I really doubt that Mehsud has "dismantled the centuries-old tribal structures." Just because locals aren't mobilizing against him does not mean that they no longer have local authority structures in place.

In AF, Abdur Rahman tallied a body count of local leaders in the 10s of thousands. But local patterns of loyalty and authority just pushed 2nd tier guys into those positions. A hundred years later, continuous war and outside funding has allowed for some new authority patterns to emerge. But this took at least a decade of devastating conflict and massive in-flows of money and arms to the leaders of the jihadi parties (only two of whom tried to operate outside local authority patterns). And some of the changes seen are in fact not changes from the Soviet-Afghan and civil war eras, but effects of the "intrusion" of a modern market economy.

Btw welcome, Gulliver, Lil and colleagues! Both to CTlab and the blogosphere.