Precis som terroristerna i Irak till stor del får sitt stöd från Syrien och Iran, så får terroristerna i Afghanistan till stor del sitt stöd från Pakistan. Pakistan är inte en allierad i kriget mot terrorismen. Pakistan är inte en del av lösningen. Pakistan är snarare en del av problemet. I en väldigt intressant Vanity Fair-artikel, ”America’s Forgotten War” av Sebastian Junger, avslöjas mycket detaljerat Pakistans inblandning i Talibanernas fortsatta krig i Afghanistan:

Surviving Taliban and al-Qaeda forces fled across the border into Pakistan and sought refuge in the supposedly ”lawless” tribal areas along the Afghan border. Their presence in his country forced Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf to make a choice: he could either round up all the Taliban and al-Qaeda elements and provoke the ire of religious extremists at home or leave them alone and provoke the ire of the United States. In a brilliant move, he decided to do both.

Every few months, it seems, the ISI catches some al-Qaeda figure—Ramzi bin al Shibh, Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah—and hands him over to the United States. These operations don’t cost Musharraf much politically, because the foreign jihadists are not particularly beloved in Pakistan. In return, the ISI seems to receive some degree of indulgence from the United States when it comes to the Taliban. Since 9/11, not a single mid- or high-ranking commander of the Taliban has been turned over to the United States. The official explanation for this—one repeated by both Washington and Islamabad—is that the Pakistani military is simply not powerful enough to control the scattered Pashtun tribes of the border area where the Taliban are located. And if they did attempt it, President Musharraf would be quickly toppled by an uprising of Islamic radicals.

This vision of a Pakistan teetering on the brink of anarchy simply doesn’t square with reality, however. In recent parliamentary elections, no candidate, including Islamic radicals, got more than 11 percent of the vote—hardly a threat to a military dictator. And the Pakistani military is configured to repulse a land invasion from India that would involve airpower, armored divisions, and hundreds of thousands of men; the idea that they cannot control Pashtun tribal areas that start a few hours’ drive from Islamabad is laughable. And even if that were true, Taliban commanders are hardly hiding in caves up in the mountains; they live in villas in the suburbs of Quetta. They use cell phones, they drive cars, they go to mosques—they are easy to find, in other words. The Pakistani government is simply choosing not to.

Meanwhile, an average of nearly two American soldiers now die every week in Afghanistan—proportionally almost the same casualty rate as in Iraq, where there are seven times as many troops. They are being killed by Taliban fighters who are recruited, financed, and trained in Pakistan and whose commanders have ongoing relationships with elements of the Pakistani military. To put this in context, consider that in 1983 Hezbollah agents with links to the Iranian government drove a truck bomb into the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, and killed 241 servicemen. Now imagine that same scenario but with Iran as an American ally rather than as her sworn enemy. You have just imagined the current situation with Pakistan. (Min kursivering.)

Kriget i Afghanistan är tyvärr bortglömt. Det är ett krig än idag kräver en närvaro av ungefär 20 000 amerikanska soldater i landet och som har kostat de amerikanska skattebetalarna miljardtals kronor. Det är ett krig som varje vecka skördar amerikanska liv. Om det inte vore för USA:s pragmatiska förhållande till Pakistan, så skulle detta krig vara slut för länge sedan. Detta är ännu ett bevis för hur pragmatism är inte praktiskt. Pragmatism är tvärtom mycket dödligt.

Läs även Robert Tracinskis artikel ”Time’s Up For Pakistan”.