A fragile unity
Our military and political cadres appear, for now, to be on the same page
Politicians of all parties gathered in Peshawar under the chairmanship of Prime Minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif and crafted a typically Pakistani solution — they formed a committee. At the press conference after the meeting the Chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) sat to the left of the PM, and appeared to have, for the time being, buried the hatchet in a place separate to the back of each other’s head. That the press conference included all parties, including the religious parties, was in itself a milestone, and an indicator of the seriousness with which politicians on all sides are taking the attack on Army Public School in Peshawar. The committee that has been formed is under the chairmanship of Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan and it is tasked to report in a week — a tall order.
This is not the first time that there has been a multi-party conference on the subject of terrorism, and for the committee to deliver anything meaningful there will have to be unity and consensus where none has existed before. Traditionally, terrorism has been left to the party in power to deal with, and the parties in opposition either ran spoiler activities if they did not approve of what was being proposed or done, or stood largely mute on the sidelines. That cannot happen on this occasion, as inclusivity is the order of the day and all the parties are going to be virtually forced to own and support the outcomes in a week’s time. If nothing else, the dreadful events of December 16 have produced, temporarily, a levelled political playing field.
Whatever the committee comes up with it is not going to be anything different from what potentially could have been decided on December 17 at the meeting in Peshawar. Although it is largely invisible since its announcement there is a National Security Policy in place that has been there for a year. Whether the committee will add to or subtract from that policy is unknown, or even whether it has a mandate that extends that far. Either way, a week is a very short time to cobble together anything of substance that is going to have an immediate impact on the national security environment. Whilst the formation of a committee falls short of kicking the matter into the long grass, it does amount to a deferment of difficult decisions, and perhaps an unnecessarily protracted time frame for those difficult decisions to be implemented.
Public sentiment is clearly in no mood for equivocation when it comes to calling a spade a spade. The PM for the first time said categorically that there was no perceived difference between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Taliban any more, and political leaders in general are being forced off the fence when it comes to their stance vis-à-vis the Taliban, which for some leaders and parties is going to be painful to say nothing of a very public U-turn, an abandonment of sometimes decades of entrenched positions.
As events post-attack unfolded in Peshawar there were other events with potentially equally far-reaching consequences unfolding in Kabul. The Chief of Army Staff, General Raheel Sharif, went to meet Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, and the newly warmed relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan got its first real test — and reality check. General Raheel had a shopping list. He wanted the Afghan National Army and the last vestiges of the International Security Assistance Force to move against the TTP sanctuaries along the borders ‘promptly’ — and failure to move on them may force Pakistan to do something it has never done before — resort to hot pursuit. Mullah Fazlullah was on the shopping list as well as there is intelligence information that it was he that was behind the attack in Peshawar. Our military and political cadres appear, for now, to be on the same page. Let us hope they still are a week hence.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 19th, 2014.
This is not the first time that there has been a multi-party conference on the subject of terrorism, and for the committee to deliver anything meaningful there will have to be unity and consensus where none has existed before. Traditionally, terrorism has been left to the party in power to deal with, and the parties in opposition either ran spoiler activities if they did not approve of what was being proposed or done, or stood largely mute on the sidelines. That cannot happen on this occasion, as inclusivity is the order of the day and all the parties are going to be virtually forced to own and support the outcomes in a week’s time. If nothing else, the dreadful events of December 16 have produced, temporarily, a levelled political playing field.
Whatever the committee comes up with it is not going to be anything different from what potentially could have been decided on December 17 at the meeting in Peshawar. Although it is largely invisible since its announcement there is a National Security Policy in place that has been there for a year. Whether the committee will add to or subtract from that policy is unknown, or even whether it has a mandate that extends that far. Either way, a week is a very short time to cobble together anything of substance that is going to have an immediate impact on the national security environment. Whilst the formation of a committee falls short of kicking the matter into the long grass, it does amount to a deferment of difficult decisions, and perhaps an unnecessarily protracted time frame for those difficult decisions to be implemented.
Public sentiment is clearly in no mood for equivocation when it comes to calling a spade a spade. The PM for the first time said categorically that there was no perceived difference between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Taliban any more, and political leaders in general are being forced off the fence when it comes to their stance vis-à-vis the Taliban, which for some leaders and parties is going to be painful to say nothing of a very public U-turn, an abandonment of sometimes decades of entrenched positions.
As events post-attack unfolded in Peshawar there were other events with potentially equally far-reaching consequences unfolding in Kabul. The Chief of Army Staff, General Raheel Sharif, went to meet Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, and the newly warmed relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan got its first real test — and reality check. General Raheel had a shopping list. He wanted the Afghan National Army and the last vestiges of the International Security Assistance Force to move against the TTP sanctuaries along the borders ‘promptly’ — and failure to move on them may force Pakistan to do something it has never done before — resort to hot pursuit. Mullah Fazlullah was on the shopping list as well as there is intelligence information that it was he that was behind the attack in Peshawar. Our military and political cadres appear, for now, to be on the same page. Let us hope they still are a week hence.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 19th, 2014.