by Eric Martin
As has been widely reported, U.S. forces – working in tandem with Pakistani intelligence official – recently captured one of the Taliban’s top military commanders: Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. While this is potentially very good news for the Obama administration’s efforts in Afghanistan, the extent of its significance will not be known for some time. It could signal, at last, that Pakistan is serious about providing meaningful cooperation in the effort to combat the Afghan Taliban movement (which Pakistan has heretofore been sheltering and supporting).
However, it is important not to jump to conclusions and presume that this one gesture by Pakistan represents full buy-in. Along these lines, Spencer Ackerman lets optimism get the better of circumspection:
2. The Pakistanis will go after the Quetta Shura Taliban. Remember all those hand-wringing newspaper stories about the Pakistanis refusing to go after their old proxies in the Afghan Taliban?…If the so-called ‘Quetta Shura’ Taliban led by Omar thought the Pakistani military and intelligence service still had its back, that’s over, in a very dramatic way.[…]
3. The U.S-Pakistan relationship is working…The Baradar capture vindicates the Obama administration’s decision to hug Pakistan tightly, with a big new aid package and less public pressure, in the hopes of yielding complementary Pakistani security moves against the Taliban and al-Qaeda (more even than the bloody Swat and South Waziristan campaigns last year) down the road. If analysts were looking for a big, clear sign of Pakistani strategic intent — keep the Taliban on hand as an Afghan Plan B or throw in more heavily with the Americans? — here’s something big and clear.
While those scenarios are certainly possibilities (and would be good news for U.S. efforts in Afghanistan), it is also possible that Pakistan offered the Baradar chip as a one-off concession for various ulterior purposes – some better than others (more below).
We shall know in the coming weeks and months. If Pakistan is truly serious about rolling up the Quetta Shura (the council of Taliban leaders that have been taking refuge in Quetta, Pakistan while plotting attacks and strategy in Afghanistan, particularly the south), then we should see a steady stream of arrests and/or assassinations of high level Taliban figures in Pakistan. After all, Pakistani intelligence likely has a very good idea of how and where to locate the Quetta Shura members (and other groups/individuals in Pakistan). In the alternative, if those Afghan leaders get chased back to Afghanistan, then they should presumably be easier for U.S. forces to target.
An absence of such a laundry list of kills/captures will be its own response to Spencer’s optimistic take.
In the meantime, let’s look at some other possibilities: