The writer is a former editor of Dawn.
The writer is a former editor of Dawn.

AFTER President Donald Trump asked Pakistan to crack down on the Afghan Taliban on its soil in his Afghan policy address, army chief Gen Qamar Bajwa spelt out his country’s response, saying Pakistan cannot fight Afghanistan’s war in Pakistan.

Speaking on Defence Day, the army chief also demanded that space not be allowed to terrorist groups opposed to his country on Afghan soil. The world can’t ask us to do more. It should do more itself, he added.

The army chief recounted the sacrifices of his soldiers in the fight against terrorism in the country and said Pakistan was determined to win this war as failure was not an option, for that would destabilise the whole region.

The army chief’s statement came at the same time as the consultations at the Foreign Office where envoys from key foreign capitals had been summoned home for a policy formulation session presided over by the newly appointed foreign minister Khawaja Asif.

The foreign minister acknowledged in a television interview the need to first set our own house in order before taking on critics elsewhere.

Interestingly enough, a Twitter handle usually articulating the point of view of an outlawed militant group active in India-held Kashmir had taken exception to the foreign minister’s statement and lauded the army chief’s address.

Following the foreign policy meet where recommendations were finalised for discussion in parliament, Khawaja Asif told the media that a “paradigm shift” was expected keeping in view the current environment and the options before the country.

But what happens when the state deploys non-state actors in pursuit of its policy goals?

The foreign minister also underlined Pakistan’s dilemma rooted in the legacy of “two dictators, Zia and Musharraf, a baggage that is best got rid of” where there was a dramatic divergence of views on how Pakistan saw itself (and its sacrifices) and how the world saw it.

The minister said that in any policy, Pakistan’s interests would be supreme and all else came second. The army chief had made similar remarks earlier, going on to say that if the world couldn’t help Pakistan fight terrorism, it should at least not pin its own failures on Islamabad.

The army chief had also words of counsel for those who think they are waging jihad against the state and said such elements were engaged in fasaad as jihad was solely the prerogative of the state and no individual or group could get endorsement for their own actions as jihad.

Although articulated somewhat differently, both the foreign minister’s ‘own house in order’ and the army chief’s ‘jihad vs fasaad’ statements referred to the same thing ie explosively radicalised and often misguided sections of society prepared to kill others and perish themselves in the name of faith.

Khawaja Asif was correct in saying the country was left with the baggage of the two dictators Zia and Musharraf where the first systematically radicalised and militarised society as an article of faith and the latter did nothing to challenge the purveyors of hate in any practical manner and made compromises to perpetuate his rule.

And this is where the complications start. Who can disagree with the army chief that only the state should monopolise the tools of coercion in order to have a civilised society? But what happens when the state deploys non-state actors in pursuit of its policy goals?

We have long lamented how the national security state leased out some of its key functions to these non-state actors. All was well so long as the non-state actors played ball. But when some of them decided to go rogue there was all hell to pay.

In private conversations, a number of army officers assert that the military’s entire top leadership today is battle-hardened, having commanded troops engaged in counterterrorism operations and fighting insurgents in not only the northwest tribal areas but elsewhere too.

“Most of the three stars today have either commanded brigades or battalions in the counter-insurgency operations. They have personally witnessed the ugly manifestations of extremism and militancy. There is no way that anyone of these commanders will have a soft corner for any non-state actor,” one Fata veteran told me recently.

Where differences of opinions crop up with the outside world or even with their critics within the country is on, for example, how to handle groups that the military believes have never gone rogue in Pakistan.

“We need to deradicalise these groups and try and mainstream them before attempting to disarm them. This is important as we can’t fight on too many fronts and layers at the same time,” explained one former officer.

The directives by Jamaatud Dawa leader Hafiz Saeed to his men to contest elections under the banner of a new party he has created is seen as one such step. Moreover, this newspaper has carried news stories that another militant leader, Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil, is also on the verge of launching a political party for mainstream, electoral politics.

It isn’t clear how these militant groups-turned-political parties will react if they make no headway in electoral politics and their first attempts to secure seats in parliament to enforce their Islamic agenda are frustrated. Will they keep faith in the democratic process and persist or revert to jihad — this time here?

Even if there is a desire in each state institution to brush away the mess created by decades of near-suicidal policies and start with a clean slate, it won’t be easy. And if state institutions continue to differ on the way forward even now then help us God.

In terms of the global environment, China may appear as if it is in our corner vis-à-vis the US but it would be foolish to assume Beijing’s tolerance threshold for religious militancy in Pakistan would be any different to Washington’s. Hope the policymakers understand this.

The writer is a former editor of Dawn.

abbas.nasir@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, September 9th, 2017

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