The whole idea of peace negotiations with the TTP from a position of weakness was flawed
Amongst chants of ‘Allah o Akbar’, the Taliban slaughtered 23 FC (Frontier Corps) hostages like sitting ducks. In a video the Mohmand agency TTP chief Khalid Khurasani roared, “If the security forces do not desist from killing our innocents the whole Pakistani army will meet the same fate and will roast in hell, Inshallah…”
The tragic incident reportedly took place last Sunday somewhere in Afghanistan. Its video proudly released and carried by a foreign news agency, military operation against Taliban hideouts in the badlands had become inevitable.
The state under the leadership of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had given too long a rope to the Taliban, not so much to hang themselves, but to save the former’s own skin.
The so-called peace talks initiated by the government late last month were a charade from the word go. The futility of dialogue was evident to all and sundry but perhaps to the interlocutors themselves. A new history was created with the Taliban talking to the Taliban on both sides.
If the idea was to stay the hand of Taliban by engaging them in talks the strategy miserably failed. In the past three weeks the TTP has continued with its unfettered campaign of rampant mayhem against innocent civilians and military personnel. The felling of the FC only proved to be the proverbial last straw.
Suddenly the mantra aped so assiduously by interior minister Nisar Ali Khan that the government wanted to continue with dialogue (with the Taliban) despite all odds has changed to, “the prime minister, and the military leadership, does not intend to carry on with dialogue amid terrorist attacks”.
Implicitly it was the COAS who drew a line on further negotiations with the TTP. As it is, the whole idea of peace negotiations with the TTP from a position of weakness was flawed. It smacked of naivety and political opportunism on behalf of the government.
The chimera of talks flouted all principals of prudent statecraft. In the process it was the Taliban who gained traction at the expense of morale of the nation.
By engaging them the government gave the Taliban much needed legitimacy of being equal adversaries. The terrorists were effectively blackmailing the state. A fact conveniently overlooked by the government at the altar of expediency.
No state worth its salt negotiates with terrorists, as if it was begging for mercy. Of course insurgencies are resolved through a combination of force and talks. But negotiations from a position of weakness are tantamount to capitulation and hence bound to fail.
In the case of the Pakistani Taliban, for too long their campaign of rampant mayhem continued unabated. It will be, however, unfair to blame just the present government for being lily-livered.
It is a collective failure of the past civilian and military leaders. Unfortunately it is only under Nawaz Sharif as prime minister that the chickens have finally come home to roost.
The rot started under the military dictator general Zia ul Haq more than three decades ago. It was under his leadership that in the garb of ‘jihad-e-Afghanistan’, jihad was introduced as an instrument of state policy. There has been no stopping since then.
Subsequent military strongmen and client politicians continued with the policy of transforming Kashmir from an issue of self-determination to that of a jihad, with disastrous consequences of course. A culmination of this strategy was the Kargil misadventure undertaken by Musharraf and his cohort generals.
By engaging them the government gave the Taliban much needed legitimacy of being equal adversaries. The terrorists were effectively blackmailing the state. A fact conveniently overlooked by the government at the altar of expediency.
We have tolerated soldiers of fortune of all hues and nationalities within our borders for far too long. It is no surprise that our tribal areas apart from homegrown terrorits are fertile training grounds for Uzbeks, Chechens, and even European and American jihadists.
Now that the non-state actors have turned their guns against their patron, our leadership has been slow to react. Despite grave provocation, the military under the leadership of Gen Kayani engaged in a lot of hubris in the name of its flawed paradigms. Employing doublespeak of almost Orwellian proportions, lip service was paid to the existential threat of terrorism but policies continued to remain India-centric.
Gen Raheel Sharif hopefully is a clear break from the past. Being a professional soldier and having no pretensions of a benign intellectual general he should move more decisively to deal with the clear and present danger to the state.
If the PML-N government wants to secure the eastern borders by easing tensions through diplomatic means, the army should welcome such moves in letter and spirit. In this context the policy of promoting the so-called non-state actors to justify an essentially flawed strategic doctrine should be abandoned. The country simply cannot afford another Kargil or a Mumbai incident.
Meanwhile the Jamaat e Islami under its Amir Munawar Hasan continues to play the role of the proverbial fifth column. His one-sided lament for the non-existent Taliban women and children allegedly in detention by the security agency is at the expense of the miseries being hurled on the people of Pakistan by the militants in the form of unabated terrorism.
Thankfully, the mainstream political spectrum does not espouse the warped mindset so often demonstrated by the JI and its fellow travelers. Nonetheless, instead of leaving it to his interior minister to continue to engage in his self-serving pontification the prime minister should make a concerted effort to take political parties in the opposition on board.
Without overt political support and ownership, antiterrorism policy of the government is bound to run aground. The ruling party itself starting from the prime minister has been hemming and hawing about how to deal with the TTP. Now that a decision has been finally made that the proverbial other cheek will not be offered to the Taliban in response to their unabated campaign of mayhem, while erstwhile naysayers like PTI chief Imran Khan should be taken into confidence.
The PTI controls KPK (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), strategically the most crucial province. Hence Imran’s cooperation in any ant-terrorism campaign is absolutely essential.
Unfortunately, the PTI chief, by emerging as an apologist for the Taliban, has played a negative role in the narrative. In the process his policies in cahoots with his coalition partner the Jamaat e Islami in KPK have provided tailwind to the militants.
He should be told that suspension of NATO supplies and the US drone attacks have not helped in bringing Taliban to adopt a relatively flexible attitude towards negotiations. In the wake of recent terrorist incidents, hopefully Khan must have lost some of his penchant for talks with the Taliban, come what may.
Apparently the door for negotiations with the Taliban has not been completely shut. However, a new team that exudes some confidence in the process at a more professional level should preferably conduct whatever negotiations are to take place in the future.
Your excellent article should be a "MUST" for the weak kneed establishment. The army should be given a straight mandate to cleanse the country's enemies who have been waging a asymmetrical war against it. If as the TTP maintains that they are fighting an ideological war they should also know such wars can also be fought through the ballot. As far as Imran is concerned he is in a bind . He lacks maturity like our PM . Remember he wanted to give the TTP ultimate legitimacy by letting them open a official office in Pakistan–. Imran supports army action as a last resort—–when will he say that the rubican has been crossed.?. Being elected to a position is easier than to govern. This is the dilemma facing Imran who bristles at the suggestion that he is a taliban apologist but still i agree with you that he should be forced to pass the litmus test. Either you are with us or with the Taliban?
Comments are closed.