Friday 18 April 2008


PAKISTAN'S RECORD ON TERRORISM: CONFLICTED GOALS, COMPROMISED PERFORMANCE

Ashley J. Tellis

The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 31, No. 2, Spring 2008

On June 24, 2003, at a Camp David meeting with President General Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, President George W. Bush declared that key al Qaeda terrorists had been successfully neutralized thanks to "the effective border security measures and law enforcement cooperation throughout [Pakistan], and ... to the leadership of President Musharraf." Although Osama bin Laden was still at large, Bush nevertheless concluded that "the people reporting to him, the chief operators of al Qaeda, people like Khalid Sheik Mohammed, are no longer a threat to the United States or [to] Pakistan, for that matter."

Barely four years later, the administration has been compelled to revise the president's earlier, more optimistic assessment. Faced with a dramatic resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan and a steady reconstitution of the al Qaeda network in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan, a July 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) concluded plainly that al Qaeda "has protected or regenerated key elements of its homeland attack capability, including: a safe haven in ... [the FATA], operational lieutenants, and its top leadership."

That the rejuvenation of al Qaeda and the Taliban is due in large part to their ability to secure a sanctuary in Pakistan has incensed Americans across the political spectrum. Because Washington has provided Islamabad with almost $10 billion in overt security and economic assistance since 2002 and continues to compensate the Pakistani military for its counterterrorism efforts with roughly $1 billion in annual reimbursements, many U.S. leaders are beginning to wonder whether Pakistan is in fact doing its part in the "war on terror."

The growing dissatisfaction in the United States about Pakistani performance in counterterrorism operations is premised largely on the assumption of Islamabad's mendacity, that Musharraf's regime, despite being well compensated and its habitual claims to be performing at par, is willfully neglectful of its commitment to root out al Qaeda and Taliban cadres operating from its territory for a combination of strategic and ideological reasons. The reality, however, is more complex. Although Pakistani performance in the war on terrorism has undoubtedly fallen short of what is expected in the United States, Islamabad's inability to defeat the terrorist groups operating from its soil is rooted in many factors that go beyond its admittedly serious motivational deficiencies to combat terrorism.

(...) [artículo aquí]

No comments: