In his first presidential debate with Barack Obama on Sept. 26, 2008, John McCain said: "I've been to Waziristan. I can see how tough that terrain is. It's ruled by a handful of tribes."
While it is neither clear when nor why McCain went to Waziristan--a war-torn region either inaccessible or forbidden to most foreigners at most times--McCain's remark put the spotlight on one of Pakistan's least understood, most unsettled tribal regions, where the Taliban dominates and Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding.
So what is Waziristan?
Answer:
Waziristan is a mountainous, rocky, inhospitable and extremely poor region in Pakistan of about 4,500 square miles (about half the size of New Jersey) sandwiched between the eastern border of Afghanistan, Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province to the north and east, and Pakistan's Balochistan Province to the south.
Osama bin Laden and his Arab fighters, along with Taliban fighters, escaped to South Waziristan in 2001. According to journalist Ahmed Rashid, in Descent Into Chaos (2008), "It was from there that the bomb plots in London, Madrid, Bali, Islamabad, and later Germany and Denmark were planned."
Waziristan, Undefined Politically
The region has never been clearly a part of either Pakistan (or India before Pakistan became an independent country in 1947) or Afghanistan, and was, in fact, an independent tribal area loosely administered by British rule until the late 19th century.
Waziristan is actually two agencies, North and South Waziristan, that are part of the seven agencies making up Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas, or FATA.
Central Pakistani authority is limited to non-existent in those seven agencies. The 3 million people who live in the tribal areas, Waziristan included, live according to an oppressively conservative tribal code of honor and behavior that mixes brutality, intolerance and extreme hospitality and generosity. They're extremely poor. The literacy rate is 17%, and just 3% among girls and women (Pakistan nationally has a 56% literacy rate).
Waziristan as CIA Staging Ground in the 1980s
In the 1980s, when the CIA funneled $1 billion to the mujahideen fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, Waziristan was a mujahid staging ground for cross-border attacks. Among the Afghan and Arab mujahideen in Waziristan at the time: Osama bin Laden.
Al-Qaeda Reclaims Waziristan in 2001
The Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid reports that in June 2002, U.S. military officers in Bagram, Afghanistan, told him that up to 3,500 foreign militants had taken refuge in South Waziristan, where Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence, or ISI, was turning a blind eye to them. The United States was pressing Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to send troops against the militants. Musharraf was resisting, preferring to save his military for Pakistan's perennial stand-off with India.
Al Qaeda regrouped in Angur Adda in South Waziristan, sending fighters on missions against American forces across the border in Afghanistan just as they had against Soviet forces in the 1980s. Tribal elders who opposed al-Qaeda or Taliban operations in the region were executed. That created severe rifts between Wazir tribes and al-Qaeda and the Taliban, who were perceived as outsiders. But the Pakistani government never took advantage of the rifts. It either attempted, through the ISI, to play the Taliban presence in the area to its advantage. Or it staged heavy-handed, showy, fruitless attacks designed to give the United States the impression that Pakistan was trying to control the region.
When Pakistan's Frontier Corps was unleashed in a poorly planned operation against the Taliban in 2003, the attack quickly and disastrously collapsed, eroding what little credibility the Pakistani government may have had in the area.
Pakistan's Lost Opportunity in Waziristan
Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, Pakistan had a chance to bringh Waziristan into the Pakistani fold and prevent it from falling under the control of the Taliban. Rashid writes:Many tribesmen demanded that the government give them the choice of either joining the [Northwest Frontier Province] or creating a separate province out of the FATA agencies. If the military had held a referendum at the time, an overwhelming majority of tribesmen would have opted to become full citizens of Pakistan by choosing one or the other options. If such a political step had been taken and followed up with development funds and road building, it would almost certainly have changed the complexion of FATA and prevented it from becoming terrorism central. Instead, the army continued its old games, manipulating the tribesmen, using them to harass the Kabul regime, refusing to dig out al Qaeda, and allowing Talibanization to take root in the tribes. Failing to adopt a serious counterterrorism strategy, the army swung between using military means one day and signing peace agreements the next, confusing the population, Pakistani public, and the international community.Meanwhile, the United States focused on military rather than economic or socially constructive alternatives in the region.
Pakistan's 2004 Offensive and al Qaeda's Move North
In 2004, the Pakistani government, ahead of the US presidential elections, launched a major offensive in South Waziristan. The offensive did not achieve its objective. Many al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives merely moved to North Waziristan.
New militant leaders took up the fight against the Pakistani military in the south, which the Pakistani military sealed off to foreigners or journalists. The Taliban's hold on the region was neither diminished nor softened. To the contrary. South Waziristan is now controlled by Baitullah Mehsud.
In September 2008, The New York Times' Dexter Filkins reported that Serajuddin Haqqani, an Afghan, "is currently one of the Taliban’s most senior commanders battling the Americans in eastern Afghanistan. His father, Jalaluddin, is a longtime associate of bin Laden’s. The Haqqanis are believed to be overseeing operations from a hiding place in the Pakistani tribal agency of North Waziristan."
John McCain's Meaningless Waziristan Reference
When John McCain said that he had "been to Waziristan" in his debate with Barack Obama, the comment was designed to show some understanding of the region's complexity and challenges to American policy. He was right about Waziristan's tribal status. He was wrong to imply that the tribes are in control. He was mum on explaining how Pakistan, whom he characterized as an ally, could be counted on to exert any more control in Waziristan than it has in eight years of the Bush administration.