Pakistan: With Us or Against Us?

For the last year or two, it has been very hard to figure out to what extent Pakistan legitimately wants to crack down on terrorism within its borders. Specifically, I'm talking about the al-Qaeda style terrorists who seem to be mostly up in the mountainous areas near the Afghanistan border, not the separatist or religiously minded terrorists largely targeting India and living in the Kashmir.

Musharraf essentially threw himself in with the US after 9/11, got a lot of support from the US, survived several assassination attempts, and did help hunt some terrorists, for a while. Toward the end of his presidency, though, it was unclear to what extent he was:

• Unable to stop terrorists from basing their operations in Pakistan - Did the various security apparati of Pakistan still really work for him? Did he fully control the army? Did the army have the capacity to battle the Taliban/Al-Qaeda types up in the hostile mountain regions?
• Unwilling to stop terrorists from operating in and from Pakistan - Did he fear that he would lose his grip on power if he pushed too hard against the militants?
• Pretending to stop the terrorists - Was he never doing anything more than appeasing the Americans and being obsequious in order to gain our financial and military support?
• Aiding the terrorists - Was (or is) Pakistan actively helping certain terrorist groups to destabilize Afghanistan or otherwise influence the balance of power there?

Right now, Pakistan is in a critical situation. With new leadership there, it is still unclear where they stand. The recent bombing of the Marriott only makes this situation more dire. Pakistan has said it will oppose any attempt by Americans to perform military actions on Pakistani soil (which the Americans would not have to do if Pakistan could/would fight the militants themselves). Most people didn't really understand the point of President Bush's "With Us or Against Us" statement at the time, but this is exactly the situation he was talking about.

The US must push Pakistan to actively hunt down and deny safe haven to all terrorist groups on its soil. As a sovereign nation, with rights to its territorial integrity, Pakistan has an obligation and responsibility to actively oppose anti-American or anti-Afghani military activity and illegal activity occurring on its soil. Should Pakistan shirk this responsibility, it cedes its territorial sovereignty automatically. If Pakistan should choose to say that its government officially supports the United States and opposes terrorism, but chooses not to fight the militants or police lawless safe-havens because a) it is afraid of increasing anti-government sentiment in Pakistan against the government of Pakistan, b) it is afraid of retaliation, or c) it is afraid of negative repercussions in its relations with other countries, then Pakistan is not "with us" it is "against us."

Most of the disaffected in Pakistan have no legitimate gripes against the United States that come anywhere close in importance or magnitude to their gripes against their own government. If the government of Pakistan allows illegal, hostile, violent, anti-American groups to fester because it doesn't want them to turn into anti-Pakistan groups, then it is an enemy and is "against us." This is exactly what Saddam Hussein, Chavez, Ahmadinejad, and a host of other bad guys do and have done.

It is sometimes tempting to think, "Well, if we stop intervening or interfering, they won't hate us in the first place." This is absurd, though. During the 90s, we didn't intervene in Rwanda, didn't push the Russians too hard, withdrew from Mogadishu, did almost nothing to Iraq in 1998, offered no more than token support to Iranian reformers, let the pro-US forces in Beirut fend for themselves, "bargained" with N. Korea, didn't push Egypt to open up to democracy, etc... What did we get for all these efforts? The worst terrorist attacks against the US (and western allies) in history, a reinspired, militant, aggressive Russia, an openly hostile, brutally oppressive regime in Venezuela, a Saddam that gave reward money to the families of suicide bombers, pursued a policy of genocide against the Kurds, and fired on American planes patrolling the no-fly zone, a nuclear-armed North Korea, a colossal genocidal tragedy in Sudan, a resurgent Al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Somalia, and an Iran in clear violation of the NPT.

That strategy, which is tantamount to appeasement, and in part on the continuation of which George Bush got elected, clearly did not work. After 9/11, we adopted the much more realistic and morally consistent "with us or against us" strategy. We should stick to that strategy now with Pakistan. If they don't do enough to prove they are "with us," then, effectively they are "against us." If they don't stop terrorists from operating on their soil, the US should.