US message to Pakistan

President Obama in his very first press conference send a strong message to Pakistan: "Washington seeks a closer relation with Islamabad but there could be no compromise on the issue of terrorism and that there is no doubt that in the FATA region...there are safe havens from where terrorists are operating." President Obama sees a weakening in Pakistan's fighting against the militants and had asked Holbrooke to tell Pakistan "to work in a regional fashion to root out the terrorists groups." And finally the ultimatum to Pakistan: "I do not have a time table of how long that is going to take but what I know is that I am not going to allow Bin Laden to operate with impunity planning attacks on the US homeland." What the ultimatum conveys is that he would go ahead with his belligerent policy come what may which is also reflected in his latest address. This is how Obama has chosen to ride rough shod over Pakistan's stated policy that Pakistan alone can and will deal with the terrorists on its territory and it will not allow any other country to intervene. Obama's insistence on working in a regional fashion necessarily implies that Pakistan's national authority for all political purposes will have to be superseded by the regional authority constituted of the US Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. The US even though not located in the region will come into it as a major stakeholder in Afghanistan. India will claim to be inducted into it because of its high state in fighting terrorism in the region. It seems that it is this regional authority that will take all decisions about matters bearing upon the peace in the region. What is intriguing is keeping the Kashmir dispute out of the purview of this regional authority. Obama's regional approach based on his new military strategy seems to be entirely hypotheticated upon the suspected existence of safe havens of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. However this hypothesis does not bear scrutiny. An article in the Foreign Affairs of Jan-Feb 2007 brings to light that the Taliban have established their mini-states in different places all over Afghanistan where they have established their own courts. There are other reports which say that 72-78 percent of the territory of Afghanistan is now under the control of Taliban. Karzai while talking to the UN delegation earlier said that the Taliban are having their strongholds even in areas where the UN/NATO troops are operating in great strength. Such being the extent of Taliban's control and authority over Afghanistan territory they do need to have a safe haven outside Afghanistan. They can very well run their training camps and maintain their hideouts in the vast swath of the land where their enjoy so much of popular support. It is for this reason that the Taliban are no longer operating only in the areas in Afghanistan close to Pakistan border; they have now increasingly extended their operations in far off places from the Pakistani border. Why can't the US/NATO with the help of the electronic system of surveillance at their disposal and with their drones flying freely all over the tribal areas and find the safe havens located in FATA. The frequent drone attacks have been mostly targeting the households of the civilians, killing innocent men, women and children. In case the US drone and missile attacks were actually hitting the safe havens and the militants, the fighting by them in Swat and other tribal areas would have by now petered out. But in fact the militant's operations with the passage of time are gathering momentum. According to the US Congress Account Committee hundreds of thousands of arms supplied to Afghan army are not accounted for and are suspected to have fallen into the hands of the Taliban. In August or September 2008 one of the checkposts in Afghanistan manned by the US forces was attacked by the Taliban in collaboration with the police chief of the district. This shows that the Taliban have their supporters in the Afghan army and the police as well. President Obama would therefore do well to rethink his regional approach and based on it his new military strategy. The writer is a freelance columnist