It’s not every day that you see the president of an independent,
sovereign country take to the pages of an American newspaper with
an op-ed arguing that his government is not collaborating with and
protecting terrorists.
But then again, I’m not sure there’s another country quite like
Pakistan, which has been double-dealing in Afghanistan and in the
war on terror for years, and which now has been caught knowingly
harboring and protecting the world’s most wanted terrorist, Osama
bin Laden.
Oh, Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, denies this in an
op-ed in today’s Washington Post. “Some in the U.S.
press,” he argues,
have suggested that Pakistan lacked vitality in its pursuit of
terrorism, or worse yet that we were disingenuous and actually
protected the terrorists we claimed to be pursuing. Such baseless
speculation may make exciting cable news, but it doesn’t reflect
fact.
Pakistan had as much reason to despise al-Qaeda as any nation.
The war on terrorism is as much Pakistan’s war as it is America’s.
And though it may have started with bin Laden, the forces of
modernity and moderation remain under serious threat.
President Zardari is absolutely right: Al-Qaeda and other
Islamic terrorist groups are a serious threat to the civic
health and stability of Pakistan. And the United States does need
to work closely with Islamabad to combat these threats.
But Zardari is being disingenuous when he skirts the issue of
Pakistani complicity in protecting bin Laden. The plain fact is
that bin Laden was not, as U.S. intelligence analyst had
thought — and as I had reported
here at the American Spectator Sunday night — hiding
in distant, underground caves.
Instead, he was living in a plush and well populated residential
area (Abbottabad) 31 miles northeast of Pakistan’s capital city of
Islamabad. And it simply defies credulity to believe that bin Laden
was living there without the knowledge and acquiescence of key
members of the Pakistani military and political class.
To be sure, bin Laden reportedly was without phone or Internet
access, and thus likely had no real command and control authority
or ability. Still, the fact remains that our Pakistani “allies”
were protecting bin Laden, even though they knew we wanted him —
dead or alive as former President Bush put it.
Does this mean we should cut off relations with Pakistan and
target them in the war on terror? Of course not. We need Pakistan’s
help and collaboration. And, as President Zardari rightly observes,
Pakistan has as much to fear from Islamic terrorists and Islamic
extremism as we do.
But we also have to be honest and forthright — with ourselves,
with our Pakistani partners, and with the world — about Pakistani
double-dealing and complicity with the enemies of the civilized
world. We need to make clear to President Zardari that turning a
blind eye to terrorists — and especially the world’s most heinous
and most wanted terrorist, Osama bin Laden — is simply
unacceptable and will not be tolerated.
Beyond rhetorical protestations, though, there are other more
tangible steps that we can take, including leveraging our billions
of dollars in foreign aid to Pakistan to demand more honesty and
transparency about terrorist networks within Waziristan.
Moreover, as Bing West
suggests, the United States can and should use this occasion
“to step up its attacks against other terrorists inside Pakistan,
especially along the Afghan border.”
By finding and killing bin Laden in a well protected (and
obviously well known) Pakistani compound, the United States has
seized the moral high ground, and our Pakistani friends —
including President Zardari — know it. We must press our advantage
to demand more tangible action by them against al-Qaeda
and the Taliban.
