In February of this year, The Pakistani government decided that the best way to deal with the Taliban in the (ungoverned) Swat Valley was to engage in diplomacy with them. Instead of going after them or asking the US to help eliminate them, the Pakistan government signed a cease-fire agreement where they agree to allow Taliban-style laws in exchange for an end to terrorism. In essence, this can be described as “appeasement.” So guess what happened?

The Taliban decided that it would be a good idea to spread their influence to the neighboring Buner district which is 60 miles from the capital. Pakistani troops have been mobilized to secure the area but have been met with gunfire and resistance. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said “I think the Pakistani government is basically abdicating to the Taliban and the extremists” and that the Obama administration was trying to convince the Pakistani government that the more imminent threat came from Islamic extremists rather than India. These events continue to show us that a foreign policy that relies too heavily on reasoning with the unreasonable is destined to fail. Oddly enough, the Obama administration, while it condemns Pakistan for talking to the Taliban, is pursuing a strategy of talking to the “moderate” Taliban in Afghanistan. So I ask, when is it acceptable to negotiate with terrorists?

The answer is never. The Obama administration’s foreign policy should take a lesson from what is happening today in Pakistan and realize that excessively focusing on diplomacy is dangerous when you are dealing with dictatorial regimes or terrorists whose only motivation is to bog the United States down, either in guerrilla war or in negotiations. The effective answer to terrorism is twofold: military neutralization and ideological opposition. In order to castrate a terrorist organization, we must cut off its potential to grow by emphasizing how destructive their ideology is and we must strike at the organization itself. Pursuing a policy of diplomacy with an enemy whose divine mission is to spread their perverted version of Islam by the sword will cause the loss of more American lives and threatened peace around the world. Now we can only wait and see what Pakistan’s soft approach to terror will lead to… and with Pakistan having an arsenal of nuclear weapons, the stakes couldn’t be higher.

-AG