But the PM’s resolve remains in doubt
Even before the prime minister’s new peace initiative ran into the old miscommunication and missed deadlines frictions, few people with good understanding of the insurgency – military and civilian – gave it much chance of success. For one thing, it came just when the ruling party’s senior leadership had clearly opted for military action – Rana Sanaullah went so far as to threaten “smashing” militant outfits in an interview with The Guardian – and contradicted growing public opinion in favour of use of force. For another, the PM’s team represented a peculiar brand from the country’s wider population – a small group of the religious right, those comfortable with it, and, of course, confidants from the old Midnight Jackal days, when military intelligence played to bring its preferred client, Nawaz Sharif, to power.
There was also the realisation that the N-League, especially interior minister Chaudhry Nisar, had not been completely honest about the fate of talks since November. Counterinsurgency (COIN) officials claim, on condition of anonymity of course, that Mr Nisar’s story about the Nov 1 drone strike that killed (Munawwar Hussain’s martyr) Hakeemullah Mehsud was, as seemed, untrue. Rather than a mysterious three-member team ready to depart on the day of the drone strike, it appears the government had already ruled out talks with Hakemullah two days earlier. He hadn’t stopped playing double games with Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS), and the military didn’t even dignify his demand for release of senior Taliban prisoners with a response. If anything, the assassination provided convenient face-saving to a government facing embarrassment for staking its reputation on talking to the Taliban.
After Hakeemullah, military intelligence pinned hopes on chatter that its old mujajhid from the Soviet war, Khalid Sajna, might be chosen head of the TTP. With no religious or school education, he was a battle hardened commander, and the military had a good record of doing business with him. But when Mullah Fazlullah was appointed the new emir, his history with the Swat insurgency coupled with his known sanctuary with NDS in Kunar across the border, left intelligence circles with few doubts about the nature of the proxy war to follow. General Kayani ordered a re-evaluation of a possible NW strike shortly before his retirement. General Raheel’s input was central to the war strategy.
Information deficit
Then, as attacks on the Shia, Christians, and security personnel grew, and popular opinion rallied behind Gen Raheel’s immediate retaliatory airstrikes in NW, the prime minister himself signaled imminent, and very serious, action. Then came the sudden turn towards talks.
“It is an unmitigated disaster”, said Ahmed Rasheed, journalist, author, and an acknowledged authority on the AfPak region.
“Months of pressure and momentum have been lost. Talks with insurgents are supposed to follow decisive military action, when their backs are against the wall, not precede it”.
After the Hakeemullah breakdown, the Taliban had repeatedly mentioned rejection of Pakistan’s constitution, countrywide imposition of their reading of sharia, release of their prisoners with the government, and withdrawal of all military forces from fata as their core demands.
“That the government still chose to talk, even when preparations were made for military action, signalled weakness”, Mr Rasheed added.
Among other things, the about face fueled speculation that despite the bravado, an NW operation remains fantasy at best. Any decisive sweep of Mir Ali, where the TTP is holed up, will disturb the geographical overlap with the Haqqani network headquartered in Miranshah. And why would the military upset that balance now, when it risks pulling in another giant alongside the TTP, especially when the Punjabi Taliban also lie in wait in sleeper cells along main cities and the long border regions with Sindh?
“How can you have an operation when you back is uncovered?” said Dr Ayesha Siddiqa, author of the controversial bestseller Military Inc and known for her research work on militant groups that form the Taliban’s Punjab chapter.
“When there’s a thief in your house, you don’t tell him to wait while your get your pistol”.
For years the government, and the military, chose to keep the public in the dark about its compulsions and choices regarding alliances and strategy, creating what she calls the “information deficit”. Even with more than 50,000 dead and many more maimed, most people have no idea about the direction of the insurgency, and a belligerent electronic media stokes feelings of fear and doubt.
It is also unclear what any negotiations can possibly hope to achieve, with the government not going to accept Taliban demands and the militants, with funds and arms continuing to pour from foreign agencies, in no apparent mood to unconditionally disarm and respect state writ.
Highly orchestrated negligence?
There is little doubt, however, that any incursion into NW, howsoever favoured by a growing number of the middle class, will bring unprecedented blowback to Sindh and particularly Punjab, including urban centres. The Punjabi Taliban, the biggest fear factor, are former intelligence assets, the lashkars and jaishes, that understood the implied parting of ways with their masters following the ’07 Lal Masjid operation, something lost to popular corporate media to this day. And even COIN officials are surprised by their penetration of main cities.
“Surprisingly, they have even spread among student unions”, they said, requesting anonymity for themselves and the unions. “They have had a large number of militants stationed in university hostels, armed and ready”.
The political deadlock over talks produced an operational paralysis that allowed such deep militant roots in mainstream society, creating a situation satirically referred to in COIN parlance as ‘highly orchestrated negligence’.
These findings help explain the military’s no-comment on peace talks. It gives more time for pre-emptive measures, and helps wait out the winter. A few hundred thousand will flee Waziristan once the fighting starts, and the SW IDP nightmare has left instructive memories of futility of setting up refugee camps and over burdening of small cities like Bannu and DI Khan, especially when the snow is still far from melting.
It also brings an added advantage to the military. With the talks bound to fail and the government’s inability to take charge exposed, it will be able to play the leading role, and the operation will commence around or after spring time.
Yet there are a few who offer another explanation for the prime minister’s strategy, and they make some heroic claims. Sources close to the leadership are convinced Nawaz Sharif has green lighted the NW operation, but wants to play some decisive politics first
The pro-Taliban makeup of the negotiating team is no accident, and the unlikelihood if it even coming close to achieving its intended mission is not lost on the prime minister. It allegedly comes after carefully planned military moves, surgical strikes in the badlands in coordination with nato forces to discourage border crossing (even though nato has not had more than occasional aerial presence on the Afghan side in years). And with talks going nowhere, and the PTI and Jamat e Islami mindset finally silenced, Mr Sharif would emerge as the political consensus builder and the leader that finally took the fight to the existential enemy.
Either way NW is effectively fair game, even if the PM’s own position, and ability, remain in question.
