by Octavian Manea
Download the Full Article: Future of Pakistan up in the Air: Interview with Bruce Riedel
In early 2009 you were pivotal in directing and elaborating the basic strategic framework that it is still at the core of the current operations. How would you assess the progress in destroying AQ sanctuaries in the AfPak region since then? Did ISAF break the Afghan Taliban's momentum?
The death of Usama bin Laden is a major success for the American strategy as is the pressure the al Qaeda core is under from the drone program. Both those operations required bases in Afghanistan. The surge forces have also broken the Taliban's momentum in southern Afghanistan and prevented a catastrophic collapse of Afghan authority there. The progress we made is still fragile and reversible which suggests that a significant and rapid drawdown of the NATO forces in Afghanistan would be very dangerous and foolish at this point.
In early 2009 the "Riedel Review" called for the need of the Pakistani government to shut down the AQ and Taliban safe havens on its territory. Since then we have seen an impressive COIN campaign to clear some of the territories controlled by the militant insurgency. How would you assess the ability of the formal Pakistani state in securing the support—or at least the acquiescence—of the local population inside FATA?
The Pakistani counterinsurgency effort has developed considerably in the last two years. But it was mainly focused on the military component. There was very little progress towards the build part from the clear-hold-build spectrum. And this reflects the endemic weakness of the Pakistan civilian government which is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. The main problem that Pakistani have goes back to the Abbottabad example: the problem is not really simply a matter of the FATA and the border lands. It is a much bigger problem. The militants and jihadists are spreading now into the urban areas of Pakistan including Karachi, Lahore, to the Punjabi heartland of the country. The battle for the future of Pakistan is very much up in the air and the outcome is very much a question mark. Aside from stabilizing Afghanistan, the single most important thing that Europe and US can do directly is increasing trade and that means reducing tariffs on Pakistani exports. Trade, not aid, is the key to being able to help Pakistan to develop.
Download the Full Article: Future of Pakistan up in the Air: Interview with Bruce Riedel
Bruce Riedel is senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. A former CIA officer, he was a senior advisor to three U.S. presidents on Middle East and South Asian issues. At the request of President Obama he chaired an interagency review of policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan for the White House that was completed in March 2009. Riedel's latest book is Deadly Embrace: Pakistan, America, and the Future of Global Jihad.
Octavian Manea is Editor of FP Romania, the Romanian edition of Foreign Policy.
About the Author(s)
Octavian Manea was a Fulbright Junior Scholar at Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs (Syracuse University) where he received an MA in International Relations and a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Security Studies.