The Salvador Option Migrates To Pakistan

U.S. Mulls Arming Pakistani Militias

Secret Military Plan Would Expand American Involvement In Tribal Areas

NEW YORK, Nov. 19, 2007
CBSnews

The New York Times follows up its scoop over the weekend with another exclusive Pakistan story this morning: The U.S. military wants to arm, train, and pay tribal paramilitary groups in the frontier areas of Pakistan to fight al Qaeda.

Should the new and classified plan go forward, it would likely expand the American military's presence in Pakistan and funnel more American tax dollars directly towards a "separate tribal paramilitary force that until now has proved largely ineffective," according to the Times. It would also involve paying militias that agreed to fight al Qaeda and foreign extremists.

If this all sounds a bit familiar, that's because it is. The proposal is modeled on a similar effort by American forces in Anbar Province in Iraq that was hailed as a great success in fighting insurgents there.

The shift in strategy reflects the U.S. military's sneaking suspicion that it put its money on the wrong horse. Ever since Sept. 11, the Bush administration has used billions of dollars of aid and heavy political pressure to encourage Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, to carry out more aggressive military operations against militants in the tribal areas. But the sporadic military campaigns were ineffective at best and often so badly botched they ticked off local residents who were used to Islamabad leaving them alone.

In other circumstances, the U.S. may have endured this bungling for a bit longer, but the last few weeks of upheaval in Pakistan has freaked out U.S. officials so much that they're apparently ready to start micromanaging.