Drone Strike Served CIA Revenge, Blocked Pakistan's Strategy

After a drone strike had reportedly killed Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud Nov. 1, the spokesperson for the U.S. National Security Council declared that, if true, it would be "a serious loss" for the terrorist organization.

The failure of both drone strikes and Pakistani military operations in the FATA tribal areas to stem the tide of terrorism had led to a decision by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to try a political dialogue with the Taliban.That reaction accurately reflected the Central Intelligence Agency's argument for the strike. But the back story of the episode is how President Barack Obama supported the parochial interests of the CIA in the drone war over the Pakistani government's effort to try a new political approach to that country's terrorism crisis.

But the drone strike that killed Mehsud stopped the peace talks before they could begin.

Pakistani Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan immediately denounced the drone strike that killed Mehsud as "a conspiracy to sabotage the peace talks." He charged that the United States had "scuttled" the initiative "on the eve, 18 hours before a formal delegation of respected ulema [Islamic clerics] was to fly to Miranshah and hand over this formal invitation."

An unidentified State Department official refused to address the Pakistani minister's criticism, declaring coolly that the issue was "an internal matter for Pakistan."

Three different Taliban commanders told Reuters on Nov. 3 they had been preparing for the talks but after the killing of Mehsud, they now felt betrayed and vowed a wave of revenge attacks.

The strategy of engaging the Taliban in peace talks, which was supported by the unanimous agreement of an "All Parties Conference" on Sept. 9, was not simply an expression of naivete about the Taliban as was suggested by a Nov. 3 New York Times article on the Pakistani reaction to the drone strike.

A major weakness of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) lies in the fact that it is a coalition of as many as 50 groups, some of whose commanders are less committed to the terrorist campaign against the Pakistani government than others. In the aftermath of the Mehsud killing, several Taliban militants told Reuters that some Taliban commanders were still in favor of talks with the government.

The most important success achieved by Pakistan in countering Taliban violence in the past several years has been to reach accommodations with several militant leaders who had been allied with the Taliban but agreed to oppose Taliban attacks on government officials and security forces.

Sharif and other Pakistani officials were well aware that the United States could unilaterally prevent such talks from taking place by killing Mehsud or other Taliban leaders with a drone strike.

The government lobbied the United States in September and October to end its drone war in Pakistan -- or at least to give the government a period of time to try its political strategy.

Obama had already suggested in a May 23 speech at National Defence University that the need for the strikes was fast diminishing and would soon end, because there were very few high value targets left to hit, and because the U.S. would be withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. In August, Secretary of State John Kerry had said the end might come "very, very soon."

After the meeting with Sharif on Oct. 23, Obama said they had agreed to cooperate in "ways that respect Pakistan's sovereignty, that respect the concerns of both countries," and referred favorably to Sharif's efforts to "reduce these incidents of terrorism."

Shortly after the meeting, Sharif's adviser on national security and foreign affairs, Sartaj Aziz, said in an interview with Al Jazeera that the Obama administration had promised to "consider" the prime minister's request to restrain drone attacks while the government carried out a political dialogue.

A "senior Pakistani official" told the Express Tribune that Obama had "assured Premier Nawaz that drone strikes would only be used as a last option" and that he was planning to end the drone war once "a few remaining targets" had been eliminated.

The official said the Pakistani government now believed the unilateral strikes would end in "a matter of months."