Choice long overdue

This bough luminous, watered by squalors suffused

If it fruitions, will bear nothing but blossoms ignescent

But if barren, till springtime subsequent

The spirit of the land shall be with its venom infused

–Sahir Ludhianvi

This chillingly haunting quatrain, the concluding one from Sahir’s not too well known a poem (Mufahimat – Accord), may have been written either before or after partition. What pact, what event did Sahir have such indignation for that he paints it in terms so horrific, one does not know, but it quite neatly depicts Pakistan’s predicament after initiating the CIA-led jihad against ‘godless Soviet communists’.

The invaders were forced to withdraw, bowed and bloody some 24 seasons ago. The Americans had their revenge for their Vietnam humiliation and more of the same some years later when the Soviet Union disintegrated, leaving the world uni-polar. But for us there was no peace, for Afghanistan following a hasty US withdrawal and our machinations sank to warlordism and factional infighting. The toxins infused by an evil spirit continued almost unabatedly to take its toll for well over a generation now, and with such vengeance in the last decade’s so-called war on terror.

With the hunting down of Osama bin Laden in a daring, clinically conducted raid using cutting-edge technology by a unit of the US Navy SEALs, the wheel has come full circle. That despite the vehement denials of over time by our high-ups of all sorts, the $25 million man was found in this country literally a grenade’s throw away from our Sandhurst, in a compound that is said to be custom-built and from where one of Osama’s more well known apostles was arrested some time back has raised questions that have curiously gone unanswered – from our side. Our insistence on “we didn’t know how we missed netting him” finds no takers, and whatever spin we try to put on it seems to be a case of the excuse being worse than the crime.

For its part, the CIA’s view on us is quite clear: either we were complicit or so thoroughly and so grossly incompetent. Meaning even if it is moot that we were not two-timing in this particular case, we still are not good enough, and not to be trusted to boot.

This US position maybe unpalatable to us in the extreme, but despite our pained expressions and stuttering responses, the world perception about us is not a jot different from this.

Though after an initial comment, India has not rubbed it in but said that “the world must press on to eliminate the safe havens and sanctuaries that have been provided to terrorists in our own neighbourhood”. This is a refrain that would not be difficult to retrieve and beat us with if there is a change in India’s intent to engage with us.

And what if al Zawahiri or Mullah Omar are similarly taken out in Quetta or Zhob or the chieftains of the Haqqani network in North Waziristan? And, if anything, Osama’s is a case in point that if they’re in our neck of the woods, found they will be, sooner or later.

Whatever the other ramifications of Osama’s having been hunted in Pakistan, the one that will have the greatest impact on us is whether the real decision-makers in this country – found not in Islamabad, but in its garrison twin – have finally found out that their double-speak, double games, their compartmentalisation of the good and the bad Taliban, and condoning and protecting the former, is a futile, zero-sum endeavour that is only going to yield further ignominy and destruction?

For if they haven’t, the universal image that we have so assiduously cultivated – ‘the most dangerous country in the world’, ‘a safe heaven for terrorists’ where Jaishs and Lashkars proliferate – is the one that doesn’t require arch enemy India to threaten us. It has already come to a point where India’s call to clean this neighbourhood resonates with the world. In sharp contrast, our position on ‘the core issue’ of Kashmir has been so weakened that the UN resolutions have lost their relevance.

Osama’s killing, and the embarrassment and infamy that it has wrought, is indeed likely to be a blessing in disguise – one way or the other.

If the powers-that-be could finally make out that they would have to clear the venom that is tearing our society asunder, change tack on the so-called jihad in real and not for show and kill or kick out terrorists of so many hues and nationalities that our tribal belt is veritably the most cosmopolitan beehive of such characters, shun seeking strategic depth in Afghanistan (why does a country that approximately equals the combined land mass of France and the United Kingdom need depth elsewhere?), stop supporting the forces of bigotry and obscurantism and stay away from political engineering that has kept our polity under its thumb for three decades and more.

Dismantling this deep state will not be easy, but if we do not start the project on our own, the pressure brought on would be hard to bear. The choices before us are stark. And persisting on the trodden path is no longer one of them.

The writer is Sports and Magazines Editor, Pakistan Today.