Obama Has Limited Options In Pakistan

Washington Post: Despite Threats, Situation Is Complicated By Security Issues, Infighting And Anti-American Sentiment

(Washingtonpost.com)  This story was written by Karen DeYoung.

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As Taliban forces edged to within 60 miles of Islamabad late last month, the Obama administration urgently asked for new intelligence assessments of whether Pakistan's government would survive. In briefings last week, senior officials said, President Obama and his National Security Council were told that neither a Taliban takeover nor a military coup was imminent and that the Pakistani nuclear arsenal was safe.

Beyond the immediate future, however, the intelligence was far from reassuring. Security was deteriorating rapidly, particularly in the mountains along the Afghan border that harbor al-Qaeda and the Taliban, intelligence chiefs reported, and there were signs that those groups were working with indigenous extremists in Pakistan's populous Punjabi heartland.

The Pakistani government was mired in political bickering. The army, still fixated on its historical adversary India, remained ill-equipped and unwilling to throw its full weight into the counterinsurgency fight.

But despite the threat the intelligence conveyed, Obama has only limited options for dealing with it. Anti-American feeling in Pakistan is high, and a U.S. combat presence is prohibited. The United States is fighting Pakistan-based extremists by proxy, through an army over which it has little control, in alliance with a government in which it has little confidence.

The tools most readily at hand are money, weapons, and a mentoring relationship with Pakistan's government and military that alternates between earnest advice and anxious criticism. As criticism has dominated in recent weeks -- along with reports that the administration is wooing Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari's principal political opponent, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif -- the partnership has grown strained.

"What are the Americans trying to do, micromanage our politics?" a senior Pakistani official said testily. "This is not South Vietnam."

As Zardari arrives this week for his first official visit with Obama -- part of a tripartite summit with Afghan President Hamid Karzai -- the administration has asked Congress to quickly approve hundreds of millions of dollars in emergency military aid for Pakistan. That money, and billions more over the next several years, is to come with new authority for the Defense Department to decide what to spend it on.

Obama has also backed a five-year $7.5 billion economic assistance package and is resisting congressional efforts to impose strict conditions on any aid to Pakistan. Last month, the administration orchestrated an international donors' conference in Tokyo that netted $5.5 billion in pledges for Pakistan.

When he sits down with Zardari on Wednesday at the White House, Obama will urge him to put more effort into building domestic support by meeting critical public needs and to resolve his differences with Sharif and others so that he can concentrate on governing, according to officials who discussed sensitive and fluid Pakistan issues on the condition of anonymity.

Of particular concern are hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis who have been displaced by fighting in the North-West Frontier Province, U.S. officials said.

Security proposals up for discussion with Zardari and other members of his high-level delegation include counterinsurgency training for Pakistani army troops at U.S. bases in the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, the United States or elsewhere. The administration wants to expand a small, in-country training force -- now limited to about 70 Americans -- that is working with the Frontier Corps, the local, poorly armed force in the border regions.

As 17,000 additional U.S. troops deploying to southern Afghanistan this spring and summer begin to push Taliban fighters toward the Pakistan border, there are hopes the extremists can be trapped in "hammer and anvil" operations with Pakistani forces in the southern province of Baluchistan. Right now, however, Pakistan fields only one army brigade and about 40,000 minimally trained and equipped Frontier Corps members in the vast region, according to U.S. officials.

In deference to Pakistani objections, the administration has not initiated covert ground attacks, approved by the Bush administration last year, in mountain villages farther to the north, in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, where it believes high-value al-Qaeda figures are located. But Obama authorized stepped-up attacks on the area by missiles launched from unmanned drone aircraft.

Although the missile attacks are privately approved by the Pakistani government, despite its public denunciations, they are highly unpopular among the public. As Zardari's domestic problems have grown, the Obama administration last month cut the frequency of the attacks. Some senior U.S. officials think they have reached the point of diminishing returns and the administration is debating the rate at which they should continue.

Always simmering, administration concern about Pakistani governance rose sharply last month when the Parliament approved an agreement between regional authorities and the Taliban to authorize sharia, or Islamic law, in the Swat Valley, located about 100 miles northwest of Islamabad. Rather than lay down their arms in exchange, Taliban forces began moving eastward. By the third week in April, they had established a presence in Buner district, 60 miles from the capital, with no apparent government resistance.

The day after the Buner reports surfaced, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton infuriated the Pakistani government by telling Congress it was "abdicating to the Taliban and to the extremists" and that the situation posed a "mortal threat" to the world.

"Absolutely, they're getting irritated," a senior U.S. official said of the Pakistanis. Clinton, he said, "knows she went too far" in her unscripted testimony. "But on the other hand," he said, "it was that kind of statement that helped wake up the Pakistanis."

A Pakistani military offensive in the Buner region was underway Tuesday, even as Obama's national security team met at the White House, and continued through the weekend. Administration officials said they were watching to see whether the military followed through or would simply stop without finishing the job, as it has in the past.

Meanwhile, Pakistan's government says it is in no mood for criticism or conditions on aid. After "billions of dollars were poured into Pakistan under the dictatorship" of Gen. Pervez Musharraf by the Bush administration, Pakistani ambassador to Washington Husain Haqqani said yesterday, the Obama administration has produced little but promises and disapproval of the democratically elected government.

"It is unfair to blame the civilian leadership that is bravely mobilizing the nation against terrorism when it is our American partners who have also slowed us down in the war effort by slowing down the flow of assistance," Haqqani said. "We trust that President Obama's emphasis on Pakistan will also translate promises into deliverables."

"You can't spend more in Iraq and Afghanistan," he said, "and then wonder why the effort in Pakistan is lagging behind."

[Trust_me_]

Or maybe we could talk with the moderate paki`s

[Trust_me_]

Option 1 Im very sorry the US did that.!

option 2 Bow and say Im sorry for the US!

option 3 Say No No, let the US pay for that!

[fedup12]

Whatever will you liberals do if your savior Obama has to get us in a war in Pakistan?
Posted by guyfrompa45 at 7:37 AM : May 4, 2009

Bet its a more thoughtful and reasoned decision than going into Iraq.

[ayatoldya]

Meanwhile there is no mention of China's broad influence over Pakistan. The Pakistan government is tied so close to China economically, through loans and weapon deals from China, that the Pakistan Prime Minister flys to China once a month to give the Chinese a Progress Report!

Saudi Arabia sways great influence and continues to fund schools that (mis)educate Pakistan youth with a hard slant towards their Wahhabi beliefs, which, fundamentally parallel Taliban religious beliefs.

It's not Obama that has limited options in Pakistan. It's the whole United States that has limited options. And one thing no one is prepared to tell the US public yet is: Fundamental Islam has been rooted into Pakistan schools for so long that the children growing up learning these things are now beginning to live these things and this "problem" won't go away anytime in the next decade, but rather the next generation, and that is ONLY if first the western world can counter the implanted Saudi education system in Pakistan. And next become socially involved in providing humanitarian aid such as infrastructure, manufacturing and such.

A great side benefit in building these and other rising nations into stable governments and populations with viable economic machines capable of operating in the global economy will be that the economic and ergo political influence China has on the world will diminish exponentially.

[Haug_Dude]

The 800 Kilo Ape rattling the rafters -- are an unknown number of nukes, and neighboring India who likely eyes the Taliban rather like a disease epidemic. This little chunk of "ChaosStan" (after Richard Maybury, 2003) is ready to blow, and with tragic repercussions and severe environmental impact on the planet. An exchange of dirty nuclear weapons here would contaminate the planet in days due to the active Jet Stream climate feature. Taliban nukes would proliferate to other terrorist organization as they are a more fungible cash source than opium poppies. If there ever was a scenario for rapid deployment of U.S. Special Forces, it would be to help Pakistan military evacuate its nuclear weapons arsenal to a neutral Muslim nation ASAP. Perhaps Jordan would be able to intervene here. As far as I can tell, Jordan is the only Muslim nation that is stable enough to do this. Also, if Taliban / Al Qaeda ? let?s see, who are the ?Crusaders? again? -- obtains the Pakistani weapons, there is no predicting what Israel would do to counteract the threat. In addition, IRAN would immediately have access to those weapons to reverse engineer them, or extract the fissile materials. This is a serious, serious mess and we need to deal with it NOW !!

[melpol1]

The best way to sop a crying baby is to avoid it for a few days. A civil war will produce a quieter Pakistan. The U.S. should step aside and let opposing forces battle until they are tired of war. Let the winner take all.

[inventagod]

There is no future for America in Pakistan. Bring our troops home.

[clancy49]

When oh when is the Rapture coming to save us all from ourselves? Politics, power, money, and blood the way of humanity.

[BeckieBest]

enjoylife


If your so-called conservative leaders had any competence whatsoever in foreign affairs, the American people wouldn't have voted them out of office and we wouldn't be dealing with this mess.

[maistir]

There are several options; all unpleasant. Fighting by proxy or in secret in Kashmir, Baluchistan and/or on the Afghan border would affect things, but might not produce good results. Exchanging Zardari for Nawaz Sharif or a military dictator is another tactic that could backfire. In the short run, the US can back the disarmament of the Taleban in and around Swat, since the Taleban agreed to that. Otherwise, wait watchfully--an old principle, but useful here.

[mejordelahistoria]

Oh Dear...Obama whatever are you going to do...it is decision time!!! Maybe you can be heroic as in the Somali Priate shooting...it only took him 17 decision briefings and three missed opportunities to take the shots, before clearance was granted. Sheesh. What is this guy going to do in a real crisis. Give me Teddy Roosevelt!
Posted by tomadams99 at 7:27 AM : May 4, 2009




maybe he should do like ronald reagan, just call the taliban freedom fighters, have toby keith sing a song, sylvester stallone make a remake of rambo 3 and provide the taliban with american fighter planes and sophisticated wepons, just like reagan did in exchange for the hostages in iran Carter tried to rescue by force.

[BeckieBest]

janem4



Blah di blah blah...you cheered Bush on for 8 years as he created this mess.

Now you only whine that Obama's not fixing it fast enough?

Get over your partisan, Party of NO, hate.

[BeckieBest]

If we didn't get our oil from the middle east we could let these nutjobs fight their way back to the stone age.

We need to devolope and implement the sustainable energy technologies that we have available to us now and stop exporting money and blood so that we can import oil from people who hate us.

[edward1975-2009]

Time to load up the tele-prompters, speechwriters and take this show on the road, next stop Pakistan. " Michelle, should I wear the dark blue suit or the charcoal gray." Now where's my overnight bag.

[fedup12]

I agree there are limited options. We should attack Brazil. Because I once saw a Brazilian national talking to a Pakistani.