GEN Asim Bajwa may not have been the right person to say it, but there is some merit to what he said in an interview to a German media organisation.

Commenting on foreign policy matters, historical or otherwise, and Pakistan’s relations with its neighbours ought to be the political government’s remit.

Yet, such are the times once again that the military has become the de facto spokesperson for the country’s security and anti-militancy policies.

Unwelcome as that may be for the democratic project, the substance of what the DG ISPR claimed does need to be examined, especially since it gives an indication about the thinking of the country’s architects of national security.

When asked about the Western narrative that Pakistan has not done enough in the so-called war on terror, Gen Bajwa was emphatic: that view is an injustice to Pakistan and it is the outside world that has not done enough to help Pakistan.

Clearly, Pakistan has not got the support it needed in the fight against the banned TTP, especially since the launch of Operation Zarb-i-Azb. After years of international hand-wringing over internal stability in Pakistan, the state simply has not got the kind of cooperation it needs to allow its priorities to deliver the results needed.

Moreover, much of what Pakistan has done, be it in the 1980s in Afghanistan or the sustained efforts to find and capture Al Qaeda leaders in the years since 9/11, has been almost immediately eclipsed by the notorious demand that Pakistan do more.

Legitimate as some of Pakistan’s complaints may be, there are two other aspects to consider here. For one, complaining about injustice, betrayal or abandonment by the international community is not a substitute for policy.

The key must surely be to seek productive engagement and secure greater cooperation. There are many aspects of Pakistan’s ongoing counter-insurgency and counterterrorism operations that can be boosted by the military, diplomatic and financial contributions of Pakistan’s regional and global partners.

The TTP and its affiliated groups cannot realistically be defeated by an isolated Pakistan going it alone.

Second, there is a need to consider the basis of the outside world’s concerns regarding Pakistan.

It is not so much a question of sequencing or progressive rollback of all forms of militancy and extremism on Pakistani soil, but the need to signal that the state does in fact consider all militants, be they anti-Afghanistan, anti-India or anti-whomever, to be a problem that needs to eventually be addressed.

Published in Dawn, June 25th, 2016