Daily Times

This newspaper reported earlier this week that chairing a high-level meeting to review the overall security situation in Pakistan, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has called national security his government’s top priority. He has previously been rating the economy, and the closely related energy crisis, as his top concerns. With the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government about to complete its 100 days in office, the Prime Minister may wish to consider that the two priorities remain closely connected no matter how he rates them. So long as he gets out of a strangely phlegmatic state that he seems to be in and is seen as taking action it might not even matter how he lists things.

The gruesome killing of nine army and Frontier Corps men in the North Waziristan Agency (NWA) in an IED attack by a Taliban group called Ansar-ul-Mujahideen once again indicates that the jihadists continue with their fight-talk-fight regimen while the government, plodding along at a gingerly pace, is still talking about the talks. We have argued in this column for years that NWA is a test case for the Pakistani political leaders and the security establishment. NWA remains the logistical hub of domestic, cross-border and transnational terrorists. The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) consorting with the Jalaluddin Haqqani terrorist network in NWA flies in the face of the security establishment’s definitions boxing the shades of the same grey neatly into the ‘good and bad Taliban’. Even the so-called moderate of the TTP, Wali-ur-Rehman, who ostensibly was amenable to talks, was killed while holed up in NWA.

Dialogue with the Taliban has been the mantra of the PML-N and the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf (PTI) on the campaign trail and after they formed governments at the Centre and in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, respectively. One would think that the political parties so gung-ho about dialogue would have developed a robust and ready-to-go schema for the talks. But that does not seem to be the case. The central and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa leadership of the PTI appears completely clueless while the PML-N seems to have started some unofficial parleys at least with the Punjab-based jihadists. Both parties claim that they would talk to the Taliban if the latter accept the supremacy of Pakistan’s constitution while the PML-N also speaks of the TTP disarming before the dialogue. It is plain naïve to expect the TTP will uphold the constitution that they have consistently rejected as un-Islamic and then enter negotiations, especially at a time when the jihadists are rather buoyed by their successes and smell a weakness on the state’s part.

The Taliban surrendering their weapons and accepting the constitution could theoretically be the ultimate result if — a huge if at that — the negotiations are successful. The Taliban agreeing to a set of conditions, accepting the state’s writ, disarming and decommissioning can be the PML-N and PTI’s wishful thinking but not exactly what the Taliban would do. What exactly does the TTP have to gain by conceding is better known to the government. But making such cavalier assumptions suggests that the government is either not serious in talking or is merely using these preconditions as an excuse to exhaust the talks option before unleashing what Mr Nawaz Sharif has described as the “full might of the state”. It is highly unlikely that the TTP would cave in before the formal dialogue has even started without exacting its pound of flesh.

In its September 1, 2013 editorial, a leading English newspaper made a shocking suggestion — or hint — at what might be offered to the Taliban. The paper wrote: “We also have to convince them to stop their relentless campaign of bombings in our cities. In return, there might have to be taken the painful step of recognising the TTP as de facto rulers of parts of the tribal areas. If this point is reached it would be a compromise that we were forced into by an intractable foe.” While the Pakistani state has unofficially ceded control over large swathes of its territory like NWA to the jihadists, to suggest that it does so formally is appalling. It is imperative that the government clarifies its position forthwith about the informal talks that it has been holding, according to the federal information minister, with the Taliban groups. The PML-N has a less than enviable record of hobnobbing with the sectarian terrorists a la Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan aka Ahle-Sunnat-wal-Jamaat, during its previous reign in Punjab province.

There are already indications that the PML-N has negotiated some sort of a deal with the Punjabi Taliban, prying them away from the TTP. The TTP on its part has disowned the ostensible deal and the Punjabi Taliban spokesperson. Dividing the Taliban ranks is one objective of the talks offer but the question is whether the Punjabi Taliban are reconciling with the PML-N or is it the other way around. Extending the moratorium on the death penalty when convicted sectarian terrorists were about to be punished is also being perceived as PML-N’s concession to the Punjab-based jihadist terrorists. While the government takes its sweet time to get its house in order, the Taliban and its ideological and operational affiliates may actually be getting tangible benefits from this indecisiveness. Needless to say, each passing day means more time gained by the Taliban for regrouping, planning, training and eventually executing attacks that would buttress their negotiating position when the dialogue eventually does take place.

The talks with the Taliban have been the PML-N and the PTI’s chosen option for dealing with domestic terrorism but both seem to be getting cold feet now when the initiative is theirs to take. These parties have taken a good decade to disown the war against terrorism and build a case for a negotiated settlement. Fumbling and vacillating when it is time to carry out what they have pledged is not really an option for them. Merely talking about talks would not be enough. Dialogue, done in good faith, will have to be exhausted before a serious action can be taken. The newsmen suggesting to pawn away the Pashtun lands, ostensibly to secure peace elsewhere, should know that ideologies — good or evil — do not stop at borders. Jihadist terrorism has no domicile and it eyes the state of Pakistan, not just some remote pocket in the tribal areas. Cutting backdoor deals to secure the Punjab heartland might buy the PML-N some time but it would not delay the inevitable.

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