Saying they won’t back down
Negotiating with Taliban is a good step, for the sake of peace, but surrendering to their will is not. The Taliban know that by holding back military operation and offering to hold talks, the government has shown weakness. They were not ready to lay down arms and bring peace in the first place, but now it appears they have become aggressive more than ever.
In the latest episode, the Taliban have brazenly retorted back at the government which announced its new security policy the other day. They say that they don’t agree to talks and would intensify their terror activities across the country. They dared the government to launch a military operation in the tribal areas, saying that they have seen such military operations before. This attitude of a ragtag militant organization, or 50 organizations, won’t be there in the first place if the government had taken a firm stand against them from the beginning. Since it has been taking a knee jerk approach to this menace of humanity, it has given enough leverage to the Taliban to make embolden them to challenge the writ of the government. The government says that there is a consensus among the Cabinet Committee on National Security (CCNS) that “economic development and prosperity of the people of Pakistan is dependent upon ensuring security and stability of the country”. No doubt about that but the question is how to achieve that. The current strategy lacks the punch if it falls through. A threat of launching an operation is apparently not achieving its desired objective. The only way it would be possible is if the government actually launches an operation. Talking to each organization on its own, instead of talking to the TTP, their umbrella organization, is going to take some time and even then might not yield the desired result.
The government has already wasted more than enough time in formulating a policy on terrorism and seeing it through. The people are quite tired of hollow promises the government makes every other day. They want action, they the government to take steps in removing ambiguity in its intentions and come up with a concrete, fool proof plan that can bring peace.