Those engaged in the implementation of the NAP are wont to go on record with considerable frequency to say that this or that element has ‘almost’ been eliminated, or such and such a group ‘have been severely degraded’. What is never talked about is the complete defeat or eradication of any of these elements, and there are never reports that they have decided to lay down their arms and take up agro-pastoralism for a living rather than blowing their fellow countrymen and women to smithereens.
The unpleasant reality, rarely voiced, is that terrorism and extremism are neither being defeated nor eliminated, and remain far from being so in both cases. The social conditions that allow extremism to develop remain unaltered; and the decanting of almost a million people in the course of the operation in order to protect civilian lives has done nothing to drain the swamp either. More, it will have added to the pools of resentment that were there in the first place which themselves will deepen as displaced persons return to their homes to find them and their livelihoods ruined. This is the unfinished business that is going to mean that in a potentially short space of time Zarb-e-Azb II is going to have to get into gear, the entire cycle repeating itself. As the Taliban are fond of saying — “You might have all the watches, but we have all the time.”
Published in The Express Tribune, September 3rd, 2015.
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