Pakistan and Afghanistan: Beyond the Taliban

Abstract

The horrific bombing of the Islamabad Marriott in September 2008, continued attacks on United States and NATO military garrisons in Afghanistan, and assassination attempts on Afghan president Hamid Karzai all point to a Taliban resurgence in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Political insta bility in both countries continues to cause concern about security threats to NATO societies. The Taliban create Islam Anxiety in the West not only be cause they hosted al Qaeda but also because they dislike foreigners, oppress women, and practice extreme puritanism. Westerners confuse the social con flict between urban and rural society in these two countries with mere terrorism and tend to assume that the deployment of military might by a praetorian state against rural and tribal peoples is synonymous with a war on terror. In fact, good policymaking would recognize the legitimate social and economic discon tents of the rural population and seek to redress them with well considered aid programs instead of with bombs. When Westerners insist on seeing Pakistan and Afghanistan solely through the lens of terrorism, however, they deeply dis tort the two complex societies, since most people in both countries are not rigid Muslim fundamentalists. Seeing them as Taliban also creates a caricature that gets in the way of practical understanding. Pakistani Taliban have become active in the relatively small Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan. Though the politics of the FATA tribes is consequential, the fear, often expressed by U.S. pundits, that the Taliban from this region might take over the government in Islamabad, or that Pakistani opinion is shifting in their favor, is wholly unrealistic. The Afghan Taliban are active throughout a much larger expanse of their county than their Pakistani counterparts, but are very active in only a few southern provinces. Frustrated that these two South Asian states seem unable to control their militants, the Bush administration pressed both Afghanistan and Pakistan to