Daily Times

A drone strike right on target put an end to the four-year reign of Hakeemullah Mehsud, the head of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). It also put an end to the government’s strategic intent to pursue peace talks with the Taliban. The timing is interesting because, this time, the news was real. This development may be an achievement for the US but it is a disaster for the strategic intent of the government. The TTP is likely to carry out retaliatory strikes after nominating their new leader — Mullah Fazlullah — and reject further government initiatives for peace. They never had any reason to trust the US and now they have none to trust the Pakistan government either. However, this entire sorry state of affairs is a matter of control.

The Taliban is a phenomenon of our times, a morphed offspring of the mujahideen (religious militants) but the standoff has far deeper roots in the basic issue of tribal identity rather than in Islam itself. Even the British had no more than a peripheral control over what is now called FATA. They never did extend the writ of the colonial government into Waziristan, and only managed to put in place a modicum of loose control through what was then (and still is) known as the FCR — Frontier Crimes Regulations.

Under the FCR agreement, the local tribal chieftains were given a great deal of power and autonomy so long as they honoured the basic requirements of the British. This worked well for both sides. Waziristan afforded the British a modicum of isolation from the harsh interior of Afghanistan, and it gave certain benefits to the tribal chiefs without them having to sacrifice their autonomy. After the British, successive regimes in independent Pakistan merely continued the FCR arrangement but, having neither the strategic vision nor the administrative capability of their erstwhile colonial masters, they only took things from bad to worse. The tribes of Waziristan eyed the governments in Islamabad with considerable distrust and no government put in any real developmental effort in the region.

The net outcome is that, even after 66 years of independence, FATA is still off the domain of parliament, the development agenda of the nation and the trust grid of the powers at the centre. In this scenario, it was natural for the Afghan Taliban to make inroads into the region and build fortresses there. They succeeded, not because of their Islamic agenda, but because of the tribal one.

At the same time, neither the US nor previous dictatorships were averse to using them for their own devious ends. However, situations do change with time. Frankenstein has now turned on its creators, the US and the Pakistani establishment. The Pakistan government protests routinely every time there is a drone strike, raising the issue of sovereignty. One is forced, however, to think of what sovereignty is being referred to in an area where no government ever really had any control. If we are so concerned about sovereignty, should we not have been more concerned about the fate and development of the people in this area?

Not having done so merely speaks of poor vision and leadership failure. We pass over the fact that we should ourselves have been capable of taking out both Osama bin Laden and Hakeemullah. Since we either did not or could not do so, what is the point in wasted recriminations now? The Pakistan army has launched numerous operations in the northwest in a failed attempt to control the terrorists who use the bogey of Islam for their own power games. The attempt failed because the same army has, in the past, not only allowed the Taliban to thrive but also actively aided and abetted them for its own purposes. Now, Frankenstein intends on toppling Pakistan’s democratic system.

During the recent election campaigns, the TTP was eminently successful in keeping both the PPP and ANP out of the national political scene on the ideological grounds that these were secular parties. Even then, no agency, including the army, could bring them to heel. If we really have the kind of military muscle we think we do, it should not have been so impossible to at least partially tame the monster. It is interesting that the ongoing operation against the TTP in Karachi has not attracted much controversy, nor has any politician interfered or raised the possibility of peace talks with anti-state forces operating there. All stakeholders have reached a consensus on the need to do away with the elements responsible for lawlessness but our priorities are not coherent across the regions — it is almost as if the operation is legitimate in Karachi but not in FATA. This merely highlights the inability of the federal government in maintaining its writ in the already disturbed tribal areas.

The interior minister’s immediate response, in the press conference on November 2, 2013, seems to revolve around the theme that this attack is a deliberate US attempt to sabotage peace efforts. Such statements have been seen several times in the ‘blow hot blow cold’ relations between the two countries. The irony is that our leaders always talk of reviewing ties with the US with the main intent of extracting some additional financial support from them, whilst giving it a nationalist flavour on the media. In truth, their position is probably too weak for the US to pay any real attention. The statement sounded like a helpless plea to non-state actors to desist from retaliatory violence. The Pakistani authorities had offered Rs 50 million reward for information leading to the capture or killing of the deceased militant. Under the circumstances, the apologetic stance of the government makes no sense.

On the other hand, PTI chief Imran Khan’s impassioned declaration to block NATO supply lines even if it means sacrificing its government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa shows an undesirable tendency of the provincial government towards hijacking the national foreign policy. He even assured taking legislative measures across all provincial Assemblies against the killing of the TTP chief. More than damage control, this sounds like outright appeasement, projecting a major terrorist as an ambassador of peace.

The hard fact is that, in reality, Pakistan has lost the trust of both the US and the Taliban by shying away from its commitments. As a TTP spokesman recently said, “We have now understood the hypocrisy in the dual policy of the Pakistani government.” At the same time, the US is a strategic ally and a long time partner of Pakistan, where both have generally remained helpful to each other in the war against terror. Despite indignation, cash-strapped Pakistan still depends to a great extent on US support in many ways. Such laissez faire has achieved nothing in 66 years and, if continued, the future will be no different. It is therefore imperative for the federal government to assert its writ and really work towards socio-economic development and self-sufficiency, not only in FATA, but across the nation. At the same time, it must stay focused on eliminating terror tactics, whatever be the cost. The time for vacillation is long past.

The writer is a freelance columnist and can be reached at janjuaharoon01@gmail.com and on twitter @JanjuaHaroon