Counting the benefits of a total war

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif fully owned the operation 'Zarb-e-Azb' in his National Assembly speech.

By making the briefest yet much focused speech of his long political career at Monday evening’s National Assembly session, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had fully owned the operation “Zarb-e-Azb”.

Doing this, he also expressed the resolve of carrying the said operation until achieving its ultimate objectives, which he described as establishing the writ of the state and supremacy of constitution all across Pakistan.

Even a cursory reading of the full text of his speech suggests that the government of Pakistan, our armed forces and the rest of law enforcing outfits are no more bothered to distinguish between the so-called good or bad Taliban. Foreign militants are not the sole targets as well. A total war has rather been declared against all those elements not willing to submit before the constitution of Pakistan and the legitimate instruments of governance established by it.

An important portion of the Prime Minister’s speech also attempted to demolish the widely held perception that want the world to believe as if by taking some ‘unilateral initiatives,’ the praetorian elite had somehow enforced this war on the government of elected civilians.

Sharif asserted with cool but firm poise that from day one of engaging the TTP in negotiations for peace, both the civil and the military leadership remained on the same page and reacted to each development during the period starting from Jan 29, 2014 to early Sunday morning, after intense and exhaustive mutual consultations.

Taking advantage of the government’s sincere efforts for peace, multiple groups of diehard militants recklessly chose to keep staging fright-inducing acts of terrorism. The attempt to take on the Karachi airport last Sunday proved like the proverbial last straw, though, and the government and the armed forces were hardly left with any other options but to go for a full throttled assault on elements that made Pakistan to look like a helpless hostage to terrorists for more than a decade.

Imran Khan specially came to the house to listen to the prime minister’s speech. He and his PTI legislators maintained a guarded distance from the speech though. Not for once any person from their benches joined the spirited desk thumping that legislators belonging to the PPP and the MQM often indulged in along with the treasury members to express hearty approval of prime minister’s decision and resolve of addressing the menace of terrorism.

Immediately after finishing his speech in the National Assembly, the prime minister sought permission from the chair to leave for the Senate to deliver the same speech. Imran Khan did not seem to approve the idea and Sheikh Rashid Ahmad tried hard to verbalise his sentiments. He stood up to suggest to the opposition leader, Syed Khurshid Shah, that he should led the whole opposition for a token walk out to protest over the prime minister’s leaving without listening to various opposition leaders. The cunning Syed from Sukkur did not bite the bait and Rashid left the house, alone, in disgust.

The most conspicuous absence on such a decisive day appeared the of Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan. As the hands on interior minister and with a history of maintaining lifelong loyalty to the Sharifs, the Rajput from Chakri remained the most active, consistent and active supporter of establishing the lasting peace within Pakistan by engaging the TTP in protracted negotiations. Instead of habitually telling feel good stories regarding the real or presumed progress on the “peace front,” he had turned mysteriously silent for the past two weeks, however.

He did not attend the most important cabinet meeting that approved the budgetary proposals for the next fiscal and stayed away from the national assembly when the finance minister went there to unfold these proposals. Late this weekend, we also heard reports that he was taken to hospital for emergency treatment of his heart seemingly under tremendous stress.

One is still not sure how to explain the reasons for his absence from the house, on a day when the prime minister seemed completely discarding the process, which Nisar had led so diligently for more than four months. He might have been recuperating at home, but wagging tongues remained busy to inventing a plethora of speculative stories regarding his absence. Nobody else but Nisar alone can knock down these stories by telling us nothing but the whole truth.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 17^th, 2014.