Analysts say the government must create a comprehensive strategy for pacifying Pakistan's tribal belt -- not just militarily, but with economic incentives and measures for installing a government in what is a largely lawless place.
"The military operation is not an end in itself. You seize territory, but you have to make sure you know what you want to achieve there," said analyst Talat Masood, also a retired general. "As of now, there seems to be a lot of ambiguity as to what they want to achieve.
"Naturally, you want a political engagement with those who are prepared to work with the government, and you need to reestablish the writ of the state. Like in Bajaur, where we are fighting now: Are you genuinely doing that, or is it just talk?" Masood said. "It has to be sustained over a period of not days, months, but years."
He and others acknowledge that opponents of striking hard against extremism have succeeded in portraying the fight as one of Washington's making, carried out by an all-too-pliant Pakistani government. That sentiment can be heard not just in tea shops and living rooms, but also in the barracks, among Pakistan's junior officers and troops.
"Their thinking is that this is an American war, at least some of them," Masood said. "For the military, it's a very difficult task to fight your own people. And for the military to fight counterinsurgency is the worst, because they're not trained for that."
The News, one of Pakistan's biggest English-language newspapers, said in an editorial Monday: "We must wake up to the fact that these people come from amongst us; they target venues within the country and they kill their own countrymen.
"It is time we accepted this war is our own. . . . There must be a consensus across society about the need to act with unity and determination to save what still remains of our wounded country," it said.
Just days into his presidency, Zardari is under pressure from all sides to try to make Pakistan more secure. Some voices still blame the government for working so closely with the United States and provoking a backlash from Islamic radicals; others accuse the government of dithering and not cracking down hard enough.
"The great fear is that Pakistan is past the point of no return when it comes to being able to cope with these threats from within," said Stephen Cohen, an expert on South Asia at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "When you look at other countries with these kinds of movements, it's a long battle, a 10- to 15-year battle."
Zardari is to meet with President Bush in New York today for a previously scheduled talk on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting.
They are expected to discuss recent incursions by U.S. troops into Pakistan from Afghanistan, which Zardari and other officials say violate Pakistan's sovereignty.
The bombing of the Marriott has cast a shadow over the meeting, and over all of Pakistan, which now must fully commit to stamping out extremism within its borders, said analyst Masood.
"It was a wake-up call for the [entire] country," he said. "It was an extraordinary explosion, in the sense that it was so severe, and I have a feeling that if they haven't even woken up after this, then God alone knows when they will."
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henry.chu@latimes.com
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Times staff writer Julian E. Barnes in Washington contributed to this report.
