WITH indecisiveness worthy of Hamlet, the government and the army approach the militant menace in North Waziristan, adding to the already existing confusion. And it is not just their ability to categorically state whether or not there will be an operation but also their failure to explain what an operation means. The ambiguous stand of the political government is best personified by Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan, who on Friday said that the dialogue process could not go ahead, adding that it “would be on track again. I am very hopeful.” But where the government has come in for bashing as well as other right wing parties, little attention has been paid to the other stakeholder, which too bears its share of the responsibility for the murkiness. Admittedly, the new army chief’s statements are hard hitting as are the airstrikes that take place under him (the military’s intelligence has to be praised for providing the exact numbers of militants killed in airstrikes, something that even drones have not been able to match — ‘16 Uzbeks’ in NWA during Thursday’s attacks).

But the military officials also resort to vagueness when asked if these airstrikes are the precursor of an operation.

Military officials claim that it is the government’s decision — a stance the army has clung on to since last year. Pressed for more details, the ever elusive “political will” would be brought up without which an operation in NWA is apparently not possible. Nisar’s shuffling aside, PML-N officials are somewhat clearer when they are speaking on the basis of anonymity. Promising military action (before and after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s speech in parliament) they have argued that the ‘talks’ option is simply to ensure that no one can criticise the government once the operation begins or to ‘puncture’ its main opposition — the PTI.

In the middle of last week, a senior government official insisted that action was inevitable — “we can’t afford to ignore it any more”, he said, though he did add that the operation would be a limited and targeted one. “It is not possible to carry out a full-fledged one, as in Swat and SWA.”

It is these ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’, which are progressively becoming louder along with the talk of inevitability that is now creating the confusion. So where anonymously, the politicians and army officials do hint that an assault will happen they also speak of the difficult terrain, the lengthy supply lines to the larger issues of what an operation will achieve. Military officials now have no qualms in explaining that the statement reportedly uttered by General Ashfaq Kayani (and then publicised by Imran Khan) will only clean up 40 per cent of the mess. The militant networks have now spread to the urban centres and cleaning this up requires better policing, better laws, a more effective judicial system. But what is not clear is why these considerations did not deter the full-fledged operations in Bajaur or Swat or even Tirah Valley. None of these operations rid Pakistan of the problem entirely but they were still carried out.

This is not all. Another ‘but’ is also the internally displaced that such large-scale operations create. Rustam Shah Mohmand, the PTI representative on the government committee set up to talk to the Taliban, has said this, while predicting more than once that a limited operation will be carried out. However, a senior military official dismisses this argument. According to him, the military, which is prepared for every eventuality and threat, has planned for an operation and the displaced. But then what is the delay? Even if the officials’ promises of clarity of action in the coming few days proves correct, by then some militants would have slipped away and the loud whispers about ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ would not just have misled some but also convinced others of the futility of such action.

No wonder then, the sceptics continue to insist that a full- fledged operation is avoided because not every one in NWA is to be flushed out.