Updated: Pakistan Truce: Strategy, Or Failure?

First link fixed - the Blotter must have changed something.

Updated with more from Hot Air below that lends support to the strategic approach.

It would be easy to dismiss the newly announced Pakistani Taliban truce as a bitter failure and perhaps it is. But there are other elements to consider, ones which we'll not be able to confirm for some time due to the politically troubled nature of Pakistan.

Osama bin Laden, America's most wanted man, will not face capture in Pakistan if he agrees to lead a "peaceful life," Pakistani officials tell ABC News.

The surprising announcement comes as Pakistani army officials announced they were pulling their troops out of the North Waziristan region as part of a "peace deal" with the Taliban.

The American military long ago realized it likely couldn't win a fight against the Taliban in the tribal regions of Pakistan. The geography and the politics make it next to impossible, at best. And, frankly, there may have never been good reason to believe the Pakistani military could do a better job.

This comes at the same time that the Bush administration announced a new terror strategy which focuses even less on Osama bin Laden, who, for all we know, may not even be around given that no recent al qaeda videos have included bin Laden.

Meanwhile, NATO forces in Afghanistan have been working at an operation akin to herding cats.

Meanwhile, a major offensive by Nato-led forces in the Panjwayi district in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar is pushing Taleban fighters into a corner, Nato officials say.

Tuesday saw more artillery barrages and air strikes, although the fighting is less intensive than over the weekend when Nato says 200 militants were killed - a figure disputed by the Taleban, who say many of the casualties were civilians.

The most significant military victories over the Taliban and al qaeda have come when they are able to be attacked from the air in areas where they are consolidated. While I'd hate to be too smart by half here, or make a leap to see a glass half full when it's actually half empty, ultimately containing these elements into a given area may be, not only the best way to monitor their activities, it would be required to set the stage for an eventual large scale bombing campaign some way off.

Musharraf may be many things, but he is not stupid. He has to know that an established, protected and growing Taliban presence within Pakistan is not conducive to his continued rule.

Ultimately, the presence of the Pakistan army in that region did little to assist any special ops, or even strategic air strikes which might be run out of Afghanistan. Unfortunately, all we can do is hope there is some form of strategy going on behind the scenes that Musharraf wouldn't want to acknowledge due to its causing him political grief at home. Either that, or an important ally in the war on terror has just blinked, only a day after Bush clearly stated that Nations which give safe harbor to terrorists groups will be held to account.

The political statements which flow from this from both Pakistan and the US should let us know more of what's what.

via Hot Air:

The Americans are pointing directly at the two Waziristans as the primary conduit for the suicide bombers who are currently playing havoc with the US-NATO-led war machine in Afghanistan, and a safe haven for enemy combatants. The US now has come up with a plan to confront the strategic arm of the Taliban based on the Pakistani side of the border…

Sources say the Americans are set on a plan of hot pursuit of enemy combatants across the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, and they want a clear demarcation of the Pakistani tribal areas that have long been volatile and which they say should be part of the Afghanistan front in the “war on terror”.

Comments

[Phoenix]

See the glass half-full. Musharraf has to ride both sides of a double-edged sword. I think your instincts are correct on this.

[The Ugly American]

As I was reading your piece, I had a thought. Could this move be a new strategy agreed on by Musharraf and the US. If the Pakistani army is gone from Waziristan wouldn't that free up American special forces to do what they wanted without any "witnesses".

If the Talabanis complain American's are killing them the Americans will deny being there.

That way Musharaf isn't caught between his home grown radicals and heling us?

Just a thought.

[rwilymz]

Everybody, even our officials, are calling pan-islamist terrorism "smart". "These are smart people..." Well ... everything is relative.

Compared to *what* are they smart? A rock? Certainly; they are smarter than a rock. A potted plant? That too.

As military tacticians go, they suck; as strategists they make a great paperweight.

Manipulating a one-size-fits-all bureaucracy into ham-fisted responses to their few successful operations isn't that big a deal; even the semi-moron Tim McVeigh did that, as did Dave Koresh and the Ruby Ridge weenie.

"Oh, they're *smart* because they foiled a systemically inept system and forced it to undertake massive, and irrelevant, ineptitude in response..." No, that's not 'smart'; that's serendipity.

They've been cornered. They may feel like Br'er Rabbit in the briar patch, but give Br'er Bear a blowtorch and Br'er Fox a 30-30, the briar patch isn't any safer than sitting in Kabul stuck to the old tar baby.

The presence of the P'stani military acted as a damper on al Qaida movement; with them gone [or, rather, "gone"], al Qaida will likely feel freer to move around. While rocket science may be useful shortly, you don't need to be a rocket scienTIST to figure out the implications.