Back to Baradar: A strategic shift, perhaps, but which way?

Pakistani officials say they've arrested another senior Taliban leader in Karachi. Agha Jan Motasim, an aide to Mullah Omar, has been missing for two weeks; military sources said today that he was detained.

The Pakistani government won't give the U.S. access to most of its detainees, so nobody's sure exactly how many members of the Quetta Shura they've arrested -- maybe half, maybe more, maybe less -- but it is clearly a significant number. So I tend to think we've settled the question of whether these arrests are a deliberate effort or just dumb luck.

But the question of "why" still remains. Is this a short-term tactical shift aimed at gaining some kind of perceived advantage? Or is it a longer-term strategic shift -- and, if so, in which direction is the Pakistani security apparatus shifting? Has the ISI decided its interests in Afghanistan dovetail with NATO's? Or is it trying to reshape the Taliban to position itself as the kingmaker in a post-NATO Afghanistan?

The Obama administration has been careful not to term this a strategic shift by the Pakistanis. Richard Holbrooke, the administration's Afghanistan/Pakistan envoy, said he wasn't sure why Pakistan made so many arrests during a press conference with reporters earlier this week. And he made a similar point in a Financial Times interview:

"Everyone has asked the same question. How do you know? Have we turned a corner? I'm not prepared to make those judgments, and you'll have to ask the Pakistanis that," he said. "I'm an agnostic at this point . . . as to whether this was a policy change [by Islamabad] or a serendipitous collection of discreet events."

Other U.S. officials have been more optimistic, but the White House still (deservedly) seems a bit skeptical -- more than we can say for many journalists covering the arrests.

Baradar's out, radicals are in

It's also unclear what these arrests -- particularly the detention of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Quetta Shura's number-two man -- will mean for the Taliban's leadership. Some analysts think Baradar was basically expelled from the Taliban after an internal feud, and that the Taliban's new leadership handed him over to Pakistani intelligence. Gen. Stanley McChrystal this week called that theory plausible, though he refused to endorse it.

Whether or not such a feud existed, Baradar's capture -- his removal from the Taliban's senior leadership -- seems likely to produce a power vacuum, which could be filled by more radical members of the movement. Here's Thomas Ruttig:

Pakistan's latest arrests of Taleban leaders who reportedly were involved in or, at least, believed to be supporters of a political solution, might open the way for a real 'neo-Taleban' leadership of the movement, a hawkish one that is against any political accommodation, as long as it does not serve Pakistan's interests - tools in the hands of the ISI.

Ruttig's argument finds support from an unlikely source: Abu Walid al-Masri, the longtime Taliban figure. Leah Farrell flagged a new article by Abu Walid which analyzes the impact of Baradar's arrest on Taliban operations. He suspects it won't affect the group's military operations -- but does see political consequences. I've translated a couple of snippets from the article, which you can read in its entirety here (عربي) if you're interested.

[...] In light of the current circumstances, the arrests will have a profound effect on the political level. At the military level, though, there will be no significant impact. The commanders in the field are still effective, and apply a consistent strategy, whether at the local level or nationally. They have taken consistent military action since 2003. The absence of Mullah Baradar, or any other person, will not affect the course of operations. This has been true in the case of other senior figures like Mullah Dadullah, or the famous commander Akhtar Mohammad Osmani, who was killed in 2006 in Helmand province. All of this did not negatively effect the course of battle. Actually, the opposite is true: Military action was constantly improved.

[...] It could be argued that these bitter events that befell the [QST] will clear the way for the emergence of younger leaders, those even more daring in their application of revolutionary ideas in the military and political spheres. Many of the old political agreements will be subject to further debate and change.

Ruttig and Abu Walid aren't the first analysts to raise this concern (Colin Cookman wins the early bird prize: he brought it up on Twitter about an hour after Baradar's arrest went public). Once you pull Baradar out of circulation, he ceases to be a useful conduit for reconciliation talks; and if he really was a moderating force within the Quetta Shura, his replacements are likely to be far less accommodating.