Here we go again
Rashed Rahman
Here we go again with another military operation against the religious extremist terrorists that afflict this country, chiefly Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). This time it is Chinese pressure, casting a deep shadow over CPEC, that has tipped us over the edge, not the past terrorist massacres such as the Army Public School, Peshawar one in 2014. Even before that, the local, so-called ‘bad’ Taliban (as opposed to the perceived ‘good’ Afghan Taliban) were subjected time and again to military and security forces’ operations since 2000. The fact that the terrorist problem has not gone away despite this long spate of military operation after operation compels pause for thought. The earlier operations under General Pervez Musharraf usually ended in a ceasefire and ‘peace’ agreements with the terrorists, usually broken soon after by the religious fanatics. General Kayani’s venture in South Waziristan yielded more displacement of local people than beneficial results in terms of rooting out the terrorist menace. General Raheel Sharif’s operation pushed the TTP into Afghanistan, but failed to follow up with sufficient intelligence-based operations under the consensus National Action Plan to demolish the remaining presence of the TTP on our soil in the shape of sleeper cells. Imran Khan and General Faiz Hameed, in the wake of the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan in 2021, undertook a criminal invitation to the TTP ensconced in safe havens on Afghan soil to return, ostensibly with the hope that the returnees would lay down their arms and rejoin society as peaceful citizens. This was apiece with Imran Khan’s (and others’) view that since there was no military solution to the problem of religiously motivated terrorism, the best option was to talk to them. The fact that this had been tried and failed repeatedly during Pervez Musharraf’s regime was blatantly ignored.
But blaming later mistakes runs the risk of losing the forest for the trees. The rot begins with Bhutto’s project to take Islamist Afghan leaders and students under the ISI’s wing, starting in 1973 after the Daud coup in Afghanistan. From there, a long and sorry tale winds its way through the emergence of the Afghan Mujahideen after the Communist coup in Afghanistan in 1978, the Soviet invasion in 1979 (and our hitching our wagon to the coattails of US imperialism), the civil war amongst former Mujahideen ‘comrades’ from 1992 onwards after the fall of the Najib regime, to the advent and victory of the first Taliban regime in 1996. Having achieved the undeclared goal of foisting a ‘friendly’ regime in Afghanistan (considered a great success by our military and security planners), we soon discovered that this was an illusion, if not a bed of thorns. The old received wisdom about proxies being a double-edged sword, which seemed to have escaped notice by our strategists, soon manifested itself by the behaviour of the Taliban towards ethnic/national minorities, of which Afghanistan has aways boasted a mosaic, to women and other marginalised social groups, manifested in an extreme, violent regime of compulsion to adhere to the antediluvian dreams of the fanatics.
The Afghan Taliban came a cropper in 2001 after they refused to surrender Osama bin Laden, the architect of 9/11. The Afghan regime fell before US military might, but Pakistan’s double game of running with the fox (the Afghan Taliban) and hunting with the hounds (the US) eventually wore down the US military and persuaded it to withdraw in a most chaotic, disorderly, unplanned manner, reminiscent of its fleeing Vietnam in 1975. Initially, it seemed the military establishment was blissfully happy that their ‘protégés’ had returned to power. Such is the abysmal lack of understanding of our establishment that Imran Khan’s fantasies of a returning Pakistani Taliban embracing ‘good’ behaviour was implemented with the help of then ISI chief General Faiz Hameed. History is unlikely to treat either foolish author of this debacle kindly.
But the story’s beginning and its impact on our society is so far unsaid. Our Napoleons failed to understand the potential infection of our Pashtun tribes in the former tribal areas (main staging posts for the Afghan Mujahideen and later the Taliban) with the extremist religious views of our Afghan ‘guests’. At first, the local tribesmen attached themselves to the Afghan Mujahideen and Taliban, but later, after the Lal Masjid episode, declared themselves openly as the TTP. Hence, if anyone is to be blamed for our long running Taliban problem, our strategists and planners must head the list.
Repeated military operations indicate that none of them in the past has had a strategic purpose. That is why seeming tactical victories (e.g. driving the bulk of the TTP forces into Afghanistan) satisfied our establishment, only to find a resurrection of the problem sooner or later. Operation Zarb-e-Azb failed to cut off the retreat of the TTP into Afghanistan for militarily inexplicable reasons. The restored Afghan Taliban regime was foolishly considered our ‘brothers’ (despite the evidence after 9/11) and expected to rein in the TTP for us. When they have cocked a snook at our entreaties to this effect, we seem trapped in an unresolvable cul-de-sac. Lower Dir is only one of the areas experiencing cross-border attacks. The Awami National Party is warning of a TTP takeover of Malakand.
Meanwhile, contrary to the chorus baying for the moon of a dialogue between the political parties, our divided, polarised politics currently yields opposition to everything for the sake of opposition from those feeling victimised (PTI) or marginalised (Maulana Fazlur Rehman) by their former establishment mentors. That may provide them some satisfaction of adhering to Imran Khan’s defiant campaign, but it will achieve little in overcoming the resurgent TTP threat, much to the regret, perhaps later, of all and sundry.
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