Pakistan continues to complain about the U.S. Predator campaign against al Qaeda and Taliban leaders and operatives in Pakistan’s tribal areas, even after it has been disclosed that bases inside Pakistan are being used to conduct the strikes. Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence agency told the New York Times that these strikes, as well as U.S. plans to send an additional 17,000 troops to Afghanistan, “are having an increasingly destabilizing effect on their country.”
In essence, the ISI is saying that U.S. efforts to target Taliban and al Qaeda leaders and secure Afghanistan are responsible for the rise of “militancy” in the region. This of course ignores the fact that for decades the Taliban has been sponsored by elements within Pakistan’s military and intelligence service, even to this day. While the Predator strikes no doubt put the government in an awkward situation and are angering Pakistanis, the real cause of instability and the spread of radical Islam is Pakistan’s inability to control its own territory. Pakistan could end the Predator strikes if it showed it was serious about dislodging the Taliban and al Qaeda from the tribal areas and the Northwest Frontier Province. Instead, the Pakistanis have cut a series of peace deals, starting in North and South Waziristan in 2004, with the latest ceasefires coming to effect in Swat and Bajaur. The Pakistanis have ceded ground to the Taliban, thus giving al Qaeda the sanctuaries needed to reestablish its network after its near-defeat in Afghanistan in 2001-2002. The U.S. strikes are happening because the Pakistani government is either unable or unwilling to restore its writ in large swaths of territory, and is in fact quite willing to cede control of these regions to the extremists. Make no mistake: These strikes are signs of just how bad the situation is inside of Pakistan. The United States would rather police its own territory but is forced to step in and keep al Qaeda off balance lest it conduct another attack on the scale of 9-11 or worse.
