The recent spike in pirate attacks off the coast of Somalia has generated a great deal of international media attention, including news reports sprinkled with ubiquitous references to Long John Silver, Jack Sparrow, and Captain Hook.
The Obama administration inherits a foreign policy establishment that has undergone a radical transformation over the last eight years. Two linked developments, the Bush administration’s "freedom agenda" and the resurgence of counterinsurgency doctrine, will cast a long shadow over the Obama White House, State Department, and Pentagon.
The murderous assault on Bombay by Islamist militants, at least some of whom were from Pakistan, has exposed once again the grave danger that radical Islamist movements pose to Pakistan, its neighbors, and the world. The urgent challenge now is for Pakistan and its neighbors, together with the international community, to work together to confront the risk of Pakistan spiraling into chaos and collapse.
Prelude
If most Americans think Iran and Georgia are the two most volatile flashpoints in the world, one can hardly blame them. The possibility that the Bush administration might strike at Tehran’s nuclear facilities has been hinted about for the past two years, and the White House’s pronouncements on Russia seem like Cold War déjà vu.
America’s image of Pakistan is of a nation on the brink of total chaos. While there is certainly a great deal of instability in Pakistan, a more serious problem is the severe disconnect between the emerging crises in Pakistan and U.S. foreign policy toward the country. Unresolved, this disconnect could have tragic consequences for the security of people in both countries.
The United States is struggling with Pakistan. The problem is manifold, encompassing a resurgent al-Qaeda, a Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan with bases in Pakistan, and Islamist militancy in Pakistan’s tribal areas and North-West Frontier Province.
In Preparing for Peace in Pakistan and Is Pakistan Appeasing the Taliban?, Mehlaqa Samdani and Sharad Joshi offered different interpretations of the ongoing negotiations between the Pakistani government and extremist groups operating along the country’s frontiers. Here they respond to each other’s arguments. In addition, Tarique Niazi, author of several FPIF briefs on Pakistan, responds to both initial essays.
On the small, remote island of Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean halfway between Africa and Indonesia, the United States has one of the most secretive military bases in the world. From its position almost 10,000 miles closer to the Persian Gulf than the east coast of the United States, this huge U.S. air and naval base has been a major, if little known, launch pad for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the past year, the Bush administration has made improvements that point toward its use in a possible attack on Iran. The administration recently admitted what it had long denied and what journalists, human rights investigators, and others had long suspected: The island has also been part of the CIA’s secret “rendition” program for captured terrorist suspects.
Goosing fear with menacing—and vague—portraits of global terrorist threats has worked remarkably well to buttress the Bush administration’s militarized foreign policy, especially since 9/11. This policy, as enshrined in the current National Security Strategy and articulated by National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, is based on the “ability to act militarily anytime, anywhere to defend our global interests.” Though fear remains a powerful force in American politics, large majorities of Americans are no longer buying what the administration is selling. They are no longer equating the presence of violence-minded groups in Somalia and the Philippines with the idea of an America “surrounded in the world by violent extremists.” According to a Pew Research Center study, one-third of Americans believed in 2006 that military force can reduce the risk of terrorism, down from half in 2002.