The government agreed to impose Islamic law and suspend a military offensive across much of northwest Pakistan on Monday in concessions aimed at pacifying the Taliban insurgency spreading from the border region to the country's interior.
I don't mean to nitpick this deal, but isn't imposing Islamic law in the area an indication that the Islamists have in fact pacified the government?
It won't be long before the Pakistani government (again) learns you cannot make a deal with the devil.
UPDATE: NATO is concerned, as they should be:
"It is certainly reason for concern," NATO spokesman James Appathurai said in Brussels about the latest deal. "We should all be concerned by a situation in which extremists would have a safe haven. Without doubting the good faith of the Pakistani government, it is clear that the region is suffering very badly from extremists and we would not want it to get worse."
It will get worse. And it gets worse not just by the breathing space the Pakistanis just gave the jihadis. It gets worse because any Pakistanis in the regions affected by the ceasefire have learned--again--that siding with the government against the jihadis is a sucker's decision. The jihadis will not be shy in killing those who worked with the government and advertising that when all is said and done, the jihadis remain while the government fades away.
The Pakistani government will eventually learn that a ceasefire with jihadis is stupid. But when the Pakistani sends in the military again, the people of the region will have learned the lesson that the government is not serious about staying and winning--and so will either side with the jihadis or just try not to be noticed while the battle rages, knowing that the battle will fade out and the government will go away.
As the Anbar Awakening demonstrated, it isn't enough for the jihadis to alienate the local people--the jihadis do that naturally. To win, the local people must believe we will stay long enough to defeat the jihadis. If the local people conclude otherwise, too few of the local people will take sides against the murderous jihadis.
We either need to work the tribes of Pakistan's frontier region ourselves to get them to turn on the jihadis, or work a plan for Afghanistan that does not require Pakistan to defeat their jihadis any time in the next 20 years or so.
