Ideas still have consequences

My colleague Robert Kagan writes that the U.S. should create an international response to the attacks in Mumbai, which sounds harmless enough, until you get to the actual proposal:

Rather than simply begging the Indians to show restraint, a better option could be to internationalize the response. Have the international community declare that parts of Pakistan have become ungovernable and a menace to international security. Establish an international force to work with the Pakistanis to root out terrorist camps in Kashmir as well as in the tribal areas.

Just who is supposed to do that? NATO is already flying apart in Afghanistan. Are our allies really looking for another hornet’s nest to put their troops in? Seriously?

This would have the advantage of preventing a direct military confrontation between India and Pakistan. It might also save face for the Pakistani government, since the international community would be helping the central government reestablish its authority in areas where it has lost it.

And what leader wouldn’t want to save face by having not just one but several foreign armies on his soil? How might the ISI actually react to such a proposal? If Kagan himself were the ISI, would he roll over and play dead, or show us just how nasty he could be?

Would such an action violate Pakistan’s sovereignty? Yes, but nations should not be able to claim sovereign rights when they cannot control territory from which terrorist attacks are launched. If there is such a thing as a “responsibility to protect,” which justifies international intervention to prevent humanitarian catastrophe either caused or allowed by a nation’s government, there must also be a responsibility to protect one’s neighbors from attacks from one’s own territory, even when the attacks are carried out by “non-state actors.”

In Pakistan’s case, the continuing complicity of the military and intelligence services with terrorist groups pretty much shreds any claim to sovereign protection.

Is this the new model for intervention? Whenever we identify a problematic and undergoverned region, we try to govern it, regardless of the practical consequences of doing so? Because that worked so well in Iraq?

Kagan writes of “al-Qaeda, the Taliban and other dangerous groups operate in Waziristan and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of western Pakistan.” North and South Waziristan are two of the seven agencies in the FATA, and when you need realistic solutions for real problems instead of rhetorical exercises, geography matters. The question here is how to coordinate the actors who support our objectives (or could be induced to) in a manner that might actually accomplish them.

To that end, sovereignty and the rule of law aren’t quaint fictions. They’re important tools for rallying other countries to our cause. What if Iran were to say that the U.S. military’s complicity with MEK shredded any claim to sovereign protection for the United States?

Thugs and tyrants believe the strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must. By contrast, American leadership was built on strength skillfully employed, and respect for universal principles and the rule of law, such that other powers had more reasons to support than fight us.

Who seriously doubts that if we attempt to build international support for an occupation of Pakistan, we are going to fall flat on our faces?