in the mean time and on another front, per stratfor, describing a perpetual check, until such time when endgame commences and forced checkmate possible
Geopolitical Diary: The Criticality of Pakistan's Swat Region
May 6, 2009
U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday held a trilateral summit with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Afghan President Hamid Karzai to try to come up with a joint strategy for combating a powerful Taliban insurgency that is now raging in the Pashtun-dominated areas on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border. Elsewhere in Pakistan, preparations were made for what is expected to be a major countermilitancy offensive aimed at dislodging Taliban fighters from their stronghold in the Swat region. Efforts are under way to provide shelter to some 800,000 people who are fleeing the district, and cell and landline phone service in the area reportedly has been disrupted.
In many places within the Swat district, Pakistani forces have already begun using air and ground fire against a number of Taliban facilities. An agreement between the government and the Taliban to implement Sharia law in the region in return for peace is practically defunct, leaving Islamabad with no choice but to use force against the Pashtun jihadists in order to prevent them from expanding beyond Swat. This, however, is not the first time the Pakistanis have engaged in a military operation to regain control of Swat.
In fact, the “Sharia for peace” deal followed more than a year of fighting in which the Pakistani army was unsuccessful in rooting out the Taliban. A lack of capability and incoherence on the level of intent were the principal reasons for this failure. Because not much has changed on the Taliban or the government end, it is unlikely that the army will be able to succeed this time around, either.
Pakistan actually acknowledges its military incapability, and a key part of the discussions Zardari is having with U.S. officials involves a plan in which Washington would provide assistance to Islamabad in terms of military hardware and counterinsurgency training. Such assistance will be a work in progress for quite some time. In the meantime, Islamabad must use whatever resources it has at its disposal to deal with the Taliban militancy in Swat.
The extent of Pakistan’s success — or the lack thereof — against the Taliban in general will depend on what becomes of Swat. Unlike the country’s autonomous tribal areas, the region is part of Pakistan proper, located in a strategic part of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). Afghanistan, Pakistan’s Northern Areas along the Chinese border, Pakistani-administered Kashmir along the Line of Control with India and the rest of Pakistan are very much accessible from Swat, which is the main Taliban stronghold in the country and thus a launchpad for the jihadists’ expansionist plans.
In other words, in order for Pakistan to block the Taliban march, it must draw the line in Swat. And under the current circumstances, the Pakistani goal in this fresh military offensive is to be able to contain the Taliban within the district. Though the army is not in a position to fully retake the district, Islamabad will likely settle for degrading militant infrastructure as much as possible.
What this means is that the offensive will incur considerable collateral damage, which, along with the displacement of a large number of people, will help the Taliban revive their capabilities in the long run. Also, the national sentiment is that the government should stop fighting a U.S.-imposed war that has turned the country into a battlefield, and this attitude further limits the hand of the state. In other words, short-term tactical gains are unlikely to lead to any strategic victory over the jihadists.
So what does this mean in terms of how far the Taliban will be able to advance in the foreseeable future?
While there are significant arresters that will prevent the Taliban from moving into the core of the country (Punjab and Sindh provinces) any time soon, depending on how bad things get and how quickly, Islamabad could very well lose control of the NWFP. In such a scenario, the NWFP could resemble a mini-Afghanistan, where federal and provincial authority would have collapsed and Pakistani forces would be engaged in a long and bitter struggle against Taliban fighters for control over territory.
A Pakistan locked in a battle with the Taliban for control over its Pashtun areas would have huge implications for the U.S./NATO mission in Afghanistan. Not only could the supply route that goes through the center of the Pashtun areas be disrupted, but Western forces could find themselves fighting a two-front war with Afghan Taliban on one hand and Pakistani Taliban on the other.
Therefore, what happens in Swat will, to a great degree, determine whether or not the Pashtun areas in Afghanistan and Pakistan turn into a regional Taliban dominion.
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