Motus Mentis

The situation in Pakistan, which we commented on yesterday, continues to deteriorate, and appears to be creating broader alarm. Today Fareed Zakaria, interviewed by CNN, gave a grim assessment:

CNN: Beyond their proximity to the capital, what makes this such a dire situation?
Zakaria: Well, I read that the spokesman for the Taliban told The Associated Press this week that the Taliban would protect Osama bin Laden if he, or any of his brethren, wanted to come into the Swat Valley. The doomsday scenario here is the militants take power in Pakistan, get control of the estimated 100 nuclear warheads that the country currently has and share their new “toys” with al Qaeda. That is highly, highly unlikely, but what is possible is spiraling chaos in the country, which would create more “badlands” in which terror cells can operate more freely.

Mr. Zakaria says that the nuclear scenario he adumbrates is “highly, highly unlikely”. I’m not nearly so confident, and I suspect he isn’t either.

What should be done?

CNN: So what’s the answer to the crucial question: How does Pakistan regain control?

Zakaria: What the world needs to find a way to do, and quickly, is separate the real bad guys, the global jihadists in this area, from the people who are joining the Taliban there because it’s the thing to do or are being paid — what counter-insurgency expert David Kilcullen has termed the “accidental guerrilla.”

In a place like Swat, those “accidental guerrillas” are caught up in the frenzy. Maybe one of their friends dragged them to Sufi Mohammad’s rally this week and somebody handed them a gun and told them to go fight. But they aren’t ideologues who are fighting the “infidel” because of a great conviction. Therefore, they can be bought with cash and brought on to our side. And that’s what we need to do. Remember, these guys are not Arabs or foreigners; they are locals. They’re not going anywhere, so we have to find a way to work with some of them.

Good luck with that. Don’t forget that this is not Iraq, where we had our own people everywhere to manage this effort, but Pakistan, where the sympathies of the military and the intelligence services are often more with the Taliban than the government. Zakaria acknowledges this, at least the first part of it:

CNN: And you think that will work?

Zakaria: It certainly did in Iraq, where it was called the Sunni Awakening. But obviously, Iraq isn’t Pakistan. And remember, U.S. forces aren’t even in Pakistan; they have not been invited in by the government, have no U.N. mandate there, etc.

So if this fails, then what?

CNN: And if it doesn’t work?

Zakaria: Well, the real core of this struggle has to be fought by the Pakistani army. They would need to fight a civil war against these militants to protect their own country, something they are loath to do. They have preferred the “phantom” war against India, a simple old-fashioned deployment that they understand. Insurgencies are tough, and they are trying to avoid dealing with it. But they need to understand, this is the existential threat to their country. India is not trying to capture Punjab, the Taliban is.

What Zakaria passes over in silence is that the Pakistani army and the ISI may well lack the will to shed their own blood, and that of fellow Muslim men, to preserve the old post-colonial secular order against the purifying religious jihad of the Taliban.

What nobody is thinking about is the “soft power” of the group that stands to suffer the most — by far — under Taliban rule: women. If M. K. Gandhi were alive today, he would be in Pakistan, organizing among them a campaign of satyagraha. I have mentioned this in a previous post; it may be secularism’s best, and perhaps only, hope.