US deaths in Pakistan raise awkward questions

The Taliban suicide bomber who hit the American military convoy in Pakistan's North West Frontier region on Wednesday, killing three American soldiers, a Pakistani soldier and three local schoolgirls, has raised questions about US military activity in Pakistan.
 
First, what is the extent and depth of the commitment of American forces inside Pakistan? Second - and this has been emphasised by Tony Blair's staggering histrionics at the Chilcot Iraq Inquiry - how much of this is governed by international law as it currently stands?
 
The outstanding Pakistan commentator Ahmed Rashid has written in the Daily Telegraph that the exposure of the American military mission in northern Pakistan is little short of a disaster for President Asif Zadari. It will alienate further the more fervent nationalist elements in the Pakistan military, and more particularly the inter-service intelligence services, the ISI.

This is a somewhat specious argument. It has been implicit in the counter-insurgency strategy of General Stanley McChrystal, issued last August 30, that there would have to be a strategy to address the 'depth battle' against the Taliban in northern Pakistan based on Quetta, the Federal Administered Areas (FATA) and Peshawar. After all, these areas provide trained military recruits, and military and political direction, for the Taliban insurgency against the Kabul regime and its international backers.

The McChrystal plan is now going ‘operational' in current military-speak. In plain terms it means that a big push is now beginning to clear Taliban from west of the Kabul river and south from Lashkar Gah in the fertile lands round Marjah. To the north of Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital, the British, American and Afghan troops aim to clear Taliban from the main route to Highway One, the road circling Afghanistan.

According to a British military spokesman the aim is "to clear and hold these areas for 90 days before Afghan governance can take over". Given the parlous state of some of the Afghan forces, in particular the police whose recruits are returning alarmingly high rates of illiteracy and use of heavy narcotics, this is a very high-risk ploy.
 
But as British commanders recognise privately and tacitly, the currency of the not-so-great game in southern Afghanistan is political more than military. The balance will be tipped by the level of tribal and community leaders' buy-in to what is on offer from the international community by, with, or despite the Kabul regime.
 
As for the Taliban, whatever passes for grand strategy in their lexicon comes from beyond Afghanistan. This makes them and their nihilistic mantra of hate and destruction an international problem, ie one that crosses national boundaries.

In this respect at least the concept enunciated by President Obama of an ‘Afghan-Pakistan' geopolitical entity has coherence. What was implicit in the strategy drawn up for the US and its allies by Generals Petraeus and McChrystal for the region is now made explicit in the revelation of the US military presence in Pakistan by the death of the three soldiers.

The question now left hanging is whether the US and its ISAF allied governments, like the UK, have worked out where this might take them in terms of the intended, and of course unintended, consequences. ·