Balochistan - Are We Americans Ready for the Proverbial Scylla and Charybdis in the Arabian Sea?

What is the most important lesson we learned from the Vietnam War?
That no foreign war can be won without the support of ethnic population of that region, however superior our firepower is, how much accurate our marksmanship is.

Even if we think that ethnic population is only a million or so or that they are poor and weak, we cannot ignore their part of the story. For the simple reason that big army operations may not be able to contain insurgent attacks which involves only handful of persons acting singly or in concert.

And that lesson has not changed ever since.

Yes, we need to eliminate Taliban, we need to exterminate Al Qaida. They are sworn enemies of our country.

But at the end of that necessary goal, if Balochs and Pashtuns turn against us, we have only created new headaches for us.

Do we really have a strategy in place to isolate and destroy Taliban and Al Qaida as our immediate goal, while still developing a long-term relationship with the majority Balochs and Pashtuns who have no connections with those terrorist outfits?

While we have the first goal in mind, there seems to be no concrete plans regarding the second.

Our position in the region is rather delicate, especially since the Chinese too are trying to get a foothold there by building the port of Gwader at the mouth of the Straits of Hormuz.

Yes, we need a heavy presence there in the future too. But we won't be able to do that peacefully unless we take the locals into confidence.

Ironically, despite our support, balkanization of Pakistan is inevitable. It won't be surprising if Afghanistan too suffers that fate.

More surprising is the fact that Balochs unlike Pashtuns were in the forefront of the formation of Pakistan, encouraging Punjabis and Sindhis to separate from British India.

This was done under the false belief that their right to remain as an autonomous state accepted by the British will continue unchanged inside the new nation of Pakistan.

But once the nation was formed, the resourceful Punjabis and Sindhis got the upper hand in Pakistan and forcibly annexed Balochistan.

Now, Balochs want not only their autonomy back but full independence. The rest of the nation is feeding on their natural resources while they are still living in inhospitable, underdeveloped conditions, no better or even worse than under the British.

And that independence movement is not going to disappear however much we want to. We have already declared some of the Baloch outfits as terrorists. But will it snuff out the burning desire for independence?

Lessons from history say otherwise.

Equating tribal dreams with extremist ideas may prove counterproductive in the long run though isolating extremists from the tribals may look like a near impossible job.

Balochistan will one day become independent. And we have to make sure that we won't be caught up on the wrong side of the fence when that happens. Listening only to Karzai and Zardari will not achieve that.

Balochs care two hoots for Pakistanis, Afghans or even Iranians. What they care for now is full independence. Their recent pronouncements that they are even willing to take help from Indians - yeah, their one-time enemies - in their struggle for independence prove that they are a fiercely determined lot.

So the need of the hour is to take the majority ethnic groups in the area into confidence, especially those who have no connection with Al Qaida or Taliban. That has more to do with people skills than firepower.

Our mishaps (or is it misbehavior) in the lands of our own allies (Okinawa in Japan, Subic Bay in Philippines and others) prove that people skills in drumming up support from local population is not our forte.

Unfortunately machines can't do it for us. We have to develop those skills if we need to.

Yes, we are in this for the long haul. Yes, we are in places we should not have been. But global polarizations in the post-World War era pushed us into those places.

But now that we are there, let us have the foresight to secure the positions we are in now to avoid unnecessary bloodshed of our citizens and unnecessary expense to taxpayers in the future. And that can happen only by respecting local sensitivities and sensibilities.

We should develop an independent relationship with the Balochs and Pashtuns even as we try to secure the tottering regimes of Afghanistan and Pakistan.