Left: Activists of Islami Jamiat Talaba torch U.S. and Israeli flags in Karachi. Right: Barack Obama.
Conspicuously absent from Barack Obama's grand tour of the Middle East and Europe was a stop in Islamabad. No doubt Pakistan is a touchy subject for Obama. During the Democratic primary he promised to "take out" al-Qaeda in Pakistan's lawless Northwest Frontier Province, which unleashed Hillary Clinton's acid contempt and disapproval from a lot of other people who understand that Pakistan is a mess that can't be fixed anytime soon.
The Pakistani Prime Minister was in Washington Monday promising not to allow Pakistan to become al-Qaeda's new rear base. As everyone knows, it's too late for that — bin Laden and almost every other important terrorist we're after are comfortably holed up there. For the last seven years Bush has begged, cajoled, threatened, and bribed the Pakistanis to do something about al-Qaeda. But nothing has worked.
And unlike Iraq, it has had nothing to do with incompetence. This weekend the Los Angeles Times reported that the CIA has billeted officers in Pakistani military bases in the Northwest Frontier Province looking over the Pakistanis' shoulders to make sure no leads were missed. It was the right thing to do. But, other than a couple of Predator attacks on second- and third-level Qaeda targets, al-Qaeda is still thriving.
Let's also be fair to Pakistan. If its army moved into the Northwest Frontier Province in force, the odds are good the army as well as the country would crack. All across Pakistan there is grudging sympathy for Pakistan's Taliban, al-Qaeda's host, rebels willing to stand up to the United States. It was not a coincidence that the 9/11 plotters had taken refuge in Pakistan's largest cities, Rawalpindi and Karachi.
No one in Washington has any illusions anything is going to change during Bush's final months in office. So, if Obama makes it to the White House, will things be any different?
I spent two months in Pakistan earlier this year and took an informal poll among the few hard-line militants who would talk to me. I spent one evening with the survivors of Islamabad's Red Mosque, an armed group that fought it out with the Pakistani army last year
"Obama?" the wife of the leader of the Red Mosque said with pronounced derision. "If he is elected president he will invade Mecca and turn it into a Christian city. Muslims will fight this man to the last drop of blood."
Obama said nothing of the sort, but his promise to "take out" Pakistan's militants somehow got twisted, as often happens with messianic sects. But the point is, right now, an Obama victory was going to do nothing to endear the United States to at least this lady, and probably the Taliban.
I put the same question about Obama to Pakistan's legendary Colonel Imam. The colonel is on French leave from Pakistan's notorious Inter-Services Intelligence agency. But he knows the Taliban — he organized it in the mid-nineties. And that's not to mention that he all but invented the Afghan resistance in the early eighties.
He only shrugged his shoulders at Obama's name. "How do you think the al-Qaeda and the Taliban look at the world today? With or without Obama, the fact is the United States turned Iran into a regional superpower when it invaded Afghanistan and Iraq."
Colonel Imam knew very well there was no complicity with Iran in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But it does not change the fact that, when it comes to enemies, al-Qaeda and the Taliban put Iran on a par with the United States. Just as they believe Obama will invade Mecca, they are convinced there is a dark conspiracy against them.
So I guess, after all, I can't say I blame Obama for kicking the Pakistani can down the road.