Reassessing 'Af-Pak' strategy
THE WHITE HOUSE, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and regional military commanders are reviewing US policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan, or "Af-Pak" in Washington-speak. Initial news reports suggest similar shifts of strategy: adding US troops, deemphasizing democracy-promotion and economic development efforts while refocusing on training Afghani and Pakistani security forces, and further targeting Al Qaeda and Taliban strongholds to eliminate terrorist safe havens.
Increasingly, the key to this targeting effort has been unmanned aerial drones - the Predator, or its more lethal counterpart, the Reaper - which have bombed suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban operatives in the tribal areas of northwest Pakistan. From 2004 to last August, the United States conducted about a dozen known Predator strikes in Pakistan, or two to three a year. Since then, there have been about 40 strikes, including two after President Barack Obama took office.
As part of the Obama administration's strategic Af-Pak review, it needs to answer two questions: Has the Predator surge worked? What should be the future role of bombing Al Qaeda and Taliban operatives in Pakistan?
This enlargement of the Afghanistan war has occurred largely outside any public debate or scrutiny. In fact, despite physical evidence of Hellfire missiles - the Predator's weapon of choice - it was only one month ago that a US official, Major General Jeffrey Schloesser, commander of US and NATO troops in Eastern Afghanistan, publicly admitted their use. He said, "The Predator strikes in Waziristan have caused a disruption across the border."
From a purely military perspective, the Predator surge has largely succeeded in tracking and killing high-value terrorist suspects. In the last year or so, Pentagon and CIA operatives have cultivated a better network of informants on the ground, received greater cooperation from the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence, and, most important, used a nearly seamless combination of new operational techniques and surveillance equipment on the Predator.
As to the success of the drones, American and Pakistani officials have come to a rare point of agreement. General Michael Hayden, CIA director, recently noted that "a significant fraction of the Al Qaeda leadership in that part of the world has been . . . taken off the battlefield in a compressed time period." Anonymous ISI officials claim that 11 of 20 high-value targets have been eliminated in the previous half-year. As to their efficacy and accuracy, even a Taliban subcommander in Pakistan recently admitted to a Newsweek reporter that "we are stunned."
This exponential growth of the Predator strikes against senior and mid-level lieutenants, however, has not helped to prevent the spread of jihadist sympathies in the tribal regions and beyond, nor has it slowed the stream of militants and material into Afghanistan. In fact, according to Pakistani intelligence reports, refugees from Afghanistan have flocked to the Taliban by the hundreds to avenge the drones' killings of innocent civilians.
The central reason for the Taliban's growth is that the United States has never had a comprehensive Af-Pak strategy. In late April, the Government Accountability Office published its most alarmingly titled report ever: "The United States Lacks Comprehensive Plan to Destroy the Terrorist Threat and Close the Safe Haven in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas." Just last week, Admiral Michael Mullen, the Joint Chiefs chairman, warned that "we need a comprehensive strategy, not just the military side."
Future Predator strikes in Pakistan, therefore, need to be utilized as only one of the tools required to implement the Obama administration's more-narrowly focused Af-Pak strategy. A Hellfire missile can kill sought-after Al Qaeda and Taliban operatives from a safe distance, disrupt plots, and make a safe haven less safe. However, they have failed to deter or dissuade young Afghani or Pakistani men from replenishing the Taliban's rank and file. Before introducing more US troops into Afghanistan, as part of a new Af-Pak strategy, Americans should debate whether, or to what extent, the Predator surge should continue.
Micah Zenko is a researcher and analyst of national security issues and holds a Ph.D. in political science from Brandeis University. 