And another now-or-never moment
Nobody would have believed, at the time NAP was floated immediately after the Peshawar tragedy, that it would fizzle out so soon. It would not be wrong to say, in fact, that the civilian government hardly lifted a finger on the matter in the year-and-a-half since the APS attack and the 21st amendment. The military reminded them – after one corps commanders meeting – but that caused quite a stir in the House. The politicians did not like it one bit, to say the least. Unfortunately, though, that brief moment of tension did not cause much soul-searching within the civilian government.
Zarb-e-Azb has been a successful operation in many ways. Pakistan is already a very different place from the country where the TTP was actually controlling election campaigning – by bombing rallies of parties it did not like. Not only if FATA secure and the enemy on the run, but the number of terrorist attacks has come down considerably. That is not to say that every problem has been solved, of course. The last two weeks provided ample proof, if any was needed, of the long and complicated nature of this existential war.
Yet it is also not possible to allow such attacks to go unnoticed. In wars, perception sometimes matters more than reality. And every time the enemy strikes it is able to derail some of the momentum built at the cost of so many lives. The matter will, therefore, once again come to NAP. And, no matter how much politicians dislike being reminded about their duties, the civilian government will have to take ownership of both NAP and NACTA. It is simply unacceptable and unforgivable that such vital gains are being lost because the government is just not serious enough to fight the fight.
