Pakistan's white flag bad news for Afghans

If Pakistan's relatively disciplined and well-trained army can't subdue a couple of thousand Islamist militants in Swat, can Afghanistan's embryonic army ever prevail over its own Taliban?

Girls' schools are bombed. Burqas are back. Dissenters are beheaded. Police are deserting. The army is besieged. A corrupt government is enfeebled.

And the nation's military, even with foreign help, can't seem to push back the Taliban.
This is Pakistan, not Afghanistan. While the world fret about the Taliban menace to our foreign troops in Kandahar, neighbouring Pakistan is slipping further back.

Not just in the tribal regions along the border, but in Swat, the alpine valley dubbed the Switzerland of Pakistan. A vacation haunt for the capital's elites, it is a mere 130 kilometres from Islamabad.

Now the resorts are empty, nearly 200 girls' schools destroyed, and police stations abandoned. A brutal insurrection fomented by Taliban-allied tribal leaders in late 2007 has driven out an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 locals and claimed some 1,200 lives.

Last week, Pakistan cried uncle. The government sent shock waves across foreign capitals by acquiescing to rebel demands to impose sharia, or Islamic law, across Swat. The implications are stark: If Pakistan's relatively disciplined and well-trained army can't subdue a couple of thousand Islamist militants in Swat, can Afghanistan's embryonic army ever prevail over its own Taliban?

And if it's so important for the West to help rebuild – or at least stabilize – Afghanistan so that girls can go to school and terrorists keep their distance, who will deal with the parallel struggle between schoolgirls and Islamist militants across the frontier in Pakistan?

That's the question of the hour for the Americans, who are recommitting to Afghanistan while refocusing on nuclear-armed Pakistan. Since last August, the CIA has used unmanned drones to mount more than 30 attacks against suspected Al Qaeda targets in Pakistan, sparking bitter public protests.