US kills Taliban leader, undermines Pakistani stability in the process

The United States successfully terminated another terrorist by drone strike last week, as it has done every week for the past decade, so this statement should not surprise you. However, this wasn’t just any terrorist, this just happened to be the head honcho of the Pakistani Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud.

Upon hearing this news, your first reaction should be one of reassurance: “Good riddance, one less bad guy in the world for me to worry about,” you might say.

This is a completely justifiable response because he was indeed a menace. Mehsud was notorious for terrorizing the tribal regions in northwestern Pakistan. He was blamed for giving permission for his followers to use suicide bombings and roadside explosives to kill American troops and many innocent Pakistani civilians. He used the fundamentalist statutes of Shariah law as justification for murdering anyone who did not conform to the Taliban’s harsh ideology.

But despite this man’s blatant crimes against humanity, his execution was not warranted in the least. At first glance, it might seem that the United States did the Pakistani people a favor by taking out a man who generated so much fear and pain among them, but in reality, the consequences of the U.S. intervention could prove detrimental to Pakistan.

One thing that separated Mehsud from previous leaders of the Pakistani Taliban is he was open to talks with the Pakistani government — talks calling for a cease-fire in the tribal areas where the Taliban operated. Granted, it’s hard to associate the Taliban with peace talks, but Mehsud offered a unique opportunity to the Pakistani government and to its people, who were desperate for a nonviolent solution to the terrorism that riddled their country for decades. And given the fact that 55,000 Pakistanis have died, it seems this conflict showed no signs of slowing down. Peace talks appeared to at least be worth a shot.

But clearly these talks are no longer possible because Mehsud is dead and his replacement, the new leader of the Pakistani Taliban, is one of the most vocal opponents of any plan to pursue talks with the government. So, much to the dismay of many Pakistanis, the tribal regions of northwest Pakistan will continue as a war zone.

This is primarily because of the U.S. insistence on playing the parent in the region. After all, one can imagine that upon hearing the news that Pakistan was willing to talk with the Taliban, the United States was none too pleased, considering its stance on negotiating with terrorists. For instance, according to the Supreme Court decision in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, exchanging words with terrorist organizations is on the same level as exchanging weapons with them, as they are both listed under “material support,” according to law. So the United States was not about to sit idly by and let these talks happen, no matter if the Pakistani people wanted them to or not.

The popular Pakistani politician Imran Khan has called this “a deliberate targeting of the peace process,” in an article for BBC News. 

He will organize protests against the U.S. strike, which killed Mehsud a day before talks were scheduled.

“The U.S. clearly knew what was going on, and everyone in Pakistan knew what was going on,” Khan said, referring to the talks. “We’d been waiting two months for this peace process to start, and then finally when everyone had come to a consensus for peace, [the U.S.] destroyed the peace process.”

Stability in the tribal regions is a vital concern to many Pakistanis, and even if the United States thought these talks would prove futile, there would have been no harm in trying. In fact, the consequences of the strike might prove to be much greater than the consequences of mere talks — that is, if the talks had produced any consequences at all.

Unfortunately, these consequences will most likely fall solely on the Pakistani people. Security across Pakistan is strengthening in preparation of revenge attacks executed by the Taliban, which they see as inevitable now. And peace talks are no longer a possibility as the Taliban claims to have been deceived by the Pakistani government.

I am hoping that I’m wrong and that the killing of Mehsud will help to bring about stability, but this just seems highly doubtful. Targeting individuals in a group as large as the Taliban will bring about little advantage and will most likely bring about an excuse for them to commit attacks based on vengeance. Yet, this is of no immediate concern to the United States, anyway, because it won’t necessarily experience the results of its actions — innocent Pakistanis will. 

Write Nick at njv10@pitt.edu.