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Spencer Ackerman discusses the Bush administration's newest plans for the war on terror:
Here's what's up for discussion. While General Musharraf suppresses any possible moderate, civilian threat to his continued rule, the tribal areas in the west of his country, bordering Afghanistan, remain mostly outside his control. Autonomy for what the U.S. calls the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, or FATA, has been part of the Pakistani social compact since there's been a Pakistan. Invading -- or supporting a Pakistani Army conquest -- isn't an option, unless new waves of instability are to befall a nuclear-armed country. Yet within the FATA is, as a National Intelligence Estimate recently concluded, a "safehaven" for an increasingly powerful cohort of the original al-Qaeda's senior leadership, or "AQSL" in intelligence community parlance. So, the Pentagon figures, the best course of action is to buy off tribal figures in the FATA to shift their allegiances from AQSL and its Taliban partners; organize its young men into an anti-AQSL militia supported by the Pakistani Interior Ministry; and witness the extirpation of al-Qaeda in its most important redoubt. It'll require raising U.S. military profile in one of the least stable portions of the globe, but, hey, it worked in Anbar Province, right?Read the rest (and comment) here.--The Editors
