"Seven years after 9/11, the United States is worse off in Pakistan than it was, American interests in the region were worse off than they were, and Pakistan is worse off than it was," said Robert Hathaway of the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Good grief.
On 9/11, Afghanistan was a sanctuary for al Qaeda and run by the Taliban. Pakistan backed the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. On 9/11, we had no bases in the region to fight al Qaeda. On 9/11, Pakistan was a military-ruled country.
Now Afghanistan is a friendly country. Now Pakistan at least imperfectly fights with us. Now the Taliban are insurgents and al Qaeda lives in caves praying rather than preparing for the means to attack us. Today we kill al Qaeda and keep them on the run with allies in the region. Today Pakistan is run by a freely elected rulers.
In what way is the current situation worse? We have problems in Afghanistan because Pakistan won't fight effectively and because al Qaeda is beaten in Iraq. But this is a far cry from being no progress since 9/11. I weep for my college major when I see so-called historians spout such nonsense.
This statement is on firmer ground, I think:
Private US intelligence firm Stratfor predicted in a report this week that "it is only a matter of time before Washington escalates its unilateral military operations deeper into Pakistani territory" -- a move experts warned could worsen "collateral" damage and fuel anti-Americanism.
The risk of collateral damage is why I think our campaign inside Pakistan will not be a conventional campaign at all, but a new form that accepts that state sovereignty in Pakistan is a fiction we can't afford to live with any longer.
