Not So Fast, Pakistan.

The Pakistani military is now poised to dive into the largest of its several hornet's nests: South Waziristan. The army has made three recent forays into the violent, autonomous region — which has enjoyed near complete sovereignty since Pakistan's birth in 1947 — and has been brutally rebuffed each time.

The 2004 campaign ended with an embarrassing failure, the state forces making a peace deal with the decidedly accomplished 27-year-old Wazir leader, Nek Mohammed. Days after a Pakistani general hugged the Talib and signed the treaty, the group began launching assaults on the military once again. In 2007, over 200 state troops were captured by the seemingly ragtag militia.

Now, as troops surround the territory with checkpoints, and as the U.S. ramps up targeted strikes in the province — the last two weeks have witnessed four of such bombings — one has to wonder: Is this the right moment?

South Waziristan is the home to a number of high-value Taliban and Al Qaeda targets, and is the fiefdom of Baitullah Mehsud, the man Pakistan recognizes as its most formidable adversary in its own battle with extremism. That makes both nations understandably eager to wage a successful campaign. For those same reasons, it is certain to be a more arduous battle than the fight in the Swat Valley.

Previous disagreements between the U.S. and Pakistan on the territory and the proper approach to dealing with the militants seem to have been reconciled of late. There are reasons to believe that previous battles with the Talibs weren't waged with the full tenacity that the Pakistani army might have mustered.

The AP reported that in August 2008, top U.S. and Pakistani military commanders met aboard a U.S. aircraft carrier to reconcile their targeting and approaches; the Pakistanis had long been critical of U.S. demands for action alongside an unwillingness to make targeted drone strikes against the extremists Pakistan sees as a threat to its own national interests.

But as the American forces and Pakistanis square themselves onto the same page, it's important to weigh the threat of the bloody and protracted engagement.

Pakistan is already the nation suffering the largest internal population displacement in the world. This is the result of the military's thus far successful campaign to retake the Swat Valley from Taliban rule.

There are currently 2 million refugees as a result of that incursion.

Dr. Nasim Ashraf of the Middle East Institute recently conducted some rough polling while assessing the refugee situation; though the study is an unofficial survey of 500 families, it's the best publicly accessible measure to date of the pulse on the ground. Of the families, 400 of them are displaced and 100 of them are hosting refugees in their homes. Only 10 to 12 percent of those that fled Swat are living in refugee camps; the overwhelming majority is living off the hospitality of families in bordering districts. The numbers convey an immense anger against with the Taliban; feelings that Taliban Islamic Justice was a failure; the desire for a peace deal rather than continued war; a population that overwhelmingly still does not consider the U.S. an ally; and, most importantly, an overall satisfaction with the government's offensive and their current, temporary living conditions.

The Swat mission, at present, is a half success, but thinking it's a full success is a risky mistake. Taking up the South Waziristan offensive will likely end up a bloody, inconsequential distraction from Pakistan's most important objective at the moment: resettling the Swat and proving its viability to govern in far-flung provinces.

The government thinks that by Ramadan — in September — refugees will be able to return. Troops are also to remain in the valley, rather than leave as they did before — after clearing the valley and holding elections — during the presidency of Pervez Musharraf.

Militaries, and particularly the developing world's militaries, are far better at displacing people than resettling them. The patience and hospitality of neighbors is not infinite, and the magnitude of the looming conflict in Waziristan is considerable.

South Waziristan is home to one of the most war-hardened tribes of the world; of the rugged Pashtuns that defeated the Soviets in the 1980s, the Mehsud tribe was noted as the toughest. The current leader of the tribe, Baitullah Mehsud, who I've heard one Pakistan expert describe as a "30-something gym rat," will not go down easily. Pakistan must be careful it doesn't lose the Swat while chasing a ghost — it seems all too easy.

Brian Till, one of the nation's youngest syndicated columnists, is a research fellow for the New America Foundation, a think tank in Washington. He can be contacted at till@newamerica.net. To find out more about the author and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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