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| Saturday June 27, 2009 |
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The stakes in Waziristan Syed Mohammad Ali As the gradual elimination of the Taliban in Malakand division by the Pakistan Army enters its decisive phase, Waziristan braces for a much-awaited showdown following Islamabad’s decision to finally destroy Baitullah Mahsud’s terrorist infrastructure which is after all the principal source of the nation’s current woes. Militancy in the NWFP is sustained by competing powers seeking to secure their strategic and energy interests in the complex milieu of South and Central Asia. The question arises that if this insurgency happens to survive a few more years, will Islamabad be able to keep the Pukhtun nationalist elements on its side against the religious militants? It is crucial to assess the political capacity of the ANP government to successfully deal with the present conflict. According to a senior NWFP government official, over three million people are already internally displaced. This is in addition to the Afghan refugees who are still in large number and a great burden on the establishment. When a full-scale military operation is launched in Waziristan, more people will become displaced and the government of the NWFP will have to grapple with an inflated humanitarian crisis. It will be of essence to watch how long the military action takes to achieve its objective and what tactics the enemy adopts to escape the firepower and how much political support it gets from the population of the affected areas. There are lessons to learn from how the Indian army successfully dealt with the Khalistan movement. Though dealing with a small-scale uprising in Indian Punjab plains, compared to hilly and forest terrain of the NWFP, six factors which contributed to the success of Indian army operation in quelling the separatist movement were quality intelligence; diplomatic and political isolation of the terrorists from international and domestic support base; timely elimination of their leadership; element of surprise; ruthless elimination of the terrorists without any remorse, and finally effective management of the humanitarian crisis. A decisive factor in the strategic matrix of the conflict in Waziristan would be the response of the civilian population of the tribal areas. How well the government is prepared to tackle the eventuality of mass exodus from Fata and how much resources it has to properly organise IDPs’ interim shelters, will equally determine the end-result of the military operation which in itself is a much delayed action. Then, the government will need to arrange cash money to offer to the displaced families. These factors will be of utmost importance to keep the uprooted population of tribal areas satisfied and on the side of the government and to prevent them from succumbing to temptations or coercion of the Taliban and the Baitullah Mehsud gang with a view to demoralise the Pakistani troops. Conservative Pushtun families may find it difficult to cooperate in the house to house search by troops given their cultural and traditional sensitivities. The government will have to draw up a comprehensive political and economic strategy to isolate TTP leadership before it launches a military operation in Waziristan. Despite hectic high-level diplomacy, US has not been very successful in gaining substantive military and economic support from its European Nato allies for expanding military operations in Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, the US and Nato are fighting the war away from their homeland whereas the stakes for the state and military of Pakistan are much higher while fighting on its own territory and to win the war it cannot rely on promises of external financial help alone. US aid pledges aside, the government will need to raise resources on its own as well. We have to get rid of our dead wood, tighten belts, possibly postpone some developmental plans and probably increase defence budget and cut corners where we can. Political expediency and localised politics based on ‘baradari’ will have to be shelved if the state of Pakistan has to survive this decisive battle for its identity. It is not a war like 1965 where the military could stop Indians from advancing on Wagah and Chawinda fronts but a war in which the enemy is invisible and has already penetrated deep inside our territory; not just the resorts of Swat and Malam Jabba but the streets, homes and markets of Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi and Peshawar have become battlefronts. The leadership must realise that the success and sacrifices of our troops can go to waste if we do not succeed in winning hearts and minds of the large displaced population. Any lapses in timely, effective and efficient relief and rehabilitation of the continuing streams of the displaced persons could ignite the Pukhtun nationalist sentiments in those areas with long-term adverse effects to the objective of this war. On May 2, 2003 George W. Bush in a speech from the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln proudly declared victory in Iraq war but six years later Washington still remains mired in the quagmire that Iraq has become. A study of the Irish guerilla war shows that the Irish Republican Army was never really a major strategic threat to the British military in Ireland. Nor were they ever in a position to engage them in conventional warfare. IRA leader Richard Mulcahy deplored the fact that they had not been able to drive the British "out of anything bigger than a fairly good size police barracks.” But they had made Ireland ungovernable except by military means. The political, military and financial costs of remaining in Ireland were higher than the British government was prepared to afford. This fact forced it to enter into negotiations with the Irish political leaders. Similarly, Taliban by engaging Pakistani military forces are diverting its resources into an internal war rather than let it be prepared against any potential external threat. Today the stakes of this conflict in Fata and the NWFP are higher for Pakistan’s security than they have ever been before. This could be the decisive battle for the identity and future of our nation and like 1965 or 1971 we should not totally depend on the US alone for winning it.
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