Daily Times Editorial Jan 10, 2014

Sartaj Aziz on the war on terror The Prime Minister’s Adviser on National Security and Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz delivered his and his government’s views on the subject of the War on Terror (WoT) on the occasion of the launch of Professor Akbar S Ahmed’s book, The Thistle and the Drone at the Institute of Strategic Studies in Islamabad the other day. First and fomeost, Sartaj Aziz thinks Pakistan had achieved less and lost more as a consequence of the WoT. The US, he said, was “fighting the wrong war with the wrong methods against the wrong people” (he did not elucidate who or what the ‘right’ war, methods and enemy should be). He then went on to reierate the government’s position on drone attacks as counterproductive, violative of Pakistan’s sovereignty, inviting the international community’s condemnation through, for example, the UN General Assembly’s resolution, and should stop since the US claims it has taken out most high-profile targets through them. The government, he said, would approach the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva next to drum up more international support for Pakistan’s objections to the drone attacks. Mounting international pressure on the US on the issue would soon convince the US, according to Sartaj, that killing people without trial was inappropriate (in a war?). Sartaj Aziz also dilated on the issue of combating our Taliban by claiming that some contacts have been initiated with them for talks, while underlining that force was being used against those elements challenging the writ of the state (the contradiction here seems to have escaped him). Taking Professor Ahmed's argument in his book further, Sartaj Aziz was critical of Musharraf for sending the army into FATA in 2004, which he said had ruined the tribal culture and administrative arrangements (inherited, it must be said, from the British colonialists). He then made the startling claim that the writ of the state had been established in seven out of eight tribal agencies and the eighth too would soon be in the control of the government. While laying the blame solely on the US for creating the Mujahideen and then pushing them into our tribal areas, the Adviser blithely turned a blind eye to Pakistan’s own role in this enterprise, as well as on Pakistan’s share of responsibility for the present state of affairs. One may be forgiven for thinking that Sartaj Aziz is charged with obfuscation and distortion of history and the ground realities in order to justify his government’s policy on the Taliban and terrorism. That stance was reflected soon after the PML-N government came to office in the farce of the All Parties Conference toeing the right wing parties’ line of negotiating with our ‘brothers’, the Taliban (if these are ‘brothers’, God help us). While it is impossible to disagree with Sartaj that Pakistan has lost more than it has gained because of the so-called WoT, these must surely be counted as the costs, financial, economic, human, of our duality of policy after 9/11 and the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. Trying to assuage the US anger by handing over al Qaeda (with the notable exception of Osama bin Laden) while offering the fleeing overthrown Afghan Taliban sanctuary and safe havens as operational bases on Pakistani soil was inevitably sooner or later going to invite US retaliation. We dragged our feet on taking action against the militants and terrorists holed up in FATA and other border areas until 2004, by which time the Afghan and local Taliban had welded unbreakable bonds and decimated the tribal leadership. They then stepped into the vacuum and have held the tribal areas hostage to their designs ever since. The duality in our policy so muddied the waters that the distinction between friend and foe was blurred to the extent of causing maximum confusion and policy paralysis. That paralysis by now has revealed itself as a policy of waiting out the US/NATO forces in Afghanistan. We are poised on that cusp now. Pakistan’s culpability in the ruin of Afghanistan and foisting on it the most retrograde and reactionary forces cannot be denied. The blowback from decades of interference and intervention in Afghanistan has taken a heavy toll of Pakistan itself. Blaming the US solely and pretending we are innocent as driven white snow can only be described as self-delusional, not an intelligent policy or appreciation of the situation.