When Lord Curzon was Viceroy of India at the turn of the last century, he delivered the following verdict on the rebellious tribesmen of Waziristan: “No patchwork scheme will settle the Waziristan problem. Not until the military steamroller has passed over the country from end to end will there be peace. But I do not want to be the person to start that machine.”

Much the same could be said today as the Pakistani Army prepares to attack South Waziristan to kill or capture Baitullah Mehsud.

The planned offensive is the latest in a 160-year series of campaigns to subdue the local ethnic Pashtun tribes — the vast majority of them conducted during the colonial era.

Between 1849 and 1947 Britain sent expeditions almost annually against the myriad tribes and sub-tribes of what was then called the North West Frontier, but never managed to establish formal control over the area.

The fiercest resistance was usually in Waziristan — home to the most bellicose of the Pashtun tribes, the Wazirs and the Mehsuds.

British forces quelled one of the biggest revolts there, between 1919 and 1924, only by using the Royal Air Force to bomb and strafe villages with machinegun fire.

When Pakistan won its independence in 1947, it inherited Britain’s tenuous control over the tribal areas — and adopted the same imperfect system of government there.

The region is known today as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and consists of seven agencies: Khyber, Kurram, Mohmand, Bajaur, Orakzai and North and South Waziristan. FATA is administered directly by the central Government through a “political agent” in each agency, who wields much the same powers as his colonial-era equivalent.

The agents still rely on the 1901 Frontier Crimes Regulations, which allow collective punishment of a tribe for an individual’s crimes. Its advocates say it is the only practical way to govern a people who cling so fiercely to a traditional honour code that it is largely incompatible with a modern legal system.

Detractors say that the system has turned FATA into a lawless “no man’s land” that has given sanctuary to the Taleban and al-Qaeda and provided them with thousands of recruits because of a lack of economic development.

Western officials hope that the offensive will allow the Government to establish control and kick-start development in Waziristan. The question is, whether it is willing, or able, to deploy the “steamroller” that Lord Curzon advocated but never dared to use.

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