To Bomb or Not To Bomb

On August 1, 2007—before he had won the Democratic nomination, let alone the presidency—the normally cautious Barak Obama made a bold statement. In an address to the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., Obama said that if the United States had "actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets" hiding out on the Pakistani side of the Afghan-Pakistani border and the Pakistani government refused to "act," then the United States would. Do you think he was right? Examine all the issues in this World Conflicts Today activity.

Obama's statement was controversial because it suggested a willingness to violate the sovereignty of an ally in pursuit of U.S. foreign policy goals. Indeed, both Democratic and Republican challengers criticized Obama for his words, with Republican hopeful Mitt Romney even calling him "Dr. Strangelove." But underneath partisan politics, there lay a serious question with huge implications for U.S. foreign policy: if, say, Osama bin Laden were found on the Pakistani side of the border and the Pakistani government refused to give U.S. troops permission to enter their country, should the U.S. president, even though Pakistan is an ally, order the troops in anyway?

To appreciate what's happening along the Afghan-Pakistani border, it's important to understand the artificial manner in which that border was created. Here's what happened. In 1893, the British foreign secretary for India, Sir Mortimer Durand, drew a line on a map, thereby separating Afghanistan from what was then India and is now Pakistan. The trouble was that in creating the so-called Durand line, Sir Mortimer had divided up people who felt like they belonged together. These people, the Pashtuns, felt little allegiance to the government of, and little kinship with the people in, the countries to which they had so arbitrarily been assigned. (See the Origins section of the Afghanistan text for more details on the partition.)

It was a bit like being told that you could no longer support your favorite basketball team and instead had to root for one of a couple of teams in neighboring states. How reasonable would that be? If you were a fan of Yao Ming and the Houston Rockets, for example, could you simply transfer your allegiance to the New Orleans Hornets or the Oklahoma City Thunder (two franchises that didn't even exist a few years ago) just because NBA Commissioner David Stern told you to?

It is perhaps not surprising then that, as U.S. troops have attempted to capture or kill Taliban fighters, Pakistanis have welcomed these fighters into their homes and communities. In many cases, it's less a case of Pakistanis offering refuge to Afghans than offering refuge to Pashtuns, the ethnic group that dominated the ranks of the Taliban. Similarly, the Pakistani students who quit their studies to help the Taliban probably felt like they were fighting alongside brothers, not simply foreigners whose interpretation of Islamic law mimicked their own.

Read through the Obstacles section of the World Conflicts Today text on Afghanistan.

Then, with particular reference to the passage titled "Pakistani Leadership Conundrum," explain in 150 or fewer words why Pakistani military action against Taliban militants living along the Pakistani-Afghan border could backfire.

Next, read the passage titled "Counter-insurgency" in the Recent Events section and, in 150 or fewer words, explain how bombing Taliban militants in the border area could also backfire. Finally, in 500 or fewer words, describe what you would do to win the war against the Taliban.

Read more in our January edition of History Happenings...

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