Daily Times

The history of talks between the Pakistani state and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and its antecedents, is long and has repeated itself a good 14 times as a grave tragedy. This time around it is playing out as a farce. No nuclear-armed state has been humiliated quite so thoroughly at the hands of some armed thugs as is happening in Pakistan. Whatever the outcome of this dialogue melee, the state has disgraced itself monumentally, perhaps even irreparably, along the way. By comparison, Corps Commander Peshawar Lieutenant General Safdar Hussain garlanding the Taliban thug Nek Muhammad Wazir after signing the 2004 Shakai peace deal, may look majestic today.

If Prime Minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif’s idea of privatising the negotiations was to have some sort of a plausible deniability or keep his government’s involvement low key, the TTP checkmated him in one shrewd move. The TTP took everyone, including its most allied allies, by surprise when it pulled the emissary/arbitration committee rabbit out of the negotiations hat. If Mr Sharif’s idea was to merely exhaust the dialogue option and ultimately put the onus of any failed parleys on the TTP, the latter has put that hot potato back in his hands. A committee announced by the PM in parliament, in full media glare, simply cannot be considered an informal body and expected to have a low profile. The PM has to own his committee’s success and/or failure. Once the PM decided to carry out a dialogue it would have been better to appoint government officials for formal discussions. The Awami National Party (ANP) had conducted talks with the TTP in Malakand through its party and government officials in perhaps the most sober manner done in Pakistan thus far. As repulsive as the idea of negotiating with the terrorists is, the ANP’s methodology was a template that could have served Mr Sharif well and saved the political dispensation from becoming the laughing stock that it has now become.

On the other hand, if the PM’s four-member committee was supposed to be an exploratory team for establishing proximity with the terrorists via a track two, the open announcement may have defeated that purpose. Historically, several journalists, spies and bureaucrats have served as emissaries and even ambassadors. There is nothing wrong as such in picking non-politicians for negotiations. The late Mr Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had sent the former editor of The Pakistan Times, Mr Mazhar Ali Khan, as an informal envoy to meet Sheikh Mujibur Rehman. Mr Bhutto later took Mazhar sahib along to Simla to help as an additional conduit to Mrs Indira Gandhi. However, then again, the quality of the leadership, the stature of the emissary and the political finesse involved then made it a dignified affair, compared to the circus we are witnessing today.

To his credit, a member of Mr Sharif’s committee, the veteran journalist Mr Rahimullah Yousufzai, is perhaps the most reasonable voice in a matter that increasingly looks like the dialogue of the Taliban, by the Taliban and for the Taliban. In an interview with Mr Rahman Bunairee of the Voice of America’s Pashto service, Deewa Radio, Mr Yousafzai hoped to persuade the TTP towards a ceasefire. He also spoke about getting, apparently, through to the PM, the Pakistan army and the US drones to stop hitting TTP targets but quite ominous was his expectation that the TTP would demand hundreds of hardened terrorists released. Equally worrying was his complete silence over any obligation for reparations on the TTP for the atrocities it has committed against thousands of civilians all over Pakistan, especially in FATA and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. And therein lies the rub: Mr Sharif has started an open-ended process without defining the brief he has given his committee, and what it means for those already affected by terrorism and those who will be in future. Neither Mr Sharif nor his team apparently knows what their bottom line is.

The public’s opinion had gradually been shifting towards a decisive action against the TTP until Mr Nawaz Sharif’s speech in the National Assembly pulled the rug from even under his own feet. He may have bought some time to buttress his Punjab fortress against the expected counterattack from the TTP-allied jihadists there but that reprieve will not be long lasting. The TTP pounced on the opportunity Mr Sharif provided them by backing down from what they perceived was an imminent action. The terrorists have been playing the Sharif government like a fiddle while bombing innocents to smithereens, like Tuesday’s attack in Peshawar’s Shia-populated Risaldar Street. The intensely focused TTP seems like the only ones out there who know exactly what they want, including from their dialogue ruse, and how to accomplish it. The terrorists virtually control the narrative through violence against the media and via their highly visible partisans within its ranks. Mr Sharif has not just ceded time to the TTP to reorganise but also precious political space, which he may find difficult to recapture in the near future.

The sly TTP is not leaving much to chance. It did not hesitate to test the allegiance even of its ideological granddaddy Maulana Samiul Haq and its most vociferous advocate, Chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Mr Imran Khan. The PTI chief has since tried to weasel out of his well-earned nomination as the TTP’s confidant. His party turned down the TTP nomination via a statement that “appreciates the trust reposed in its chairman”. I suspect this might not be the last time the TTP will hold Mr Imran Khan’s feet to the fire. The TTP had, after all, neutralised the PTI’s electoral opponents, the ANP. It will exact its pound of flesh and will not be satiated by the PTI reiterating pledges like a political office for the terrorists. The TTP’s fellow travellers will not be able to backtrack this late in the game; they will have to pay up.

The Pakistani state, under Mr Nawaz Sharif, seems to be on all fours now. The fear of a backlash in Punjab appears to have kept Mr Sharif from doing anything to stem the bleeding in the three other provinces, and FATA. However, more disconcerting is how he has gone about doing it. If the PM had been fumbling before, his delegating responsibility to people outside parliament in a speech made in that august house, suggests he has dropped the ball completely. Mr Nawaz Sharif might muddle through this tragic-comic round of talks but the humiliation the Pakistani state has suffered on his watch will not wash off easily.

The writer can be reached at mazdaki@me.com and he tweets @mazdaki