct stake, an army and police force which exists more in name than in the field, and an "ally" in Pakistan which is an adversary in all but name.  All that is needed to complete the harvest is the "success" of the Karzai-Taliban-Pakistan All Pushtun Peace Bus.

When that happens--and it is question of when not if, the US will be (including Vietnam) 0 for 3 in large scale interventionary operations.  That record is not simply pathetic, it is one of self-inflicted defeats unrivaled by any other major country in recent history.  (Even the French were only 0 for 2.)

Does this mean that Ron Paul is right?  Does it mean the US would be best served by an isolationist posture? It does imply that the US is so preposterously pathetic in its efforts at muscular nation-building that we should abandon any future efforts in that direction.  Of course, the world may not be willing to let us off so easy--and we may not be able to resist future temptations to do good.

The Geek has some thoughts on those questions.  (No shock there.)  Stay tuned.  He will be back.

The Land Of Pinocchio Is At It Again

No one oriented in time and place expects governments to be open, honest, and ever truthful in their public (or most private) statements.  Diplomacy is often a contest of careful mendacity on a par with the sort practiced by lawyers working in an adversarial system.  That is, blatant duplicity of the easily exposed sort is eschewed in favor of the well-crafted framing of a statement, an issue, a position.  The good diplomat like the good advocate in court depends on what is not said even more than that which is said to mask the truth--particularly when the truth is uncomfortable from one's perspective.

The heavyweights of the Pakistani military and intelligence service (ISI) fail to meet the standard of proper diplomatic lying.  This is unfortunate as the armed forces and ISI are the government of Pakistan far eclipsing in both power and public esteem the elected civilian political structure.  As such, they are far more a part of the problem and in no way a contributor to the solution as regards the threat posed to civilized states by the damaged but not yet defeated advocates of violent political Islam which stalk Afghanistan, the FATA, and Pakistan proper.

The power elite of the armed forces and ISI is back at it.  As has so often been the case, they are lying in a fashion which boggles the mind in its breathtaking absurdity.  In the most recent ejaculations of denial and counter accusation, the spokesman for the Pakistani general staff insults the intelligence of all who read or hear his thundering denunciation of a recent spate of articles and editorials linking the ISI and armed forces with groups dedicated to violent political Islam and the recent murder of a well known and respected Pakistani journalist.

The immediate reaction of any half-way intelligent and well-informed person to the preposterous posturing of Major General Athar Abbas' remarks is to quote Ronald Reagan's comment during one of the 1980 debates, "There he goes again."  The line delivered with a slow, sad shake of the head.  The modern major general was announcing that the shoe put upon the collective foot of the Pakistani military and ISI fit tightly--it pinched and he was yelling, "Ouch!"

As unbelievable fables go, the Abbas Denial was on a par with the outpouring of outraged dignity following the Great Abbotabad Raid.  The credibility of the Pakistanis, never high, was stretched far beyond its Young's Modulus with the earnest protestations of innocence with which the Pakistani heavies met the news that the Americans had found and liquidated Osama bin Laden within pistol shot of their very own military academy.

While the US government for reasons of state (the justification of all ill-advised and ultimately less than productive actions) has downplayed the possibility that the senior ranks of our "ally" in the "joint" war with al-Qaeda, the various Talibans, and all similar groups could possibly have known that bin Laden resided close at hand in comfortable isolation, this reticence should not be interpreted as accepting the Pakistanis as being pure and lofty of motives and intentions.  Indeed, it is hard to see how anyone with even the most cursory knowledge of the long standing relationship between ISI and the army on the one hand and the several terror merchant groups on the other could keep a straight face while stating they had seen "no smoking gun."

Back in the Oligocene--the days of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush--one did not have to be a member of the American intelligence community to know that ISI and the Pakistani armed forces were connected hip and shoulder with various Islamist groups, including the one which would come to power in Afghanistan as the Taliban.  Minority opinion in both administrations warned against turning over responsibility for the endgame in the anti-Soviet effort in Afghanistan to the Pakistanis as the latter would take advantage of the opportunity to install entities hostile to the interests of the US in the region and globally.  As is usually the case, the minority was shoved to the margins so they could watch their gloomy prognostications come to pass with the fullness of time.

Way back in the regime of Zia it was obvious that the Pakistani military would eagerly embrace the ideas of the dictator which focused on importing Wahhibism so as to promote Islam of the most austere and demanding sort as a mechanism of social and political cohesion.  The implications of this were high profile: The Islamification program would drive a move to the more and more extreme.  The program would facilitate the growth of violent political Islam oriented groups.  And, ultimately it would assure that Pakistan would become an evermore Islamist state.

American decision makers were immune to the negative counsel, seeing instead an easy way to slip out of the continued burden of doing something in a small, inconvenient, and out of the way state with a history of being ungovernable.  Anyway, the boys of Islamabad were big on reassuring Washington's rarefied levels about the pacifistic nature of Islam and the need of the Pakistani people for a stronger national identity in the face of Indian aggression.

In the event, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the ending of the cold war put the problem of Pakistan and its operations in Afghanistan very much on the far back burner.  The Clinton administration was so disinterested in Pakistan that its Deep Thinkers would have had a hard time finding the place on a map--until the Pakistanis demonstrated their nuclear capacity.  By then, of course, it was too late.  Too late to stop the nuclear arms race between Pakistan and India.  Far too late to undo the damage done by the Pakistani backed installation of Taliban in Kabul.

Of course, the ending of the cold war reduced Pakistan's importance in American eyes.  For decades Islamabad had depended upon the Left-leaning policies of India to turn on the spigot of US military aid along with the occasional civilian project.

The best thing that happened to Pakistan was the attack on 9/11.  After a nearly proforma demonstration of reluctance, Islamabad signed on to the Global War on Terror in exchange for massive amounts of American money.  It was interesting to say the least that the goodies demanded by the armed forces of Pakistan were those useful for high intensity conventional war with India rather than the more pedestrian items having utility in counterinsurgent or counter terrorist operations.

To keep the goodies flowing, the Pakistanis had to rely on their capacity to lie convincingly and in a well-timed manner.  They played a transparently double game from the very outset of the so called "joint" effort.  Given that the US already knew that the only reason Osama bin Laden had escaped a cruise missile strike years before 9/11 was a phone call from Islamabad, yet we went on catering to the Pinocchio of the Sub-continent. There was no intention of even closing the borders to Taliban and al-Qaeda personnel escaping the American invasion and its aftermath let alone actually fighting the Mighty Men of the Koran.

But the Pakistanis talked a good game.  And, because they had a nuclear arsenal, we had to pretend they were telling us the truth.  All we could do was hope that the bribes we paid bought us sufficient influence on their decision making that the armed forces and ISI might stop their training, supporting, harboring, and strategic planning efforts.

The hope was illusory at best.  However, the US had compounded its errors by invading Iraq and so mishandling the day after "victory" that it became the main event and Afghanistan a mere sideshow.  As a result, we had to continue believing the palpably false assurances of cooperation issuing from Islamabad on a daily basis.  The reality was far different.  The Pakistanis provided sanctuary in the FATA in return for a promise, since broken, that the Great Warriors of the One True Faith would limit themselves to killing Americans and apostate Afghans.

During the long interim from 2004-2010 the Taliban(s) and the Haqqani network as well as al-Qaeda rested, retrained, refitted, and grew safe from harm in the cities and hillsides of Pakistan and the FATA.  As a result, the Americans were losing more and more in country and the Pakistani military and ISI felt more and more confident in their ability to lead Uncle Sam around by the nose using a string of lies.

The pity of it all was the lies worked.  They worked because there seemed no viable alternative available to American decision makers.  We became co-conspirators in our own defeat.  Our role was limited to a continued refusal to blow the whistle on the easily demonstrated prevarications of the Pakistanis.  One of the services provided by Private Bradley Manning and his publicists at WikiLeaks has been to expose many (but not all) of the lies peddled by Islamabad as well as the reality that American diplomats knew them to be untruths.  In short we were not stupid, merely adrift at the policy level.

The Pakistani string of successful lying came to an end dramatically in May.  There was no way the lies of the Pakistanis could be accepted, even as a pretense, after the raid.  It is regrettable that the Obama administration has not taken advantage of the sea change initiated by Boat Six to force the Pakistanis to choose sides finally and definitely.

The biggest advantage which will accrue to the US from the decision to draw down our forces in Afghanistan and adopt more of a counter terrorist posture is our logistics dependence upon Pakistan will be decreased.  This means we will be in a much better position to link any continued assistance to Islamabad on demonstrated performance rather than nice sounding words.  It is much harder to lie by actions than it is with mere words.  So, Pakistan will be deprived of its advantage, an advantage it has used against us for a decade now.

While it may not be approved diplomatic form, it would be good politics both domestic and international to call the liars of Islamabad to account.  Diplomacy is usually conducted by vague words and ambiguous phrases so everyone walks away claiming success, but the Pakistanis need to be handled with a direct and blunt approach.

The time is now to say to Islamabad, to the armed forces, to ISI, to Major General Abbas, "Cut the crap!  You're busted!"

If You Like Pakistan, You'll Love The "Arab Summer"

Now that all the hyperbolic prattling about the wave of democracy rushing tsunami like over the sands of Arabia is fading away, perhaps overpowered by the sounds of exploding NATO delivered ordnance in Libya, it is possible to take a less biased look at the most likely course of events for the long hot Arab "summer" which is looming like the smoke of an Arizona wildfire.  While the details of the forthcoming "summer" are obscure, the broad outlines are coming more clear by the day.

It is not inaccurate to posit Pakistan as the paradigm soon to apply to the countries of North Africa and the Mideast which were convulsed to a greater or lesser extent by the pseudo-revolutions of recent months.  This means that there will be a contest for political supremacy pitting the interests of a microscopic economic and political elite against the rising expectations of the marginalized majority egged on by increasingly extremest members of the Muslim clerical establishment.  It means the ultimate arbiter of authority will be the armed forces of those states which already possess a large, well organized, well equipped military.  Finally, there will be an overlay of regional and tribal loyalties which can serve as effective king-makers.

In the North African states, most notably Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt, the trappings and forms of democracy will be followed.  This process will not apply to Libya unless and until Gaddafi is removed--and the date for this event is impossible to predict beyond saying there is no reason for optimism.  Democratic processes are less important in Mideast centers of protest: Syria, Bahrain, and Yemen.  But even in these states there will be eventual genuflections before this prime totem of Western affections.

Despite the observance of democratic forms, the substance of representative democracy will be conspicuous by its absence.  There is a simple reason for this prediction.  Democracy per se is irrelevant to the majority of those who sought the overthrow the established regimes while the exercise of actual democracy is not in the interests of the major contestants for power: the elite and the adherents of political Islam.  Insofar as either contestant favors the appearance of democratic processes, it is only to ensure that some middle ground movement comes to power in order to assure that the inevitable failure to bring prosperity to the many will be blamed on the scapegoat so as to allow the real contest to be waged and won.

Western governments and elites would be best advised to discount any and all blather about democracy in action completely.  At best elections and the other accoutrement of vox populi is a charade.  At worst it will be a mechanism for hijacking power.  Elections, after all, sanctified not only the coming to power of the Nazis in 1933 but assured the creation of the statist theocracy in Iran in 1979.  To look at the paradigm of Pakistan, elections matter not, for regardless of what party or individuals win at the polls, the army still runs the show.

The army will run the show as well in Egypt or Tunisia or anywhere else that sees the old regime involuntarily retired.  As in Pakistan--and Turkey before--the army is the final custodian of nationhood.  It is the ultimate guarantor of internal tranquility as it is the defender of the state's borders.  Whether openly or from the shadows of the barracks, the army will do the same in the forthcoming governments of North Africa and the Mideast.  No government will be allowed to act in a way which is not approved in advance by the armed forces.  At the same time, the armed forces will have both the will and ability to direct the government to undertake specified actions or policies.

The limitations which can be imposed by the military are understood by even the most ardent supporter of political Islam.  The Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt has implicitly acknowledged this in various fora.  This recognition along with the strategic consideration of assuring Islam and Islamists are not tarred with the brush of economic policy failure is behind the MG's entering into coalition agreements with a secular party.

Taking a longer term view, the primacy of the armed forces will be countered by the adherents of political Islam through a program of education and indoctrination.  This path has been blazed by the Pakistanis for the past thirty years with the result that the percentage of adherents of political Islam including that of the violent sort is higher among armed forces personnel, including company and field grade officers, than among the population as a whole.  Given both the Pakistani paradigm and the power of current social and economic pressures abroad in the several "Arab Spring" countries, there is no reason to believe that the lengthy time period need be followed.

The armed forces of Egypt and Tunisia are well aware of the limits which the West will apply to the foreign and military policies of their states.  They also understand the tools available to the West and the effectiveness of these tools.  There will be no false bravado operating as there has been with Pakistan.  The states of the "Arab Spring" have learned from Pakistan's mistakes as they have from Islamabad's successes.

The backlash against the super-wealthy currently underway in Egypt will slow and halt.  The fact is the country, all the "Arab Spring" countries, need these hated rich folk.  Even if it is true that one hundred percent of the wealthy became so as the result of the old regime's corruption, the wealth and skills of the rich business types are needed greatly for the country as a whole.  The narrow elite will be constricted and placed on the defensive, but it will not be erased.  As it will continue to exist, so also will it continue to seek and retain power.

The economically marginal will remain so regardless of the government and its promises.  This reality will be exploited by the most extreme elements within the political Islamists.  Practically, the results will be a co-option to the "left" which will be expressed primarily in foreign policy.  Terror attacks against the "Zionist entity" will increase as will strident diplomatic and propaganda support for the deligitimatization campaign.  Anti-Americanism will also ramp up markedly.  The armed forces will try to keep the level of attacks below the threshold triggering a robust Israeli response but will fail ultimately.

The evermore vituperative attacks on the US provided these are not matched with terrorist operations, will motivate the American people and its representatives to disengage from the region pleading financial exigencies.  This disengagement will exclude Israel.  The result will be the worst of all possible worlds for the US--diminished influence with the governments of the "Arab Summer" while making the commitment to Israel more and more of the "blank check" variety.

With the high probability of Yemen becoming a collapsed state, the US will become more and more involved with the assorted tribes on the ground as a mechanism of self-defense.  The US will wage an undeclared war with AQAP using civilian personnel and civilian controlled weapons systems.  As a "deniable" set of operations run by CIA, the US will be able to act in a more discrete, small footprint way enlisting tribal assistance, using paramilitary officers and UAVs with a sufficiently low public profile not to excite public or congressional opprobrium.  In fact, as the experience in Pakistan has shown, the opposite will be the case--widespread approval in both public and congress.

If the Libyan Affray ends in stalemate or a collapsed state or should the Algerian monolith once more show its underlying cracks, the US would rightly apprehend the use of the new opportunities by AQIM.  The only viable American response would be similar to that emerging in Yemen--think of it as FATA 3.0.  With a civilian agency in the lead and assets from JSOC available on an "as-needed" basis, the US would have the capacity to inhibit the rise of violent political Islam--or at least its ability to operate abroad.

The experiences of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan have taught all but the most terminally obtuse American policy and decision makers all the critical lessons regarding "nation-building."  We have learned for the umpteeth time that nations cannot be built by foreign intervention.  This means that the US has only two choices when confronted by violent political Islam: ignore it and hope it goes away or target it with the most lethal and finely focused tools (both human and technological) that are available.

The inherent dilemmas posed by the uprisings of the "Arab Spring" should have shown American decision and policy makers that there is no one-size-fits-all approach possible.  The internal dynamics of each uprising as well as the regional and global contextual differences means that each event must be examined as a one-off proposition.  The realities of the game of nations also has demonstrated once again that national ideals, values, and norms must support well defined national interest.  To state categorically that national interest is predicated on ideals, norms, and values may make for good sound bites but provides a poor basis for effective policy.

On the upside, we can be thankful for our years of frustrating experience with Pakistan.  All that we have come to know and dislike about Pakistani politics and international relations has prepared us for the overriding realities which will exist for years to come as a consequence of a few fun filled and exciting weeks last spring.  The folks in Foggy Bottom and at the EOB should be pulling out the archives detailing the last twenty-five or so years of our dealings with Islamabad.  The contents will be hard to read, embarrassing even, but when the day is done, one can look up and say with genuine feeling, "Good training.  Damn good training."

Parting Company With Secretary Gates And Admiral Mullen

Robert Gates is well known as a "realist" in the areas of foreign policy and national security.  His nearly thirty years in the intelligence racket and serving as Secretary of Defense have convinced him that the realities of international politics require the US to continue its difficult relationship with Pakistan.  The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mullen, concurred with this view as the two men testified to the Senate Appropriations Committee's subcommittee on defense today.

The subcommittee pushed both Gates and Mullen hard on the question of Pakistan.  The senators were exercised not only by the general attitude of Islamabad to the purportedly joint effort against advocates of violent political Islam but more particularly with recent, dramatic actions such as the arrest of Pakistani citizens who provided information to CIA in the run-up to the killing of Osama bin Laden.  Those arrested reportedly included an army major who furnished license plate numbers among other items.

When asked about the propriety of providing cooperation and sizable aid to an "ally" who engaged in such actions while conducting a non-stop campaign of tergiversation and mendacity, Secretary Gates dismissed the question in a way which was simultaneously both quite accurate--and significantly misleading.  The secretary responded by noting that governments routinely lie to each other, that doing so allowed work to be accomplished.  He also pointed out, once more accurately but in a way which is not germane to the Pakistani Question, that even friendly governments spy on one another.

Spying and lying are normal government activities.  Only hopeless idealists or those who inhabit the lotus lands of Julian Assange and Anonymous might think (or desire) otherwise.  But as generalizing from the particular is an intellectual error so also is particularizing from the general.

And, particularizing from the general is precisely what Dr Gates and Adm Mullen were doing.  They did it well but that does not make the effort either useful or honest.

Pakistan is a particular case.  It has a unique relation with the US defined by the current context of the war in Afghanistan and the larger conflict between the civilized states and the forces of violent political Islam.  This means that Pakistan's relation with the US differs not only from American relations with other countries which do not harbor, protect, and assist some groups motivated by violent political Islam while attacking others.  It also means that Pakistan's relation with the US today and in recent years is qualitatively different from the relation between the two countries during the cold war.

Simply put, the relationship between Pakistan and the US is utterly unique.  It is one of a kind.  Further, it is a relationship without precise historical counterpart.  To put that in focus, imagine a situation during World War II where the US provided massive aid and support to a country which simultaneously harbored the Nazi party, supported its actions in third countries, protected it against any US attacks, and mounted half-hearted actions against a Fascist organization within its borders.  The mind boggles at the concept.

Yet, that is precisely what is happening in Pakistan today.  It has been precisely what has gone on month after month from the day American bombs and boots hit the ground in Afghanistan.  The government, army, and intelligence service of Pakistan have aided and protected "good" jihadists while on occasion and with great reluctance attacked the "bad" jihadists.

Throughout the charade, the government, army, and intelligence service have benefited from vast amounts of US aid, most of which has been both military and useful not for counterinsurgent campaigns but rather for conventional operations of the sort which would be required when Pakistan gets its wish for one more rematch with India.  To ensure the benefits keep pouring in while maintaining its "strategic" asset of terror, the Pakistanis have lied non-stop.  They have lied with creativity.  They have lied consistently (while being quite unperturbed when the internal inconsistencies of the lies come to light.)  They have lied loudly.  They have even lied about their lies.

An alliance, any alliance, no matter how limited in nature, scope, and goals cannot be maintained when one of the allies relies upon a dedication to untruth.  The US government has been remarkably patient with the Pakistanis and their addiction to prevarication.  However, the raid at Abbottabad made the continuation of this policy of patience politically impossible.  No person reasonably well oriented in time and place can possibly accept the proposition that the Pakistani regime at its highest levels was clueless as to where Osama might have been for the past half decade or so.

Nor can any person even cursorily aware of the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan accept Pakistani protestations that they have made great efforts, suffered mighty sacrifices in the joint cause.  The expeditions mounted by the army against the advocates of violent political Islam in Swat and other parts of the FATA were conducted not by the regular army in the main but rather by the poorly trained, poorly equipped, and very poorly officered Frontier Corps.  The three thousand fatalities so often pointed to by the Pakistani government and army as proof positive of their efforts are the result not of hard fought combat but the consequence of using second and third rank troops against a far better adversary.

As the Pakistani regular army and air force showed the bravery of being out of range, the unfortunates of the Frontier Corps were murdered by inept commanders and a self-serving bunch topside in order to provide a basis for the ongoing lies.  A close look at the several "campaigns" shows the troop movements were carefully choreographed to allow the majority of the jihadists to withdraw in perfect safety to havens in South Waziristan.  It needs to be recalled that the Pakistanis continue to refuse to operate in South Waziristan regardless of US requests and pressure.

The Geek has laid out in detail the strategic and political thinking which motivates the government, army, and intelligence service to continue their support of the several groups advocating violent political Islam which Islamabad considers to be "good," that is useful strategic assets in the war with India.  In these and other posts the Geek has provided a detailed history of the poor US decision making which facilitated the Pakistani efforts to create and maintain terrorist entities as a strategic weapon as well as the critical role played by Zia and Saudi Arabia in the overall Islamazation of the Pakistani people.  It is not necessary to recapitulate all that now.

The past, however, is prologue for the situation today.  And, today's bad situation will become only worse unless the US pulls the plug on the current relationship with Pakistan.

Dr Gates, as might be expected, raised the nuclear bogeyman.  The prospect of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal and production facilities falling into the possession of advocates of violent political Islam is worrying indeed, but does not on its own constitute good and sufficient reason to continue the toxic relation with Islamabad.  If necessary there can be no doubt that the US has the capacity to eliminate the nuisance provided it is willing to accept the diplomatic consequences of collateral damage.  The ultimate fate of the Pakistani nuclear program is a grave issue to be sure but not an insurmountable problem as Dr Gates and Adm Mullen know from the contingency plans already on the shelf.

As the US draws down in Afghanistan--a question not of "if"or even "when" but rather of "how fast" and "how many," the need for Pakistani cooperation drops apace.  Reduction of the American footprint in Afghanistan is liberating as it allows Washington to focus more on the real heartland of terror threats to the US and other civilized states--the FATA.  This reality in turn puts a very real pressure on Islamabad.  Who is going to abate the jihadist menace in the area, Washington or Islamabad?

The reduction of the US and other foreign presence in Afghanistan shifts the burden for dealing with advocates of violent political Islam on Kabul and Islamabad.  The governments of these two counties will have to determine the degree to which they will exist independent of the threats and domination of the extremists.  The question for both Afghanistan and Pakistan is ultimately existential.  That should provide a real motivation for both political and military solutions to be developed and implemented.  The presence of the US and its foreign allies has given both Pakistan and Afghanistan a free pass to ignore the existential threat represented by the advocates of violent political Islam.

Now, with a withdrawal and a shift in policy toward Pakistan, the free pass will be revoked.  If the US also takes the position that it is indifferent to what happens within the borders of either country but is concerned only with the exportation of violent political Islam, the two regimes will have no real option beyond dealing effectively with the various Talibans and related groups.

In an ideal world the US would also tilt more and more toward India including supporting that country's efforts in Afghanistan.  India has a real strategic need to establish an effective presence in Kabul and has worked diligently in this direction for the past several years.  Considering the number of coinciding interests which exist between the US and India including a well-founded apprehension of Chinese ambitions in the region, the US would be well advised to shift its focus from Afghanistan and Pakistan to India so as to assist and support India in its policy gambits in the region.

The fundamental reality of policy in the subcontinent is simply that no government can do business with a regime based solely on lying.  Pakistan's behavior is over the edge when it comes to the way in which governments routinely mislead each other.  Dr Gates must be very well aware of this.  It is most unfortunate that in his last appearance before this subcommittee he felt obliged to shade the truth to a degree which constitutes an insult to American national interest--and the intelligence of many who heard or read his comments.

As there are limits in permissible lying between governments, there are limits to "realism" in foreign and national security policy.  In his assessment of Pakistan, Dr Gates regrettably transcended these limits.  It is a very sad note on which to end a most distinguished career.

Those Paks Never Give It A Rest

Farahnaz Ispahani, a chief adviser to Pakistani president Zardari, has made a modest proposal to the US.  No doubt but with the most straight of faces the man has the unmitigated nerve to propose that We the People move immediately to provide a "Marshall Plan" for Pakistan.  (Please note that while the link is to a Pakistani site, the Ispahani proposal was put forth in an op-ed piece on USA Today, but the Geek was too lazy to search for this.)

The way Pakistani politics is structured we can be certain that Ispahani would not have penned the piece had it not been pre-approved by his boss.  So it can be taken as a trial balloon launched by the most senior levels of the civilian government(?) of Pakistan.  It is  official.

Not only official but also a disgusting travesty.  Part of the travesty is the man's probably willful failure to comprehend the nature of the original Marshall Plan, the iconic model of self-interested but nonetheless altruistic foreign aid.

First, the Plan was not aimed at any one country but rather was open to all European states including the Soviet Union and those old nations of Middle Europe which had fallen under the sway of the Red Army.  It was a mechanism for the sorting out of friends from enemies at least in major part, and in this it was quite successful.

Second, the intent of the Plan was the forcing of European joint decision making.  Individual countries might have their own shopping lists, but a priority was placed upon those projects which would benefit the region to the greatest extent.  There was a desire on the part of the US to see greater and more rapid European integration on the economic and political levels alike.

Third, it was necessary for the recipients of Plan aid to spend the majority of the money in the US.  The real selling point to Congress was the blunt reality that the money would be recycled to the US and thus assist in post-war economic readjustment at home.

None of these factors are present in Pakistan.  There is no need to force Pakistan to choose a side--it has already done that in practice if not in rhetoric.  There is no need to foster regional integration.  The Pakistanis have a concept of integration which extends as far as Afghanistan.  It is called operational dominance.

Finally, the Pakistanis would like to spend the money wherever they please.  It might, for example, best suit the needs and hopes of Islamabad best if the mulcted money were to be spent with the Trolls of Beijing and not with the Capitalist Infidels of the US.

The president and his man seem to believe that Pakistan deserves largess without end simply because some three thousand Pakistani troops (primarily from the undertrained, poorly equipped and usually unpaid Frontier Corps and not the regular army) have been killed in conflict with the Taliban et al.  Should we cruel and heartless infidels not think that is sufficient sacrifice of lives, the presidential adviser throws in the two thousand police who have died purportedly at the hands of the jihadi.

The Marshall Plan was not American atonement for the European lives lost in World War II.  It was not the product of a collective feeling of guilt over having failed to prevent the outbreak of the war or of having entered the war only after Pearl Harbor.  Rather, it was a piece of calculated self-interest as was the creation of NATO, a carefully considered mechanism of defense against a perceived threat.

Ispahani makes the usual attempt to preempt this approach.  He alleges that massive economic aid will provide the necessary basis for internal improvement which will automatically reduce the appeal of violent political Islam.

There is a word for this: Crap!

There no evidence that poverty on its own is correlated positively with violent political Islam.  Indeed, there is evidence behind the contention that violent political Islam is far more the province of the better off, better educated members of society--including that of Pakistan.  The money which has gone to direct support of Pakistani development projects after surviving the hazards of graft, corruption, kickbacks, and assorted insider deals has not shown any benefit accruing either to the image of the US or the conditions of life affecting the recipient communities.

The record of previous civilian aid programs ranging from the building of dams to the provision of emergency food aid is a dreary and disgusting tale of misappropriation, illegal and improper diversion, and, even when every thing goes correctly, a resulting sense of Pakistani entitlement.  (Think back and recall the farmer whose fields and property had survived the floods last year due to an American designed and constructed dam.  Was he appreciative?  No way!  He was bent out of shape because the Americans had not been back to properly maintain and upgrade the dam and its associated irrigation projects.)

President Zardari and his advisers would be better off if they were to contemplate the real causes of violent political Islam which has inflicted so much alleged damage, death, and despair on their country.  The real causes are simple.

There is a misplaced sense of victimhood focusing on India and its alleged Satanic supporters, Israel and the US.

Then there is the ultimate impact of the program of "Islamification" instituted by Zia more than twenty years ago.  The importation of the austere Saudi form of Islam along with Pakistani modifications has provided more than one generation with the mythology of Islamic superiority, Islamic entitlement, Islamic victimization which has looped together with the preexisting sense of Pakistan having been denied its deserved place of sub-continent supremacy by the machinations of India.

Then, of course, there is the success of ISI through its Wing S in creating and operating groups predicated on violent political Islam as a substitute for more conventional forms of war.  As Frankenstein's monster escaped its creator's control so also have the advocates of violent political Islam.

To any objective observer, the problems of Pakistan are those of Pakistani manufacture.  They have all been made in Islamabad or Rawalpindi.  For decades now the powers that be in Pakistan have rejected an honest search for peace with India, preferring a sort of forever war.  They have also turned their backs on conventional war in favor of nuclear poker and very lethal use of terror.  It is totally unsurprising that they are now being burned by the inevitable blowback.

The same intellectual bankruptcy seen in the forever war with India and the use of violent political Islam as a proxy is seen in the arguments advanced by Ispahani and his boss.  They, like the government and military in general, know only one trick--bluster and extort.  This is how they met Secretary Clinton today.  This is what rests behind the demand for a new Marshall Plan.

If the Obama administration has any sense at all, any orientation as to time and place, it will make clear that, to quote Maxwell Smart, "The trick is old!  The trick is stupid!"  And in this case the trick will work no longer.  To say that the US has no options in the region other than to continue to pay Pakistan off and hope for the best is to show a level of intellect such as to make a tapeworm seem like a genius.

We have options.  It is certain that the administration knows perfectly well what they are.  The only question is whether or not it has the political will to take a better course than business as usual.  It may be time to tell the lads in Islamabad that they best peddle their goods to a different buyer, say, China.

Rubes Versus City Slickers

A few years ago the US military started hiring cultural anthropologists and embedding them in combat units in Afghanistan.  The idea was a better appreciation of cultural mores would make for more sensitive and effective use of combat power--that we could avoid the negative consequences of door kicking and mosque invading which had produced a wave of backlash in much of Iraq.  This notion was a good one and did have some real benefits for US effectiveness.

But, it was too limited.

In Afghanistan as in Iraq before as well as in Pakistan, Yemen, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, even Turkey and Syria today, there is a much larger problem involving the anthropology of culture.  It is a dynamic with which we Americans are--or should be--quite familiar.  In our own history this particular dynamic was in large part responsible for such events as Prohibition.  It is also responsible to some degree for the more recent "culture wars" which have been so much a feature of our politics.

The phenomenon is the divide which separates folks who live in urban environments and those who dwell in remote, often rugged, always sparsely populated, and usually relatively impoverished areas.  In Afghanistan or Pakistan, it is the gulf separating the hill people from the urbanites.  In Libya, it is the distinction between the ethnics of the western mountains and the coast dwellers.  Elsewhere, it is the age old tension between subsistence and marginal farmers on the one hand and those who have migrated to the cities for the opportunities which are believed to exist there and only there.

Throughout the developing world, in all continents, in countries as far removed in geography, culture, and governmental styles as China and Mexico, Russia and Indonesia, the same dynamic is at work.  Often, the work is destructive of social and, more importantly, political harmony.

There is a set of characteristics by which the hill people, the subsistence peasants, the "exiles" of remote and rugged regions define themselves in opposition to those of their fellow citizens who live in the cities.  We Americans have seen the same definitions of self and opponent in our own recent past.  There is nothing different with the far away folks in Afghanistan and the host of other countries where the destructive tension scars the social, cultural, and political landscape.

At the risk of some over simplification, the people who live far from the seductive attractions and entrancing visions of wealth existing in the cities see themselves as more moral, more honest, more honorable, more truly human than their opposites in the city.  The rubes understand themselves to be the last vestige of honor, honesty, integrity, and religious morality.  They also see themselves as being under constant, unremitting attack by the corrupt, immoral, irreligious forces of urban life.

The rubes see the cities as vast moral swamps.  They understand the goal of urbanites to be that of attracting and perverting the sons--and more particularly, the daughters--of rural purity.  The rubes fear the appeal of the cities, the seductions of wealth, bright lights, loud music, open sexuality.

For their part, the urban dwellers, whether a century or more ago in the US or today throughout the developing world, view the rubes with disdain.  The hill people, the peasants, are all seen as rude, uneducated, unsophisticated, backward looking, fear ridden, clingers of the past, chained by religious superstition.  The rubes are dismissed as the last of a deservedly dying breed.

The two groups stare at each other through prisms of distortion--or the crosshairs of a telescopic sight.  Each distrusts the other.  Each views the other as irredeemable.  The city slickers are convinced that the rubes are hopelessly outdated, ignorant, superstitious, hung up on irrelevant concepts such as personal honor.  For their part, the rubes are certain that all city slickers are pervasively corrupt, purveyors of moral degradation, apostles of apostasy, and generally as exploitative, manipulative people given to enriching themselves at the expense of their moral betters.

As a general rule, over time the rubes are willing to strike a bargain with the city slickers.  The basis of the tacit agreement is simple: You city types just leave us alone and in return we will do the same for you.

Rarely do the rubes seek to replace the city slickers as the source of collective government.  Rarely do the rubes seek to impose their social and cultural mores on the urban population by either politics or force of arms.  To this extent the American experience of Prohibition or the more recent political activities of conservative, predominantly rural origin Christians constitute exceptions to the general experience.

In a similar way the emergence of violent political Islam is also an exception to the historical norm of "you leave us alone and we will leave you alone."  The primary appeal of violent political Islam has been to threatened rubes.  The threat may be as direct as an attempt by the urban based central government to extend its sway over the remote regions or it may be the more indirect but pernicious one of inducing the young of Rubeland to emigrate to the cities.

The hill dwelling tribesmen of Afghanistan or Pakistan's FATA are not necessarily more violent by inherent nature than others of their nationality.  Rather, they see and have seen themselves as under threat from the dishonorable, corrupt, irreligious people of Kabul or Islamabad.

The situation was not different in the US a couple of centuries ago.  The Scotch-Irish who moved to the rugged and remote frontier of the eastern mountains did so not because they were inherently of a greater man-against-nature mentality than Americans who lived in the flatlands of the coastal regions.  Nor did they and their descendants remain in the far distant hollows because they were inherently antisocial.  Neither did their more recent exemplars violently resist the incursions of mine owners, state governments, or federal "revenoors" due to some inbuilt streak of cussedness.  No.  They wanted to be left alone.

To the well intentioned outsiders of urban America, the hill dwellers of Appalachia may have appeared to be hopelessly backward, trapped in endless generations of poverty and deprivation, "clinging to their guns and Bibles" (to use the formulation of a noted and successful presidential candidate) due to personal fear of progress and change.  And, to some small extent, the impressions--at least those of poverty and deprivation--might have been true.  But, far more important was the self-belief of moral purity, the upholding of time honored traditions and values.

The folks of Appalachia were quite willing to accept some of the benefits offered by larger American society such as electricity, better medical care, economic opportunity, better housing, better nutrition.  But they were not willing to take the benefits if these were offset by participating in systems both tangible and otherwise which were antithetical to basic beliefs and values.  It took American social engineers generations to find the right approach, the proper mix, the best way to include the hill people without destroying with unacceptable rapidity the values and norms which had long sustained these people.

This is also the challenge in Afghanistan, the FATA, and other parts of Pakistan.  It is the same in the other countries currently facing collapse and failure.  Put simply, the trick is that of extending the good things of modern life to the rubes without pulling the rug of tradition, traditional values, norms, and mechanisms from under their feet.  Change is acceptable as long as it is neither too fast nor too shattering in extent.

It is the rock of time upon which the grand ship of nation building must flounder.  This is the case in Afghanistan.  This is the case in Pakistan.  Insisting on a rapid and complete penetration of the land and life of the rubes by the city slickers and their foreign supporters can only promote resistance--violent resistance.  The insistence upon extending the "corrupt" and "irreligious" systems of the city into the mountain heartlands of the rubes can only result in a more ardent embrace of those ideas--in particular the religious--which make armed opposition legitimate.

The most basic war being waged in the vast arc of countries from Afghanistan to Tunisia is not between Islam and infidel.  Nor is it between the adherents of violent political Islam and those of a more secular persuasion.  It is not even a conflict between modernity and the warm certainty of the past.  Rather it is the war between the traditionally oriented "exiles" of the hills and the city slickers.

In this war of culture, the city slicker (which includes the US government)is  its own worst enemy.  A prime characteristic of the city slicker is impatience.  For the city slicker, particularly the American, the cliche, "Time is money," constitutes an imperative.  But, to the rube, time is eternal.  Time is something the rube possesses in great quantities.

The key to success in an insurgency is contained in a simple historical reality.  The side which can afford time and accept casualties will win over the side which must save both time and lives.

What this confluence means is both easy to understand and bitter to accept.  From Afghanistan to Tunisia and at all points in between, the city slickers of the West are doomed to lose.  For the insurgent rubes, powered by the force of both the past and the ideology of religion, a line from an old Rolling Stones song applies, "Time is on my side."

What A Great Day!

This is one of those days which makes a guy glad to be alive--that is if he is a maven of how much can go wrong in the world all at the same time.  So much has gone so terribly out of whack in the past twenty-four or so hours that is hard to decide what most tickles the brain, that is, what deserves the virtual ink.

It is quite tempting to take a few shots at that LST (large slow target) named "Pakistan."  It is a hoot and a half to contemplate that less than a couple of dozen Mighty Warriors Of The One True Faith can take over a major naval air installation.  That these Glorious Fighters Of The Koran can hold off assorted Pakistani military forces for seventeen hours, destroying a pair of P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft, gifts of the American people delivered only last June, in the process.

Not since a similar commando unit hit and held the Pakistani army's headquarters a couple of years ago has the Islamic Republic been so humiliated.  It is presumed that the Great Strategists of Islamabad are down on their prayer rugs giving thanks to the deity that the Taliban trigger-pullers did not hit a certain facility only ten klicks over, conveniently adjacent to an airbase where nuclear weapons are stored.  For such small favors, the Pakistanis should give great and prolonged thanks.

For the rest of us, the Taliban raid raises the long standing questions regarding the security of Pakistan's arsenal of one hundred or so nukes to new heights.  After all, the night squad which cut its way through a pair of barbed wire fences and used low tech ladders to scale a wall were not in the same league as the men of Boat Six of Great Abbottabad Raid fame.  If a handful of jihadists with nothing more sophisticated than RPGs, AKs, and a willingness to die could storm the heavily guarded naval airfield, is it impossible for a similar group to do the same at either a nuclear weapons depot or manufacturing facility?

On the upside, such muscular measures might not be needful given the omnipresence of ideological soulmates within the Pakistani military and intelligence services.  Or the direct method might be obviated by the Pakistani version of the hoary Mexican approach of "silver or lead."  It is not unthinkable, considering the prevalence of corruption in the Islamic Republic, that the promise of silver might trump the threat of lead.

On another continent, the ardent observer of frothing wars and failing states must feel a pleasant glow contemplating the attack over the weekend by Sudanese forces on the contested oil center of Abyei.  The Khartoum regime has maintained with a straight face that its attack complete with air strikes and armored units was "retaliation" for the ambush last week of a UN convoy escorted by Sudanese army personnel.  To the not yet officially independent state of South Sudan, the occupation of Abyei constituted an act of war.

Abyei was supposed to have voted as to which side it would join--Sudan or South Sudan--at the same time as the overall referendum on Southern independence.  This did not occur because Khartoum insisted on including a nomadic tribe of Muslim affiliation among those franchised to vote in the election.  This demand was vetoed by the southerners.  As a result, the Abyei question has not been settled.  Nor is it likely to be settled by means other than the violent.

The UN has done the expected--denounce the attack and demand Khartoum withdraw its forces.  Assorted advocates for South Sudan (mainly George Clooney and assorted NGOs) are making predictable noises regarding the US and UK doing something to compel Khartoum to back down.  And, to insure the decibel level of rhetoric is high enough, spokesmen for South Sudan are warning darkly that the occupation of Abyei bodes well to restart the war between South and North which ended in 2005 after twenty-two years and hundreds of thousands of lives due to the diplomacy of the US and UK.

Just what the US or UK can do short of using highly kinetic coercive diplomacy to gain Khartoum's adherence to our policy requirements is unclear.  What is clear is that neither Washington nor London are in any hurry to send warplanes or troops anywhere beyond current theaters of operation.

The upcoming meeting between President Obama and Prime Minister Cameron has some potential for both sparks and amusement.  The two leaders are not in perfect tandem regarding what is being done in Libya to say nothing of what should be done.  The British and French are all in favor of more hairy chested efforts than those made to date.  In earnest of this intent, both have announced the deployment of helicopter gunships to the country.  The British will operate Apaches and the French machines of local manufacture from carriers in the Mediterranean.

Both states (the British more vocally) want the US to come back to Libya in a larger and more noise producing way than has been the case in recent weeks.  The redeployment of American A-10 and AC-130 aircraft is much desired by Whitehall.  While more muted in their stance, there is little doubt that M. Sarkozy's government would be very happy to see the weight of the US more heavily on the scales in favor of the rebels.

There is no indication that President Obama is in a mood to honor the requests.  Certainly, there is no evident pawing of the ground in favor of more and more high profile operations visible at the Pentagon.

This contretemps gives added importance to a little noticed event scheduled to occur during the Obama-Cameron meeting.  Reportedly the US and UK will establish a joint national security entity which will coordinate the perceptions and plans of the two countries to allow more effective joint and combined actions globally.  Considering the negative view held by Mr Obama regarding the "special relationship" between the UK and US, this is a surprising development.  If the reports are confirmed by events, it is a most welcome one as well.

While such a joint body may easily be nothing more than a pro forma exercise in policy futility, there is some chance that it will evolve into a genuine mechanism for meshing together the national security strategies and programs of two natural allies.  It might even point in the direction of growing to include several UK descended states--Australia, New Zealand, Canada and India--along with the US and UK into a tightly integrated political/military bloc which would be virtually unchallengeable in years to come.

Now, that sort of "international community" is one which is very pleasant to contemplate.  It gives the Geek a warm feeling and, being a sensitive sort of guy, he will end this post on this potentially very high note.

What Else Would Anyone Expect?

The NYT seems surprised to discover from its usual unnamed sources that the Pakistani army chief of staff, Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, will not cooperate with US demands that his army crack down on their allies in terror.  The general is also of a mind to ramp down relations with the US to the bare minimum necessary to assure the American cash cow keeps producing its billions every year.

The reasons for Kayani's position are made clear by the paper's source(s).  They distill to internal  pressures within the armed forces of Pakistan.  As every observer of that sorry country has known for years, there are many, many members of the army's officer corps who are soulmates of the adherents of violent political Islam.  Then there are others, more secular perhaps, who take the view that the terror groups constitute a strategic asset against India.

The linkage between the two components of the officer corps is simply that Islam defines Pakistani identity, and without the forever war with India, the justification for the army as custodian of the nation and redeemer of lost land is lost.  With that loss would come the collapse of the rickety system which is the government of Pakistan.  The continued symbiosis between the instruments of state and the advocates of violent political Islam is existential for the Pakistani status quo.

The American Great Abbottabad Raid rocked both the military and the larger society.  It is impossible to overstate this.  The hypernationalistic Pakistanis took a blow in their over inflated national ego.  This consideration alone makes it necessary for the army--and its chief of staff--to cock a defiant snoot at the US. Any less would assure deligitimazation of the army and its commander.  It would even raise the credible threat of internal conflict far surpassing that already existing.

Over at the WaPo, a (relatively speaking) conservative op-ed writer bemoans the fact that the US and Pakistan have been engaged in a stereotyped dance of American warning followed by a sincere sounding Pakistani promise of decisive action which results in no real action whatsoever.  This dynamic has been repeated numerous times over the past several years.  It shows no sign of changing, Mr Ignatius sighs in conclusion..

Of course it can take no other direction.  If the game is to continue it must do so in the well worn grooves and well understood moves of the past few years.  The governing ideological, political, and mythic imperatives of the Pakistani polity and society will allow no other course of action.

It does not matter that by any set of objective considerations the US gained significant potential leverage from the Great Abbottabad Raid.  The objective realities do not outweigh the subjective ones operating on the minds of Pakistani decision makers both military and civilian.  Nor do the objective considerations count for more than a rat's feces in the estimate of the profoundly anti-American majority of the Pakistani population.

No American administration can undervalue the pervasive and deep nature of anti-American sentiment infecting the average Pakistani.  The assorted Pakistani governments over the past twenty and more years have carefully fostered the hatred and distrust of the US held by most Pakistanis.  The blame-the-US gambit has been played heavier since 9/11 and heavier even subsequent to the development of warm ties between the US and India during the second of George W. Bush's terms in office.

The government efforts at propagandizing the Pakistani population have been enhanced by the nearly universal message of hate-the-infidel-crusaders preached from the overwhelming majority of the mosques and madrasses in Pakistan.  The Pakistani identity is heavily dependent upon Islam.  With the Zia imposed program of enhanced political cohesion through Islam, it has become more so.  This means that for Pakistanis under thirty, the view of the US and its Western partners is seen through the same distorted theological lens as that of Osama bin Laden.

When this last and very important factor is added to the others, the only conclusion supported by the facts is that the US gained no leverage by the Great Abbottabad Raid and arguably lost some of its very tenuous influence to the wave of religiously exacerbated nationalism.  This means that General Kayani (and everyone else in the chain of command) can flip off the US and its demands with impunity.

The conventional wisdom in Pakistan right now is that we need them much more than they need us.  This conclusion is predicated upon the belief that without Pakistan's cooperation and assistance, we will not be able to get Taliban to the negotiating table.  Without that as cover, it will be impossible for us to withdraw forces from Afghanistan rapidly enough to assure Obama's reelection.

There is a great deal of truth to the Pakistani contention that without Islamabad the chance to ramp down our war in Afghanistan is virtually nil.  The Pakistani army and ISI do have a very great deal of influence with both Afghan Taliban and, even more, the Haqqani network.  Of course, the Paks have not yet demonstrated that they have the capacity to turn that influence into the useful result of getting both insurgent groups to agree to a power sharing deal with the Karzai regime.

Simultaneously, the movers and shakers of Islamabad are certain they can replace the US in whole or major part with China.  This is no doubt the case.  The Chinese are eager to extend their regional presence so as to place more of a squeeze on India.  They are also keen on gaining access to the mineralogical resources recently proven in Afghanistan by American geologists.  Thus, they would leap at the opportunity to enlarge their already extensive relations with Pakistan.

Two arguments are presented as to why the US has little choice but to go along with the Pakistani game.  The first is the war in Afghanistan.  The second is the Pakistani nuclear arsenal and production capacity.

The first contention is accurate at the moment.  It would be obviated by an American force reposturing.  Should we abandon the manpower and money heavy nation-building approach in favor of the special operations force predicated counter terror and counter insurgent (note the difference, counter insurgent rather than counter insurgency) one, the needs for Pakistani cooperation would be reduced to the vanishing point.

The nuclear bogyman is rather more shadow than substance.  Yes, the Fire Breathers of Islamabad have entirely too many weapons.  They have a large and expanding production base.  The stockpiles and production facilities, particularly the latter, are not perfectly secured, nor can they be.  It would do the Pakistanis well to meditate upon all the ways by which the US could neutralize both weapons stockpiles and production facilities.  True, some of the means would have the collateral effect of splattering substantial amounts of finely distributed plutonium and highly enriched uranium around quite a few square kilometers of Pakistani soil, but, such is the cost of abating an unacceptable nuisance.

Perhaps the Pakistanis have counted on President Obama continuing to be the poster boy for peace, love, flower power, and submission to the will of others.  But, in the aftermath of the Great Abbottabad Raid, they might have a few doubts about the cravenness of the current American president.

The US would be well advised to hang tough in the face of Pakistan's exercise in ego building, status quo preserving defiance.  This can be best expressed by a steep cut in the military aid to the army and an ending of all but the most essential humanitarian assistance on the civilian side.  These measures would be enhanced by the reconfiguration of American strategy and operational doctrine in Afghanistan accompanied by a quick reduction in conventional forces.

Meanwhile, in the back room, get the folks working on how to go about an exercise in unilateral and quite involuntary nuclear disarmament--of Pakistan.  And, in a gesture of friendship to the Boys of Islamabad, it might be nice to advise them to learn Chinese as the Trolls of Beijing will appreciate the effort.

The Abbottabad Raid--A Lesson For India?

Last week, one or another of the assorted chiefs of the Indian armed services assured the press of the country that India could replicate the American raid which ended the career and life of Osama bin Laden.  While the statement must have sounded good in the ears of many Indians, it was one showing remarkable economy with the truth.

India has been baffled for years on how it should respond to the numerous attacks mounted by terror groups supported, trained, equipped, commanded, and controlled, and, in some cases, created by the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI.)  The default response within the realms of journalism and politics has been to demand air strikes, a limited armored thrust, general war, or, on occasion, a "covert" operations.  The default response of the government since the terrorist attack on India's parliament by Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad in December 2001 and the consequent US brokerage has been a combination of diplomatic notes and "restraint."

After the May 2002 attack by Pakistani assets of the violent political Islamic nature, the US engaged in months of coercive diplomacy with the result that then Pakistani chief of state Pervez Musharrif offered the most sincere and official assurances that never more would any terrorist operate against India from any soil controlled by Pakistan.  The assurances were guaranteed by then Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.  The government of India bought the Pakistani promises because and only because they were backed by the words of the US.

There were six more Pakistani backed terror attacks on India over the next several years, most notably the Mumbai Affair in November 2008.  In the last event, the Indian government presented Pakistan with reams of carefully documented evidence of involvement on the part of Pakistani nationals operating on Pakistani territory.  The accompanying requests for extradition of the named suspects were studiously ignored by the government of Pakistan.  So were Indian demands for investigations, reports, and judicial action.  Recently a government spokesman yawned off renewed requests for extradition as "familiar and outdated."

The Indian government has demonstrated a remarkable desire for a peaceful end to the ancient conflict with Pakistan.  The Indian president, Manmohan Singh, has invested his prestige as well as tremendous effort in this direction.  The pursuit of a peaceful end to the Kashmir conflict as well as the plethora of other matters on which Pakistan and India differ mightily has come to nothing.

Nor is it likely to do otherwise in the foreseeable future.

The Pakistan government, army, ISI, and their supporters or hangers-on in the elite need the ongoing pseudo-war with India to survive in power and prosperity.  Without the forever war against India, the current structure of government, military, spooks, and jihadists would collapse.  The greatest enemy of the status quo in Pakistan is peace with India.

While there is no reason for India to abandon the fruitless search (it helps assure good relations with the US if nothing else), the folks in New Delhi have to consider other options.  And do the consideration very, very rapidly.

No matter how the specifics of the aftermath of the shooting of Osama bin Laden play out with respect to US relations with Pakistan, there is no reason to conclude that the ISI and army will abandon the jihadist weapon in the necessary war with India.  Since the war must continue in order for the status quo to survive, it is requisite that the conflict be fought with means militating against vertical escalation.  The Pakistanis have no real desire to see escalation as such would run the very high risk of crossing the nuclear threshold.  Both India and Pakistan did learn that the risk of unwanted escalation runs high with the rapidly blooming crisis following the December 2001 parliament attack.

The Indians evidently learned more than did the Pakistanis as is demonstrated by their having continued to stay the course of pro forma protests over the run of Pakistani sponsored if not ordered terrorist outrages down to and beyond the Mumbai massacre.  The Pakistanis seem certain that India will stay with this approach into the future, so the risk of any response from New Delhi more robust than a sternly worded Note is perceived to be very low.

Unless and until the Indian government and military demonstrate the political will to mount armed responses commensurate with the provocation, there will be no end to the use of the jihadi weapon by Islamabad.  This translates into two specific actions, at least one of which would be very visible to the public at large.

The first, and most self-evidently public of these, is the creation of a legal framework which would serve to justify and make legal any Indian action, overt or covert, armed or not, directed against terrorists and their sponsors or facilitators located anywhere in the world.  This sort of act, like the American prototype, assure a patina of law for any retaliatory actions outside the "hot pursuit" paradigm.

Behind the scenes the Indian military must develop a low signature capacity for special operations of the same sort as that conducted by the US in Abbottabad.  It would also be necessary to demonstrate the new capacity publicly so as to dispel the impression of total incompetence generated in Mumbai by Indian commandos who took a vast number of hours filled with highly visible missteps to subdue the handful of terrorists.

Admittedly, the Americans by coming in the "back door" from Afghanistan had an easier task than would any Indian raiding party given that they would have to come via the heavily guarded "front door."  (One factor which seems to have eluded all of the legion which has argued the Paks had to be in on the Abbottabad operation is the simple one that very few of Pakistan's defenses, air or ground, face the direction of American penetration.)   This gives additional saliency to the contention that India must give some public show of a very high level of competence in special operations so as to obtain the necessary deterrent capacity in the estimate of the Pakistanis.

It is also stipulated that the creation and development of the necessary capacity in special operations of the Abbottabad sort will take money.  This means the Indian budget makers will have to make more tough decisions of the sort exhibited recently with the reprogramming of money from buying more aircraft carriers to supporting anti-piracy operations in the Indian Ocean.

However, it should be noted that the robust, not to say aggressive, stance taken by India regarding the pirates provides a platform for demonstrating both political will and military capability to Islamabad.  The Indian navy has taken a leading role in offensive moves against the pirates--a move which surprised many observers even though the importance of Indian Ocean maritime commerce to India is well known.  A judicious use of the anti-piracy mission will allow further development of the special operations capabilities including intelligence, command and control, coordination of assets, rapid response, and low visibility.

As new capacities are developed and firmly in place, the Indian government can make use of its assorted minor insurgencies to put a public face on them.  In a way it is to India's benefit that it has several insurgencies in progress out in the boonies; they provide both good exercise for special operators and excellent opportunity to allow adverse parties to gain a hint of what might befall them or their proxies.

In the meantime, don't brag, no matter how good the words sound in your ears--they might come back to bite you in an anatomically unpleasant location.

More--And More Important--Fallout From the Death Of OBL

The end of Osama bin Laden will accelerate demands that the US ramp down its presence in Afghanistan.  Such a move fits well with the Obama agenda and reelection effort.  The more rapid the ramp down the better is the perspective of many Americans, particularly those of budget deficit hawkishness or (strange partners here) the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.

The withdrawal of sizable segments of the American force in Afghanistan would provide several collateral benefits.  One of the most important of these is an increase of leverage on the we-play-both-sides crew in Islamabad.  There is a simple equation here: Fewer troops means less need for the supply routes through Pakistan, the closure of which constitutes the only real threat the government there can levy.

Additionally, the reduction of US presence will automatically shift more of the burden for suppressing the out of control Frankenstein's monster created by ISI.  The causal chain here is less direct than that with the supply lines.  Lowering the crucial nature of the land lines of supply allows the US more freedom in lessening its extortion payments which will have the result of shifting costs on to Islamabad.  The elite in Pakistan will have the stark choice of accepting a growth of the insurgents and their brand of violent political Islam which brings with it an existential threat or paying the costs of suppressing the insurgency without significant American contributions.

The Pakistanis have been spared facing the implications of their fixation on India and reliance upon proxies motivated by violent political Islam as an operational concept.  Initially they were insulated against the consequences of folly by the dynamics of the Cold War.  Later, the events of 9/11 continued to benefit the Pakistanis.

Now the death of OBL along with the rapidly warming relations between the US and India make the old Pakistani connection irrelevant to American interests in the region.  When the prime minister of Pakistan made his recent suggestion to Karzai that both countries disengage with the US and engage with China, the Geek thought that was an excellent idea.  Certainly Pakistan has been moving ever more into the orbit of China.  The US now has the freedom to say, get on with it, pal.

The relation between the US and India is both more natural as a confluence of national interests and core values than that with Pakistan has been.  The mating of the US and Pakistan was an unnatural one, an artifact of Indian politics of the Cold War and American hyper-reactions to that.  A close relation with the US is in the interests of India and the region, far more than is the one between the US and Pakistan.

The linkage of Pakistan and China brings up another bit of fallout from the Great Abbottabad Raid.  With the death of Osama the Trolls of Beijing are once more shaking more than a little over the prospect that the US will put China back in the crosshairs.  Their fear is not without justification.

The US has gained stature and influence in Asia and the Western Pacific as China has become both more wealthy and militarily potent as well as diplomatically high profile.  The Trolls (or at least the think tanks which serve them) have become more and more convinced that China is a very lonely country with few, if any, natural allies while the US is Ms Popularity in comparison.

The Chinese have not failed to observe that the reality of American democracy is the glue which binds it with Asian democracies such as South Korea, Japan, Australia, Singapore, the Philippines, and, India.  It has hit the Trolls that democracies not only appeal to one another but feel threatened by authoritarian states, particularly those with very, very large military establishments and robust diplomatic agendas.

To the Trolls the fact that the US is a democracy means the US is automatically unpredictable over time.  Every election brings with it the possibility of a great shift in US policy in all areas.  The Chinese strategic thinkers and military strategists alike fret endlessly about this inbuilt threat of American democracy.  The fretting focuses on means by which the US can be limited, bound, or otherwise denied freedom of action on the global and regional stages.

The Trolls (or their Deep Thinkers) have also belatedly realized that the US benefits by not being a power located in Asia.  Simultaneously, it has hit the same crew that the US magnifies this benefit by having no territorial claims or ambitions in Asia--quite unlike the Chinese.  As a consequence, countries which are not democracies edge closer and closer to the US, a gravitational attraction which runs counter to Chinese strategic and national interests.

The Chinese claims on Arunachal Pradesh have no doubt reinforced India's move toward the US.  It is not coincidental that the relation has widened and deepened in a way which is positively correlated with China's military build up and diplomatic aggressiveness.  In a similar fashion the Chinese claims on some eighty percent of the South China Sea have gone a far piece to convincing Hanoi to allow bygones to be bygones and seek tighter relations with the Great Enemy Of The Vietnamese People.

Of course the Chinese have been responsible for much of the isolation confronting them.  Not since the Germany of Bismark, Wilhelm, and Adolph has a country exhibited such consistently inept diplomacy managing to either alienate or scare the hell out of almost every country in Asia to say nothing of other areas of the world.  The combination of implicit military threats, aggressive acquisition of land in faraway countries, diplomatic bluster, lack of international cooperation on such matters as Iran and North Korea, shows a state with no sense of diplomatic nuance and profound tone deafness as to the best way to win friends and influence policy.

The tub thumping of the Chinese military may even accomplish something thought impossible--cause the US to rethink seriously its love affair with the floating sovereignty behemoths called supercarriers.  Their "smart spike" ballistic missiles may (in conjunction with the budget concerns at home) cause the gradual replacement of the Nimitz class and larger ships with larger numbers of smaller, cheaper, and more competent vessels.  This would be a development to be hoped for in the most profound fashion.

Of course all of this might be moot given the problems inherent to China today.  Dropping water tables, loss of arable land, demographics, a crisis of rising expectations, the movement of American investment in physical plant and industrial production in consumer durables and capital goods back to the US, the steep increase in energy demands including refined petroleum products, the ramp up in internal suppression, the impact of new information and communication technologies may pose some well nigh onto insoluble problems for the Trolls.

With these contextual matters in mind, the Geek says, "Take Pakistan--and welcome to it."

It Was A Good Day, But Not The Final Day

The death of Osama bin Ladin is good--and long overdue--news.  The means of the man's demise is a credit to what is arguably the best special operations unit in the world today, Boat Six of the Navy's SEALs.  The consequences of this termination with extreme prejudice are easy to overstate.

Also easy to overstate is the decisive courage of President Obama.  The most annoying aspect of the aftermath of the Raid At Abbottabad has been the praise lavished on the Guy in the Oval.  Much has been made as well of the lack of unanimity among the presidential advisors concerning the raid.  Lack of unanimity is a good thing--it would have been better, much better for the US had there been more dissent from the group think during the run up to the Bay of Pigs or the adventure in regime change in South Vietnam which resulted in the death of the authoritarian ruler, Diem, and the onset of a decade of political chaos in the insurgency and American riddled republic.  And, to be sure, it would have been better had the White House crew of George W. Bush had a few more dissidents and a lot fewer team players.

When the interminable number of National Security Council meetings--five--finally came to an end, the president took the only rational choice available--a commando style operation.  The stand-off alternatives might not have done the job correctly as was the case with the recent attack in Tripoli which missed Gaddafi the dad but did manage to kill his youngest son and three of that man's children.  Or, even if the stand-off alternative did succeed, there would have been even less convincing proof of Osama's death than is the case currently.  And, not a trivial consideration, only the up-close-and-personal approach would have the positive collateral of collecting useful material to keep intelligence analysts occupied.

Of course, there would have been those in the NSC or supporting staff who would have feared a replay of "Blackhawk Down"--a prospect which came oh-so-close when one of the birds either suffered a mechanical malfunction or combat damage and had to be left on the ground.  Others might have felt a pucker factor over the possibility of American combat fatalities and how that would play at home.  Still others might have dreaded a complete debacle equivalent to that at Desert One.

Since no special operations senior commander would be so out of touch with reality as to guarantee success, there was a risk with the operation, but the use of Boat Six went a very long way to mitigate that consideration.  So also have the vast improvements generally in the tactics, techniques, and materiel of special operations.  When night fell, the use of the commando raid option was the only way to go--other than to convince oneself that the intelligence just was not sufficient and let the moment go by ungrasped.

There is, in the real world at least, never enough intelligence.  It is rare to the point of being nonexistent for a Two Shop--including CIA--to say, "This is the real deal, one hundred percent sure thing."  For an intel weenie to say such a thing would be identical to the Spec Ops guy saying success would be certain.  In this case, even given the chance that the narrative released by the Obama administration regarding the long, winding, and rough road traveled is a cover for simple penetration, the correlation of intelligence factors was strong, even very strong--and it just doesn't get any better than that.

One cannot help but wonder if the decision making process was so lengthy because so many lawyers must have been involved.  It rather appears that the actual planning and rehearsal for the raid took less time than did the five meetings of the NSC and who knows how many confabs between the legal counsel for the principals.  It may  even be that the factor tilting the final decision in favor of the on-the-ground option were legal considerations, specifically the existence of a remote chance that bin Laden could have been taken prisoner.  No matter how slight that chance might be and no matter how certain it was that Osama or those around him would offer armed resistance thus allowing fire to be returned, the legal fiction of a possible arrest was maintained.  That would have been impossible using the stand-off options.

The theoretical option of turning over the "actionable intelligence" to the Pakistanis was, no shock here, a non-starter.  Outside of Islamabad, is there anyone willing to hazard the view that the Pakistani army, Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence, and government had no idea that Osama had been living in a nice, large, and well furnished semi-prison located cheek-to-cheek with a major military academy and a large army base for some years?  Similarly, is there anyone, again outside of Pakistan, who would argue with a straight face that Osama could not have lived on the outskirts of Abbottabad without a "support service" furnished by Pakistanis, and not just ideological soulmates operating as private citizens?

The movers and shakers of Pakistan will have to do a lot of fast talking--something at which they are quite experienced and competent.  The Obama administration will not put too much pressure on the Koran loving senior men at ISI or in the army.  Congress, particularly the House, is not likely to be quite so easy going--and they control the flow of bribes to Islamabad.  Even considering that factor, the odds are in favor of the US going along with some (very) modest changes in Pakistani behavior and public protestations of innocence in a manner not unlike that of earlier administrations and congresses (think Panay Incident.)

The removal of bin Laden from the board does not change the Great Game of countering terror conducted by proponents of violent political Islam in any significant way.  The global movement has sufficient inertia, manpower, and experience to keep on going and growing even with the loss of Osama to the welcoming arms of seventy-two virgins.  Even if the US is able to follow on by removing the al-Qaeda number two man, al-Zawahiri, it will not make an end to to violent political Islam as  practiced by Taliban, AQIM, AQAP, or any of the other groups.

In short, the Abbottabad Raid has been an emotionally satisfying moment in a long and bloody war with years if not decades yet to run.  It demonstrated not only the very high competence of the US in a very demanding form of military operation but also the dedication the country can have over two administrations of vastly differing political ideologies and world views.  It also has shown that Mr Obama like JFK has the capacity to wreak havoc when his masculinity has been challenged--which bin Laden has done to a degree not equaled even by JKF's bete noir, Fidel Castro.

The game will go on.  The war between the civilized states and the reactionary, barbaric proponents of violent political Islam will continue.  Obama will get a bump in the polls.  His reelection chances may even have been enhanced.  On the upside, Osama bin Laden will not be around to enjoy life and the Great Game.