Author: Gerald F. Seib
Publication: The Wall Street Journal
Date: November 14, 2008
URL: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122662045244426437.html
A senior American official was asked a few
days ago whether there were places where the global economic mess could aggravate
security problems. He answered without hesitation: "Pakistan."
That is the concern to keep in mind as President-elect
Obama's transition to power unfolds in coming weeks. The new president's advisers
worry that if there's an unpleasant foreign-policy surprise that will divert
their attention from enormous economic challenges, it could well come in Pakistan.
It's a well-founded fear. Pakistan was a tense
and worrisome place for America before the world-wide financial mess arrived.
The country is, after all, a nuclear-armed Islamic giant run by an unproven
new government, beset by internal political rifts, conducting a fitful struggle
with Taliban and al Qaeda insurgents along its border with Afghanistan, and
threatened by Islamic radicals angry over American military strikes along
that same Afghan border. That's plenty to keep a new president awake at night.
Now those problems are overlaid by new economic
woes rippling in from the global financial markets. Inflation is running at
25%. Pakistan's central bank just raised its key interest rate to 15%, at
a time when other central banks are lowering theirs. Pakistan is at risk of
defaulting on its national debt and badly in need of a bailout from the International
Monetary Fund.
All those woes mean that, troublesome as the
war in Iraq and the nuclear threat from Iran may be, chances for an immediate
crisis for Mr. Obama are indeed highest in Pakistan.
Pakistan, in fact, serves as a cautionary
reminder of how the world has a nasty way of intruding on the best-laid Washington
agendas. It's instructive to recall that, eight years ago, George W. Bush
also was talking and acting like a newly elected president who expected to
focus on domestic policy, not foreign matters.
In his first remarks after his victory in
that year's disputed election, in fact, Mr. Bush tallied the issues at the
top of his agenda this way: "During the fall campaign, we differed about
details of these proposals, but there was remarkable consensus about the important
issues before us -- excellent schools, retirement and health security, tax
relief, a strong military, a more civil society."
Note the absence of the words Osama bin Laden,
terrorism, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Today, the need to focus on economic and domestic
problems is far greater, yet the dangers of a foreign crisis intruding are
no less. And for Mr. Obama, Pakistan is an especially tricky problem, because
it was at the center of so much of the limited campaign debate on national-security
policy.
Specifically, Mr. Obama made it clear that
he worried Pakistan wasn't doing enough to hunt down Taliban and al Qaeda
groups on its side of the border with Afghanistan -- and he declared that,
as president, he would reserve the right to launch unilateral military strikes
against their strongholds if Pakistan wouldn't or couldn't.
As it happens, of course, the U.S. military
already is doing exactly that, just without much fanfare. Just last Friday,
an apparent American missile hit a Taliban target just inside Pakistan. And
in a rare public acknowledgment of the campaign, Gen. David Petraeus, head
of the U.S. Central Command, said a few days ago that strikes along Pakistan's
border have killed "extremist leaders."
But the American strikes create political
problems at home for the Pakistani government of President Asif Ali Zardari,
providing ammunition to Islamic militants trying to escalate already high
anti-American sentiment. Just this week, Mr. Zardari pleaded for a stop to
the strikes, arguing they complicate the Pakistani military's own efforts
to hit al Qaeda and Taliban targets along the border.
"We feel that the strikes are an intrusion
on our sovereignty, which are not appreciated by the people at large, and
the first aspect of this war is to win the hearts and mind of the people,"
Mr. Zardari told the Associated Press.
The mix of forces Mr. Zardari confronts inside
Pakistan is combustible: The U.S. isn't popular. There's little support for
Pakistani military moves against Taliban and al Qaeda targets. U.S. strikes
inside Pakistani territory arouse far more public anger. Yet U.S. military
leaders trying to stabilize Afghanistan next door can't simply let Islamic
militants cross into Pakistan and find safe haven, from which to plan attacks
in Afghanistan or more terrorism in the West.
Now all those problems are exacerbated by
an economic crisis hitting the Pakistani street, and hard.
At its root, the issue facing the new American
president -- and it is an extraordinarily difficult one -- is deciding how
vigorously the Pakistani military really is pursuing extremists along the
border on its own, and how much to trust that it will continue to do so.
All that makes Pakistan the leading international
problem facing Mr. Obama as he enters office. He already has reached out to
President Zardari once, placing a phone call to him just three days after
the election.
Mr. Obama has no great options, but there
might be both real and symbolic value in one quick stop: offering some new
economic assistance to Pakistan. The idea was discussed in the presidential
campaign; it has even more merit now.
- Write to Gerald F. Seib at jerry.seib@wsj.com
