There is an innovative plan afoot for arming tribes in Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province to fight Al Qaeda. The idea is to replicate the strategy that has apparently worked in Anbar. This may work, and I’m glad to see people thinking creatively. But let’s consider the differences: Iraq is a Shia-majority country, where the Sunnis had good reason to cooperate with Americans, even though they were initially angry about being ousted from power by the dethroning of Saddam. In addition, al Qaeda radically overplayed its hand in Anbar and committed various atrocities and forms of disrespect that the locals were finally fed-up with. Also, the Iraq operation was largely in the hands of Americans and not Iraqi proxies, unlike whatever is envisioned for Pakistan, and thus operations could be more easily kept aligned with America’s strategic goals. Finally, much of the Taliban is ethnically the same as the tribes in the NWFP, with the “Afghan Arabs” excepted, whereas the vast majority of al Qaeda in Iraq was made up of foreigners without ethnic ties to the locals.
I do think the tribes need to be brought on board to root al Qaeda from Pakistan, but, frankly, it doesn’t particularly matter if al Qaeda’s cadres are dead, in prison, or hiding in a cave, so long as they’re militarily and operationally ineffective.
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