The case against going into North Waziristan

MANCHESTER: This is with reference to your front-page article of July 15 by Imtiaz Gul titled “Why the army will have to go into North Waziristan”.

With due respect, it seems as if the writer is trying to become more loyal than the king. Otherwise, I do not see any logic behind taking military action against the Taliban when their main adversaries, America and Britain, are both apparently willing to talk and engage with the Taliban.

Moreover, the writer himself says that the Haqqani network as a group “holds no water anymore”. Therefore, renouncing the peace accords with people like Hafiz Gul Bahadur and Maulvi Sadiq Noor will only end up destabilising Pakistan. Military solutions and campaigns are not the way forward, only talks and negotiations are.

Umar Khalid Dar

Published in The Express Tribune, July 16^th, 2011.