These new events in the war on terror show the seriousness of the Taliban threat to Pakistan and Afghanistan. These military offensives show that the US, European and Pakistani governments are clearly united in their efforts to destroy the Taliban and to enhance stability of the Afghanistan – Pakistan region. What are the implications of these events?
This is definitely the right approach. The Taliban are a group which promotes terrorism and extremism and have been responsible for many deadly attacks on innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Barack Obama is right to switch his attention from the Iraq War (which distracted America from the effort in Afghanistan, helping the Taliban and Al Qaeda militants to regroup and become much more threatening than ever before). Obama’s strategy is different from the Bush strategy. Bush made the great mistake of launching the war in Iraq and that distracted America from the fight against the real enemy, Al Qaeda (along with its Taliban allies). During the US Presidential campaign of 2004, Democratic candidate John Kerry criticised Bush as having set his “eyes off the ball”. During his speech at Cairo, Obama again criticised the Iraq War as a “war of choice which could and should have been avoided”. But now, the new US administration under Barack Obama is once again giving strong priority to the worsening Afghan conflict.
Bush made the great mistake of launching the war in Iraq and that distracted America from the fight against the real enemy, Al Qaeda (along with its Taliban allies).
I believe Obama has taken some good steps which will help to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda allies in the long term. His Afpak strategy, a strategy which makes Afghanistan and Pakistan the centres of the fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda is a very good one. It is reality that the war in Afghanistan could not be won without Pakistan’s cooperation. Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has stated that success in Afghanistan cannot be achieved without the inclusion of Pakistan. This strategy means more help to the Pakistani armed forces so that the Pakistani army could fight the Taliban better. Another good idea is to send more troops to Afghanistan, shifting US troops from Iraq to Afghanistan. Another initiative is to help expand the Afghan Army to provide the much-needed security to enhance the economic and social development. These initiatives will help in the long term to weaken the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
But Afghanistan and Pakistan also have important duties to execute if they want the Taliban threat to be weakened.
Pakistan should undertake more military operations in vulnerable regions such as Swat and the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan and also invest resources to lift the people inhabiting these regions out of poverty and promote their economic and social development. This is the best strategy to weaken the Taliban in Pakistan and make the war in Afghanistan more favourable to the NATO, US and Afghan army. Pakistan must ally with tribal forces in its border region with Afghanistan in order to really annihilate the Taliban. The Pakistani government has the great advantage that the big majority of Pakistan’s population is moderate and supports military action against the Taliban militants. So, it is up to the Pakistani government to act as fast as it could. The Pakistani should avoid ridiculous decisions such as making peace deals with the Taliban by giving the Taliban a freehand in Pakistani territory as it did last February in the Swat region. The Taliban can never be trusted and it only aims to have power and safe havens from where to promote more terror. However, judging by the Pakistani government’s military offensives in Swat and South Waziristan, one must note that Pakistan’s government is realising the extent of the Taliban threat and is acting fast to extinguish this threat.
On the other hand, the Afghan Government has to step up with the fight against corruption in institutions such as the police force so that it could provide people security from the Taliban. Corruption in Afghan institutions is rife and it is one of the criticisms that Hamid Karzai’s opponents are making in the presidential campaign of 2009. Whoever gets elected after the August 2009 presidential election, has a lot of hard work to do to gain the Afghan people’s confidence in the government, which is crucial in defeating the Taliban. The Afghan government has the generous help of the United States, the European Union and many other countries. So, all it has to do is to make sure its presence felt among its people in order to provide security and foster social and economic development and regenerate Afghanistan by creating jobs and distributing the wealth fairly. Everybody acknowledges that this is a long road and there are difficulties. But it is not impossible. When the tasks mentioned in the new strategy are achieved as soon as possible, the Taliban can be assured of total defeat both in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
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