The Pakistani government has agreed to let the Taliban impose sharia law on the 5 million people living in the Swat Valley, in exchange for a permanent ceasefire.

The deal was made with Muslim cleric Maulana Sufi Mohammed, but the militants led by his more radical son-in-law have yet to agree to it.

The deal essentially cedes a great swath of Pakistani territory to the Taliban. It includes all of the Malakand region, covering roughly one third of Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province. Joe Klein wrote inTime:

This is terrible news. The Pakistani government has essentially given control of the Swat Valley to the Taliban. It means that the Taliban are now 100 miles from Islamabad and the military center of Rawalpindi. It also means that Pakistan’s North-West Province is well on its way to becoming what Afghanistan used to be—a sanctuary for al Qaeda and related terrorists.

This area is being surrendered to the same people who recently banned girls over grade four from attending school in Swat and threatened to blow up any schools that disobeyed them. Already they have attacked over 180 schools. They behead police and local government officials, and have already driven hundreds of thousands of people out of the region.

America’s war on terror is rapidly spiraling out of control. Pakistan is becoming increasingly unstable, meaning that for President Obama to send tens of thousands of additional troops to Afghanistan, he’ll have to make a deal with Russia or Iran to get them there instead of using the Pakistani route.

For more information, see our article “Why We Cannot Win the War Against Terrorism.”