It is up to us whether we consider the ongoing war on terror as our own war or not.
JUBAIL, SAUDI ARABIA: In October, the BBC carried out an opinion poll to find out how the rest of the world rated the two American presidential candidates, President Barack Obama — who has been re-elected — and Mitt Romney. As the results showed that 50 per cent of the people in 21 countries favoured President Obama while only nine per cent voted for Romney. Results from Pakistan were quite interesting — 14 per cent favoured Romney while 12 per cent preferred President Obama. However, the rest of the 74 per cent of Pakistanis polled were either undecided or said that the election result did not matter much for Pakistan.
It is quite fair for Pakistanis to take that line as we should not expect that the US president will change his country’s policies in favour of Pakistan, while setting aside America’s interests. He will continue to demand that Pakistan take firm action against terrorist groups attacking Afghan and Nato forces. He will continue to question the rise of religious extremism and intolerance towards different sects and minorities.
Now it is up to us whether we consider the ongoing war on terror as our own war or not. After the loss of 40,000 lives, getting front line soldiers’ throats slit in an open challenge to the military, attacks on military installations and destruction of hundreds of schools, if we do not own this as our war, then there is little hope for us. We cannot hide behind the assumption that the ongoing terrorism is linked with drone attacks and that peace will return to the region as soon drone attacks stop.
We should not expect any let-up in Af-Pak matters unless we decide what is really good for us. If we leave this decision to the right wing, then we will continue to suffer, no matter who occupies the White House.
Masood Khan
Published in The Express Tribune, November 9th, 2012.
