The Pakistan Mystery Continues…..
Recent developments in Pakistan have left the international community baffled.
The Swat Peace Deal was viewed across the globe as appeasement of the Taliban militants. President Zardari assured that he would approve the Accord only after peace was restored in the region. Pakistan was given the benefit of doubt and President Zardari’s line of defense was accepted. After Sufi Muhammad threatened to withdraw from the agreement, President Zardari abandoned his internationally publicized pre-condition and approved the Accord. The act was defended as ‘conditional pragmatism’ and stated to be in accordance with Pakistan’s Constitution. The emboldened Taliban have now moved into Buner district and claim to implement the Sharia across Pakistan. Pakistani government has responded by sending armed reinforcements to the region in an attempt to protect the Government establishments.
The unfolding drama brings several questions to my mind:
All reports have concentrated on what the Government or Taliban is doing, what about the people of Pakistan? The popular uprising in March in support of Chief Justice Iftikhar Choudhry had demonstrated the strength of Pakistani civil society. If the women of Afghanistan can protest against discriminatory laws, surely the people of Pakistan can raise their voices against the unwanted imposition of Sharia. Do the people of Pakistan accept the Sharia voluntarily or are they too afraid of protesting against the Taliban?
What made the Pakistani Government dispatch a small contingent of Frontier Corps to defend Buner against the Taliban encroachments? The Frontier Corps are poorly equipped and could hardly be expected to deal with the Taliban forces. Moreover, why did the government choose to send in a para-military force rather than regular Army units to Buner? Perhaps because the Government is not launching a war against the Swat Taliban, the para-military forces are only meant to control a dissident group allowed to operate within the national jurisdiction.
Why even try to confront the Taliban in Buner? If the existence of Taliban and implementation of Sharia was acceptable in Swat, what’s the problem in Buner? I mean is Swat a less important region of Pakistan where extremism can be allowed to flourish?
What happened to the huge amounts of military aid and Frontier Corps training Programme sponsored by the international community? The Pakistani forces are unable to defend a small region like Buner and they claim of using international assistance to combat terrorism through-out Pakistan.
PML (N) leader Nawaz Sharif has raised alarm over the threat from Taliban; Fazl-ur Rehman, leader of Jamiat-e-Ulema-a-Islam, the country’s largest Islamic Party has warned that if the Taliban continue their advance at the current pace they will soon be at the doors of Islamabad; MQM Chief Altaf Hussain has opposed the ‘criminal silence’ over the forward march of the Taliban. If a large part of the Pakistani political leadership is opposing the current approach towards Taliban, why is a revision of policy not undertaken? How can a democratic government continue to implement a widely opposed policy?
What will happen if the Pakistani Army launches and wins an offensive against the Taliban in Swat and Buner? Prospects of such a victory are slight, but the final outcome is discernable. Months before the Swat peace deal was made, Pakistani Army has claimed to secure a major victory against the militants in the region. Surprisingly, military victories against militants in Pakistan results in peace deal granting concessions to the vanquished.
The most recent argument from Islamabad is that the Government could re-think the Swat Accord if peace is not restored. What is the Government of Pakistan still thinking about? With the Taliban sixty miles from the Capital and no major military offensive aganist them has not the time for thinking passed? Pakistan and its mysteries are beyond my limited reasoning capacity.
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This is more like the story of a spoilt son, who after having been raised in a fundamentalist environment by his father thinking that he would help the father accomplish his immoral objectives. The son is now after his own fathers life, having grown up and searching for his own powers. The father being old and already sold out for his parental love cannot do much but to accept his sons brashness and at the same time has to show the world that he still is trying to control his son who actually is no longer under any control. Now what will the father do….he has no option left but slowly has to die seeing his world turned upside down by his son…and what happens to the son…well, he doesn’t know where to go, and do nothing but create more anarchy leading to his end too in the end…this is one of the natural laws of the universe….the moment something has to come to an end or a radical change is about to happen in future, the degeneration starts slowly to make way for the new. Once the whole of Pakistan is under the taliban rule, their next target is India. It is for India to understand, that war is inevitable if they want to survive in the long run, else even they will be annihilated if they thought that appeasement will be better than war. Its the beginning of a new change to come in the region, but only the almighty has knows and has written what the change will be….
I think this is an accurate description of the things in pakistan. They are doomed to fail. the only good thing that can come out is that it’ll convince the Indian muslims that Pakistan was a terrible mistake and it’ll reinforce their Indian identity!
[...] my recent blog post “The Pakistan Mystery Continues” I raised a few questions about the popular and official response to the Taliban’s expanding [...]
I think Pakistan’s democratic govt is really not a democratic govt. Their Army and Intelligence is still a separate identity. Pakistan has no other choice right know other then sending paramilitary forces just to ensure they are doing anything which they can always frame to the world and behind the scene can talk with the extremist. I don’t believe it has to do with any religion, it’s all power game. I do think it’s a Father and son situation but son knows what he is looking for
Pak military and its proxies like Taliban will not be cooperative unless they are made to understand what they will progressively loose by not cooperating, NOT what they will gain by cooperating. We have tried the latter over last 8 odd years. Return of NWFP , Baluchistan and FATA to Afghanistan must be put on the table, it will provide the leverage US needs . It will either shock pak into compliance or Afghanistan gets access to Arabian Sea. Either outcome is pretty good. Bottom line for Pak is if they cannot control their own country they do NOT deserve to keep it in the current format. It will be rearranged. So smaller nation states that are created in the process will opt for peace.