Well, even diplomacy is dynamic! Circumstances have changed; and now, media reports indicate that the demand is on the table again. I will attempt to explain here why it must not be obeyed, no matter how much the US protests.
To the uninitiated, there are many factions of the Taliban, Afghan and Pakistani. While all are/were loosely associated with al Qaeda, they did not always obey it. In 2007, when al Qaeda declared that its enemy number one was no longer the US but Pakistan, only two factions of the Taliban responded to that call, both Pakistani: Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan Agency (SWA) and Maulana Fazlullah in Swat. All factions of the Afghan Taliban, including the Haqqani group, condemned it.
In September 2008, when the Pakistan Army commenced its South Waziristan operation, its largest logistics base was in Razmak, a small town in NWA. In other words, we exposed our rear to the Wazir tribe and the Haqqani group with assurances of impunity; and we found those assurances to be gilt-edged. On the other hand, our so-called ally in this war, the US, vacated six (perhaps eight) posts on the Durand Line, across SWA. Whatever the reason, all it succeeded in doing was permitting Hakeemullah Mehsud and his followers to escape.
They are now back in the Orakzai Agency in Pakistan; the agency captured by the Taliban in early 2008, after killing almost all tribal elders in a suicide attack, during a jirga meeting. The Pakistan Army is now trying to get at them in Orakzai.
In an article titled “Understanding the problems of Kurram Agency”, carried by this newspaper on March 29, I explained the significance of Kurram for military operations to succeed in Orakzai/Khyber. I also explained the strategic compulsions due to which Hakeemullah was compelled to ensure that the peace deal was scuttled by sending a raiding party which killed some Shia residents and kidnapped a few others in Kurram on March 25, thus ensuring this flank was not available for military operations.
Give you one guess, who came to our rescue?
That’s right; Jalaluddin Haqqani! A week after the murder/kidnapping in Kurram, Haqqani warned Hakeemullah that if he tried to scuttle the peace deal again, Haqqani would take him on.
The US is, at best, a dubious and devious ally, only when our interests meet. Surely, the US could say the same about Pakistan, equally accurately! Haqqani, on the other hand, is not merely a reliable ally, but a friend of Pakistan.
We are already suffering at the hands of our misguided citizens who are avenging themselves against the US by killing us. Here is a group that has proven it means us no harm; why then should we multiply our own enemies to appease the US?
I do not believe that if we delink our war against our homegrown terrorists, it will suddenly cease, as many of my critics imply. I do, however, believe that if we do so, our war might not remain as open-ended as it presently is; and that an end to it might begin to be visible; it still might not, but that is the only hope that it might!
And I also believe that the US, our ally, is our ally only as long as it serves US interests and I believe the same should apply to us! If our interests are divergent, let us serve ours, not those of the US. Those who contend that by not undertaking an operation in NWA, we are merely postponing it may well be right. Even if they are, let it be at the time of our choosing and not at a time when it suits the US and puts us in an even worse situation than compared to the present.
Leadership demands the ability to absorb pressure, however great or weighty it might be; not succumb to it.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 3rd, 2011.
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