Last week's Pakistani offensive against an Islamist warlord near Peshawar was just an example of what is in store for any extremists who challenge the nation's new government militarily, Pakistani Ambassador Husain Haqqani said in an interview Monday.
Several more actions planned for the Afghan border area in the coming days will demonstrate to the world the new government's commitment to fighting the Taliban and other extremist groups, the ambassador told editors and reporters at The Washington Times.
And of course, we still have limited options for direct force:
Pakistan allowed the CIA to secretly launch missile-equipped Predators from its soil into Afghanistan during the war to oust the Taliban. It has continued to let the agency fly the unmanned surveillance planes over Pakistan.
But earlier this year, Mr. Musharraf rejected a Bush administration request to allow more CIA personnel into his country. Washington must coordinate planned strikes on militants in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) where bin Laden is thought to be hiding. Bin Laden as a target is an exception to that rule.
We'd rather have Pakistan pacify their frontier areas. But I think we're prepared to take a stab at it ourselves trying a Pashtun Awakening strategy if Islamabad won't work with us:
Using limited military assets such as special forces and drones to back civilian armed assets such as the CIA or contract personnel (with either former or seconded special forces from Western countries, or perhaps even hiring security companies to provide the personnel) or even Arab special forces that would live and work inside the frontier areas, we may be able to turn the frontier tribes against the jihadis who target us.
I'd bet that the Pakistani government wouldn't want to risk that such a strategy would work.
