The targeted assassination of Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour
last weekend wasn’t just another drone strike.
First of all, it was conducted
by the US military, not the CIA, which has orchestrated nearly all drone
strikes in Pakistan.
Second, it didn’t take place in Afghanistan or in the so-called lawless tribal
region of Pakistan known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, or FATA.
The guided missile turned a white
Toyota and its two passengers into a fireball on a well-traveled highway
in Balochistan, in southwest Pakistan.
Prior to this particular drone strike, Pakistan allowed the United States to
patrol the skies over the northwest region of FATA, a Taliban stronghold. But
President Obama decided to cross this “red line” to take out Mansour
(and a
taxi driver, Muhammad Azam, who had the misfortune to be with the wrong
passenger at the wrong time).
Pakistani leaders have registered their disapproval. According
to former ambassador to the United States Sherry Rehman, “The drone
strike is different from all others because it has not only resumed a genre
of kinetic action that is unilateral, but also illegal and expansionary in its
geographical theater of targeted operation.”
In other words, if the United States is sending drones after targets in Balochistan,
what will prevent it from taking out a suspected terrorist on the crowded streets
of Karachi or Islamabad?
The Obama administration is congratulating itself on removing a bad guy who
was targeting US military personnel in Afghanistan. But the strike itself may
not produce any greater willingness on the part of the Taliban to enter into
negotiations with the Afghan government. Mansour, according to the administration,
opposed such negotiations, and the Taliban has indeed refused
to join talks in Pakistan with the Quadrilateral Coordination Group –
Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, the United States – unless foreign troops
are first removed from Afghanistan.
This “kill for peace” strategy of the Obama administration may
backfire.
According
to senior Taliban leaders, Mansour’s death will help the fractious organization
unify around a new leader. Conversely, despite such rosy insider predictions,
the Taliban could splinter and enable even more extremist organizations like
al-Qaeda and the Islamic State to
fill the void. In a third scenario, the drone strike will have no impact
on the ground in Afghanistan at all, since the current
fighting season is already underway and the Taliban want to strengthen their
bargaining position before entering talks.
In other words, the United States cannot possibly know whether Mansour’s death
will advance or complicate US strategic goals in the region. The drone strike
is, basically, a crapshoot.
The strike also comes at a time when US drone policy is…