The key element in President Barack Obama’s Afghanistan strategy is getting Pakistan to fight the Taliban on its side of the border. But despite the Administration’s demanding a more concerted effort against militants on Pakistani soil as a condition for further aid to Pakistan’s military ”” and warnings by Centcom commander General David Petraeus and others that the Taliban threatens to destroy Pakistan as a state ”” many in Washington and beyond are skeptical that Pakistan will cooperate.
U.S. military officials have recently made clear that more than seven years after America went to war against the Taliban, Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) agency continues to provide active support to Taliban forces fighting in Afghanistan. “Fundamentally, the strategic approach with the ISI must change,” Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen told CNN last Friday, “and [its] support … for militants [on both its Afghanistan and India borders] has to fundamentally shift.” But the problem is not confined to the ISI or elements within it. In a recent truce between the Pakistani army and local Taliban groups in the Pakistani region of Bajaur, militants recanted their hostility to Pakistani security forces but vowed to concentrate on fighting NATO forces in Afghanistan. And Pakistan has been far more tolerant of Taliban forces on its soil who conduct operations in Afghanistan than of those who fight the Pakistani government.
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Time Magazine: Will Pakistan Toughen Up on the Taliban?
The key element in President Barack Obama’s Afghanistan strategy is getting Pakistan to fight the Taliban on its side of the border. But despite the Administration’s demanding a more concerted effort against militants on Pakistani soil as a condition for further aid to Pakistan’s military ”” and warnings by Centcom commander General David Petraeus and others that the Taliban threatens to destroy Pakistan as a state ”” many in Washington and beyond are skeptical that Pakistan will cooperate.
U.S. military officials have recently made clear that more than seven years after America went to war against the Taliban, Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) agency continues to provide active support to Taliban forces fighting in Afghanistan. “Fundamentally, the strategic approach with the ISI must change,” Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen told CNN last Friday, “and [its] support … for militants [on both its Afghanistan and India borders] has to fundamentally shift.” But the problem is not confined to the ISI or elements within it. In a recent truce between the Pakistani army and local Taliban groups in the Pakistani region of Bajaur, militants recanted their hostility to Pakistani security forces but vowed to concentrate on fighting NATO forces in Afghanistan. And Pakistan has been far more tolerant of Taliban forces on its soil who conduct operations in Afghanistan than of those who fight the Pakistani government.
Read it all.