Still, with the Taliban getting waxed the last two years as they've sent cannon fodder to Afghanistan and jihadis thinking that they could win in Pakistan and possibly believing that the Islamic bomb is there for the taking, we might be seeing the end of the Afghan campaign of the Long War.
Not that the fighting there will end anytime soon. But the fighting in Pakistan may take center stage. With Pakistan's army finally entering the fight and al Qaeda looking to join in, the campaign is broadening. We are seeing the beginning of a general Taliban Campaign that spans Afghanistan and Pakistan.
And with our need to protect supply lines through Pakistan, we may begin to play a far more active role in fighting inside Pakistan.
All those in America who have urged us to abandon Iraq and focus on Afghanistan--with some even demanding we intervene in Pakistan to kill Osama bin Laden--may find that our dwindling role in Iraq will free us to do exactly that--join the Taliban Campaign in force to team up with Pakistani army forces to suppress the jihadis in the tribal areas and finally hunt down bin Laden.
We have a common enemy. We should act like allies.
Well, we are working out options with the Pakistanis to use our special forces in Pakistan:
The administration of President George W. Bush is considering granting the Pentagon and CIA new authority to conduct covert operations in the tribal areas of Pakistan where Al-Qaeda is showing new strength, The New York Times reported on its website late Saturday.
The danger is, this isn't the movies. Putting small groups of special forces into Pakistan on their own is risky. Jihadis move about in large groups--hundreds at a pop. Our teams would be vulnerable to attack and even if we can call in air strikes to save them, we might be forced to kill scores or hundreds of tribesman to do so.
I hope we will use special forces as attachments to Pakistani units to call in our firepower. I hope our special forces and CIA teams can troll through Waziristan with suitcases filled with hundred dollar bills as they did in Afghanistan in 2001 to buy alliances and information. And I hope our participation is part of a coherent campaign to defeat the Pakistani Taliban and not just long shot hopes that we might nail bin Laden this year with an air strike or ground assault.
UPDATE: Pakistan insists on maintaining the fiction that no American or Coalition forces operate in Pakistan:
"Pakistan's position in the war on terror has been very clear -- that any action on Pakistani soil will be taken only by Pakistani forces and Pakistani security agencies," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Sadiq.
"No other country will be allowed to carry out operations in Pakistan. This has been conveyed at the highest level," he said.
Yet even if the report of expanded US special operations authority is true and the Pakistani denials a formality, it shows that Pakistan has not decided to really take the jihadi threat seriously and team up with us to crush them. Pakistan clearly thinks that openly siding with us against the jihadis is more dangerous than the jihadis themselves. We live in a strange world.
