June 1, 2009--Lessons From Hezbollah

On April 23rd, at a congressional hearing, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, with her voice almost quivering with concern, warned that the Pakistani government’s failure to quell Taliban insurgents imminent threat to take over all of the Swat Valley in the strategically important northwest region of their country, less than 60 miles from Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, posed “a mortal treat to the United States.”

This astonishing warning from the no-drama Obama administration sent chills down my spine. If Swat were to fall, and then Islamabad, would we then be facing a Taliban takeover of a country that possesses dozens of nuclear warheads and the means to deploy them? I am not prone to these kinds of dire fears, but this one seemed ominously real.

Clinton went on to say:

I think that we cannot underscore the seriousness of the existential threat posed to the state of Pakistan by continuing advances, now within hours of Islamabad, that are being made by a loosely confederated group of terrorists and others who are seeking the overthrow of the Pakistani state, a nuclear-armed state.

I don't hear that kind of outrage and concern coming from enough people that would reverberate back within the highest echelons of the civilian and military leadership of Pakistan.

Somehow, during the past three weeks, the Pakistani government and military appear to have gotten their act together and are on the verge of defeating the insurgents in Swat and reclaiming virtually all of the territory.

And they appear to have accomplished this by employing more than overwhelming conventional force. According to the New York Times (article linked below), in addition to sending in heavily armored troops, they as well sent in a team of 21 doctors who quickly reopened the hospital in Mingora, the region’s principal city, to serve civilian seriously ill and wounded who had been stuck in their homes since the Taliban had displaced all the patients and used the hospital as a safe haven to secure themselves.

Government aid workers also quickly turned the gas back on and were fixing electric generators to restore the city’s water supply. Both had been sabotaged by the militants. They expect to have the electricity back on line in less than two weeks, also disabled by the Taliban, and 25 tons of food rations have already been delivered to 40,000 people who had been stranded in the Valley.

Partly as a result of seeing the government as their benefactor, locals in the area have been helping to flush out insurgents who have been hiding in hotels and other buildings and, until recently, in many cases, have been sheltered in the homes of civilians. Two senior militant commanders have been killed, as have more than 1,000 Taliban fighters since the operation began on just May 8th.

Clearly the Pakistani military and government have been learning lessons from our failures in Iraq to restore order and civic services after we overthrew Saddam Hussein’s regime; and from the way Hezbollah, the Shi'a Islamist political and paramilitary organization based in Lebanon, operates and gains the support of local populations.

In 2000, using seemingly overwhelming force, Israel, in an attempt to defeat Hezbollah, invaded southern Lebanon, and was effectively defeated. The proud Israeli army had to withdraw as much because Hezbollah was perceived to be providing essential local services such as schools and health clinics as because they had developed improvised explosive devices that were effective against Israeli armored vehicles.

So-called “small wars,” where big powers with the latest in high-tech military equipment confront insurgents using homemade devices are not winnable unless local populations are engaged and see established governments to be acting in the best interests of their people. Thus the success of Hezbollah and thus hopefully the sustained success of the Pakistani government.

There is as well much here for us to learn.