Tribal Option

Peter Brooks:

THE US Special Operations Command is considering a forward-leaning plan to aid and train Pakistani tribes for operations against both al Qaeda and the Taliban that have found safe haven along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

It's a great idea, but it's easier said than done.

The publicly leaked details of the plan indicate it's at least partly modeled on the operation in Anbar province and other parts of Iraq - where US forces (in close cooperation with Iraqi military and police) have persuaded local Sunni tribes to take up arms against al Qaeda.

Other changes in the US approach (such as the surge) were vital, too, but the "Anbar awakening" is a big reason al Qaeda in Iraq has collapsed.

Indeed, the US military reported over the weekend a 55 percent drop in attacks over the last nine months, falling to the lowest level since the summer of 2005. Iraqi civilian casualties are down 60 percent since June and are down 75 percent in Baghdad.

The Iraq tribal operation makes both strategic and tactical sense: The locals - not US forces - do most of the fighting; the tribes have better on-the-street intelligence, knowing the language and culture, which facilitates picking out the bad guys.

It certainly makes sense to learn from the success of the Iraq tribal operation, and even to apply those lessons to Pakistan. But the model will need a lot of customizing.

In Iraq, al Qaeda is largely a foreign operation - and its years of indiscriminate violence against the locals had a lot to do with the sheiks (who had sheltered and aided the terrorists) switching sides. By contrast, the Taliban (and, to a lesser extent, al Qaeda) are generally among kith and kin in Pakistan's tribal regions.

For that reason and more, the "guests" haven't caused the same bloodshed among their "hosts" as al Qaeda has in Iraq; generally, they've coexisted peacefully.

...

There is more. It hits on most of the potential problems with the plan. What is overlooked about the success we had in Anbar, is the fact that there had been "red on red" fighting in the province for two years before the locals decided to join us rather than engaged in a three way war. Obviously al Qaeda did not have that option. In the tribal areas of Pakistan there has been recent fighting with the Uzbeks, but not that much fighting with Taliban and other al Qaeda operatives. Turning them against people they have been aiding for years will take more than an idea.

Westhawk also looks at the tribal option.