Moment of Truth

Pakistan is going it alone this weekend. Most of us know by now that their army launched a huge air and ground offensive in the Taliban and al Qaeda stronghold of South Waziristan. According to news estimates, 30,000 troops were deployed to root out and kill terrorists. This is a critical development folks, key not only to the welfare, even the existence of Pakistan, but key to US security interests as well.

What Pakistan told Obama this weekend is this: OK, we are doing our part. Now we want you to do yours.

We have been critical of what we view as Obama’s complete lack of instinct in protecting the interests of the US in the conduct of foreign affairs. From the US Constitution, Article II, Section 2, this is his primary duty yet we don’t see how he has looked out for US interests at all. As a matter of fact, we don't think Barack Obama cares much about foreign affairs one way or the other. He does however have a huge transformative domestic agenda. His main interest in the rest of the planet, as one observer noted, " is that he doesn't need some nutjob nuking Cleveland before he's finished reducing it to a moribund socialist swamp."

OK. Perhaps we are wrong. Maybe there is foreign policy somewhere, not just attitude. Maybe BO read our last blog. We’ll soon find out.

Back to this weekend’s offensive. Pakistani president Zardari, army chief of staff Kayani and others are fighting not just this front, but an internal front as well. There are many within Pakistan who oppose fighting the Taliban. Recall the relationship nurtured between Pakistan and the Taliban during the war to expel the Soviets. Those within Pakistan who want to support the Taliban argue that the US will eventually abandon Afghanistan, and that argument has gained credibility given Obama’s track record so far. They believe that given that event the Taliban will be able to fill the vacuum.

See where we’re going with this one folks?

Zardari and Kayani have been able to overcome internal resistance sufficiently to mount this weekend’s major operation. But US lack of support of combat forces will only prove their opponents to be correct. Pakistani operations against their own insurgents--as well as against al Qaeda, which lives among those insurgents--would probably stop as Pakistan worked to reposition itself in support of a revived Taliban government in Afghanistan. And a renewed stream of Afghan refugees would likely overwhelm the Pakistani government and military. How would they then conduct operations against insurgents and terrorists? They wouldn’t.

The collapse of Pakistan, or even the revival of an aggressive and successful Islamist movement there, would be a disaster for the region and for the United States. It would significantly increase the risk that al Qaeda might obtain nukes from Pakistan's stockpile, as well as the risk that an Indo-Pakistani war might break out involving the use of nuclear weapons.

Let’s hope Obama surprises us and gets this one right.

Robert Craven