Washington’s Misguided Pakistan Policy by Alex Alexiev on National Review Online

Instead of such wishful thinking, what needs to be done without delay is to start the process of transforming the Pakistani military back into an instrument of the state from its current status as a state within the state. The military must be denied once and for all the role of political kingmaker it has long exercised, as well as the inordinate influence it has in the economy. Further, the ISI must be either closed down or put under strict civilian control. Islamabad must also seriously consider doing away with the special status of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, which has contributed to the prevailing lawlessness that the Taliban has exploited. A reconciliation with India is an essential precondition to the success of all of these measures and is very doable; a reconciliation with the Islamist thugs is not. This is the only kind of Washington agenda that would offer real hope of stabilization in Pakistan and the eventual defeat of the Taliban across the border. Unless some progress is made along these lines, Congress should refuse to provide even one more penny in aid, regardless of what Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari promises.

While this analysis does not shrink from noting the truth - that Islamist terrorism doesn’t “just happen,” but is supported in every way, and then used, by state actors, it does shrink from answering a simple question: How, exactly, would an American administration cause a military to relinquish its ruling power over a foreign state?

By definition, it is the military who wields military power - guns and bombs, for instance. A civilian entity cannot stand against a military willing to wield such forces in service to the cause of its own survival.

So, unless this analyst is willing to recommend that the US counter the Pakistani military with American military power, then, as is often the case with such analysis (invariably so with analyses promulgated by the Obama administration), it consists of sound and fury, but signifies nothing.

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