Robert Kagan offers an interesting potential solution to Pakistan's problem of Islamist extremist groups threatening the viability of the state: "Have the international community declare that parts of Pakistan have become ungovernable and a menace to international security. Establish an international force to work with the Pakistanis to root out terrorist camps in Kashmir as well as in the tribal areas."
The problem with this approach is the roots of extremism run deeper than just at the fringes of the tribal areas and in Kashmir. Taliban, al Qaeda, and other extremist activists and sympathizers are entrenched in the intelligence and security services. Terror groups aren't just based in Waziristan and Kashmir. Much of the Northwest Frontier Province and Baluchistan are under siege. Last year, the Musharraf government had to launch a military assault on the Red Mosque, in the heart of Islamabad just one mile from the parliament building, to clear out rampaging Islamists enforcing sharia on the streets. Rawalpindi, a supposedly secure military garrison and sister city to Islamabad, has been rocked by terror attacks. Lashkar-e-Taiba's headquarters in Muridke is located just outside of Lahore in eastern Punjab province. The port city of Karachi is infested with extremists groups. These problems are merely the tip of the iceberg.
So where do you start? If you pick the tribal areas, how do we know the army won't fracture and civil war breaks out throughout Pakistan? If international forces move into Kashmir, will the Pakistani security establishment, which has invested much into the Kashmiri cause, cooperate? If there is one cause most Pakistanis can unite on, it is the liberation of India-occupied Kashmir (and by extension hatred of the Indians).
After NATO's debacle in Afghanistan, what international force is going to be willing to take on Pakistan's Islamists, who make Afghanistan's extremists look like armed boy scouts in comparison? NATO countries are balking at the historically low casualty rates in Afghanistan and are looking to cut and run. And after trumpeting U.S. casualties in Iraq, will the American public and our political elites stand for similar if not higher casualty rates in Pakistan as were encountered in Iraq?
Finally, as Kagan notes, how exactly do you get the United Nation's to go along with any plan that appears to infringe on a country's national sovereignty? States such as North Korea, perhaps one of the most horrific regimes since Pol Pot's Cambodia, are coddled by Turtle Bay.
Pakistan remains the greatest national security challenge for President-elect Obama's administration. There are no easy, off-the-shelf solutions that do not require enormous sacrifice from those who walk into that snake pit.
