In Pakistan, the army has a large measure of popular support in its fight against the Taliban. Two years ago, only 34 percent of Pakistanis believed the Taliban were a threat to them. Now it's 81 percent. Some 70 percent said their sympathies were with the government, compared to five percent with the Taliban. Moreover, many of those opposed to the Taliban are Pushtun and Baluchi tribesmen living along the Afghan border. Because of that widespread change in attitude, and the presence of the army in the tribal territories, the tribes feel confident enough to fight the Taliban. Mostly, this is in the form of tribal militias (Lashkars), and these are defeating Taliban attempts to move in.
While I am encouraged by this new Pakistani public support because it will aid our efforts in Pakistan and Afghanistan, it is discouraging in the big picture.
I am discouraged because while Moslems can reliably be expected to turn on the jihadis when ordinary Moslems are exposed to what it is like to live by armed jihadis with authority over their lives, until that happens the vast majority of ordinary Moslems seem to be content to live with jihadis who just target us.
Until a solid majority of Moslems react to all jihadis the way they react to jihadis who kill local Moslems, the Long War will go on.
And every year the war goes on is another year closer to jihadis getting a nuclear device that they can slip into one of our cities.
We need a Moslem Awakening for the Long War just as we've needed and Anbar Awakening and a Pakistan Awakening for the Iraq and Afpak theaters.
