A strategy for avoiding defeat

Fighting the Taliban: America needs to show more patienceand more delicacyon both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border

It is widely understood that the Wests war with the Taliban in Afghanistan cannot be won inside that countrys borders alone. So long as the semi-autonomous badlands of Pakistans tribal areas provide refuge for terrorists,Afghanistanand the Westwill never know security. A lasting settlement must also meet the interests of other countries in the region,including Iran,India and Russia. So it is encouraging that Barack Obamas administration is embracing a regional approach,with the appointment of Richard Holbrooke,a punchy senior diplomat,as envoy to AfPak. But other sources of encouragement have been scarce of late see article. This weeks decision to send a further 17,000 American troops to Afghanistan is in part a sign of how badly the war is going.

Victory,defined in terms that get more modest by the month,seems more distant than ever. Worse,the prosecution of the war seems to be risking an even more calamitous strategic defeat: the Talibanisation of Pakistan,an Islamic country of 170m people that happens to possess a nuclear arsenal.

That,thankfully,is still a distant prospect. The danger of Pakistan failing as a state is often overstated. The governments writ still runs in the parts where most of its people liveand the vast majority of those people have moderate views. When given the chance to vote,they unambiguously reject Islamist parties. And the election last year restored Pakistans fragile democracy. Though notorious for corruption,Pakistans civilian politicians have usually done better than the military men in resisting Islamist extremism. President Asif Zardari and Yusuf Raza Gilani,the prime minister,deserve patience. The alternative,military rule,is what got Pakistan into this mess.

The problem of the badlands

But even if the Talibanisation of all Pakistan is a long way off,the danger the Taliban represents should not be understated either. It is strong not just in the Pushtun borderlands of Baluchistan,the Federally Administered Tribal Areas FATA and the North-West Frontier Province NWFP,where Pakistan and Afghanistan blur along a disputed border. Early this month a Polish engineer was beheaded not far from the capital,Islamabad. This week the government bought a truce in an Islamist uprising in the Swat Valley,once a famous tourist spot in NWFP,by agreeing to adopt sharia law there. Pakistan remains half-hearted about fighting predominantly Pushtun militants. Even now,it seems,a part of its establishment sees the Afghan Taliban as a strategic assetinsurance against Indias ambitions and against NATOs inevitable withdrawal.

To make up for Pakistans lack of enthusiasm for this fight American forces in Afghanistan are continuing under the Obama administration to make increasing numbers of unmanned air raids in Pakistan. These raids appear to have been highly successful in killing Taliban and al-Qaeda suspects. But they are strategically misconceived. Whatever short-term battlefield advantage the raids bring pales in comparison with the long-term danger posed by the resentment they cause: a generation of poor young Muslims growing up in Pakistan feels bombarded by American bombs on one side and by fanatical Islamist propaganda on the other. To prevent the former from validating the latter,Mr Obama should stop the cross-border attacks right away.

Mr Obama may be tempted to take the regional scope of the conflict further. Doesnt victory in Afghanistan depend on resolving the disputed Afghan-Pakistani border; or even on solving Pakistans dispute with India over Kashmir,which continues to provide a local source of intense grievance to Muslims?

Not really. To embroil the war with the settlement of such intractable disputes is to give an excuse for prevarication. The real solutions are more mundane even if they are difficult.

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The war in Afghanistan will be won,if at all,by means of more troops on the ground to reduce the dependence on air power and the civilian casualties it brings; through huge investment in development; and through piecemeal arrangements with local tribes and powerbrokers,including the Taliban. Pakistan,too,needs financial aid,to back up an attempt to integrate the tribal areas. Its government and army need constant reminding that Mr Zardari is right when he says that Pakistans battle with the Taliban is not being fought on Americas behalf,but in the interests of Pakistan itself.

The Economist Newspaper Limited 2009