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Updated Thursday, November 22, 2007 0:00 am TWN, By Peter Brookes, Special to The China Post

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The tribal option: Iraq’s lessons may help Pakistan

The U.S. Special Operations Command is considering a forward-leaning plan to aid and train Pakistani tribes for operations against both al-Qaida 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 U.S. forces (in close cooperation with Iraqi military and police) have persuaded local Sunni tribes to take up arms against al-Qaida.

Other changes in the U.S. approach (such as the surge) were vital, too, but the “Anbar awakening” is a big reason al-Qaida in Iraq has collapsed.

Indeed, the U.S. 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 U.S. 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-Qaida 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-Qaida) 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-Qaida has in Iraq; generally, they’ve coexisted peacefully.

So recruiting members of these tribes to really take the fight to al-Qaida and the Taliban isn’t going to be a cinch. We’re going to have to find a strong, enduring motivation (other than cold, hard cash) for the tribes to oppose our enemies.

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