The wages of indecision: Terror can only be fought, not conciliated

When the English poet, Edward Young (1683-1765), wrote in one of his works that "procrastination is the thief of time" he injected a statement in English literature that was borrowed by writers down the centuries. Charles Dickens, for instance, used the phrase in his Oliver Twist as did several other classical authors. What Edward Young probably never realised was how hideous the consequences of indecision and the failure to take action can be. This is a lesson the leadership of Pakistan is yet
to learn.
The country is literally being devoured by internal violence in the face of government inaction. From the day Nawaz Sharif commenced his third prime ministerial term in June last year till December 31 there were 827 terrorist attacks and the tempo of violence has increased dramatically in the first few days of this year. Those at the helm sitting in plush offices in Islamabad have done nothing to stem the tide of this madness that has killed thousands of men, women and children.
On December 19, the lives of 26 army personnel were suddenly snuffed out when their Razmak-bound convoy was bombed in Bannu by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Its spokesman announced like a bloodthirsty demon that the attack was in retaliation for the killing of the outfit's leader Hakeemullah Mehsud and deputy leader Waliur Rehman in drone attacks last year. He then had the gall to add that the TTP was ready for talks on the condition that drone operations were terminated and the army was withdrawn from the tribal areas.
But to his credit he had at least read the tealeaves correctly and was spot-on when he commented that "the government does not even have the power to take key decisions." This is evident from the inglorious seven months that the PML-N government has been in power. It has remained a passive bystander as terrorist groups ruthlessly implement their ghastly agenda of mass slaughter and destruction.
A day after the Bannu tragedy, 13 people - eight soldiers and five civilians - lost their lives in a suicide bomb attack in Rawalpindi near the GHQ. The TTP promptly claimed responsibility for the carnage which, it boasted, had been "carried out by one of our suicide bombers to take revenge for the Lal Masjid massacre in July 2007 and we will continue our struggle against the secular
system."
The TTP has never wavered from its objective of demolishing what it describes as "the secular system." A few days back its operatives targeted and killed three employees of the Express Media Group in Karachi. Like the proverbial devil which writes its own scripture, it justified the murders on the ground that "this is a war of ideologies and whosoever opposes us in this war, becomes our enemy and we will attack them. We fight for the establishment of Islamic system in this country. To kill certain people is not our aim. We are fighting to achieve our goal...We will keep fighting all those who oppose Islam and Muslims and harm the ideology of Pakistan by spreading obscenity and nudity in order to destroy the real face of Islam. This is our mission and we will continue to sacrifice our lives for it."
This then is the mission statement of the TTP on which there cannot be any compromise. The withdrawal of US-led forces from Afghanistan by December this year is merely the end of the beginning and will be the curtain raiser for the "long war" which will be fought till the establishment of an Islamic caliphate. This is the context in which the latest TTP offer of talks has to be seen. Asad Khan, an important commander from its Mohmand chapter, has openly said: "everyone knows that Shariah cannot be implemented through talks."
But a far more telling comment was that of a member of the TTP's grand shura who claimed that because of the Pakistan government's eagerness to initiate a dialogue "we have managed to gain many of the benefits that were obtained by Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) through the treaty of Hudaybiah." What he meant was that the offer of talks had not only given the TTP political legitimacy but had also provided it the opportunity to regroup as well as enabled it to spread its poisonous ideology among the people of Pakistan.
All strategists agree that the enemy must never be underestimated. But this also means that there are lessons to be learnt from the strengths and weaknesses of the adversary. The weakness of the TTP is that its newly appointed leader, Mullah Fazlullah, does not belong to the tribal areas - he is from Swat. Even worse, he is a Yousafzai whereas the TTP is almost exclusively from the Mehsud tribe. As a consequence he has, till now, not been able to establish himself in the tribal belt and operates from the Kunar and Nuristan provinces of eastern Afghanistan. There are also unconfirmed reports that he intends to relocate to Dir.
But the man to watch is the TTP deputy leader, Qari Shakeel Ahmed Haqqani from the outfit's Mohmand chapter. He has also been appointed the head of the political shura and, in the absence of Fazlullah, is said to be the person who calls the shots. In a recent interview to a correspondent of a major English newspaper, Haqqani came across as a man who does not compromise on his principles and is ruthlessly "ambitious and decisive."
When asked about the TTP's offer of talks, he replied without the slightest hesitation, "We want to make it clear that if we are talking about dialogue then it is not from a position of weakness. We are very capable of fighting."
Uncompromising adherence to principles, decisiveness, and negotiations from a position of strength are the three elements that distinguish the TTP from the Pakistani leadership. The government is bending over backwards to appease the outlawed group and has adopted the hypocritical stance, with the support of the major political parties, that the terrorist outrages are in reaction to drone strikes.
This outright lie is at once exposed because there have not been any Predator attacks since the killing of Hakeemullah Mehsud on November 01, 2013, yet this has resulted in an astounding surge in extremist violence. In the first 23 days of this month, starting from the massacre of Shia pilgrims at the border town of Taftan in Balochistan on January 01, there have been 22 terrorist incidents which have taken a dreadful toll. What this establishes is that without drone operations, there will be no restraint on the fanatical TTP and its affiliates to carry out its ruthless campaign of slaughter.
It is all very well for the prime minister to say, as he did earlier last week, that the "extraordinary situation demands extraordinary steps." If he has really made up his mind to grasp the nettle, then tough decisions will have to be taken. The Chamberlain-like policy of appeasement that the government has hitherto pursued must be abandoned. Terror can only be fought, not conciliated. An iron-hand-in-velvet-glove approach is required. Only then can negotiations be initiated from a position of strength. The alternative is capitulation.
An incurable sceptic told me that I must be astoundingly gullible if I really believed that there would be any change in government policy. He then cited these simple but sublimely powerful words written at the close of the nineteenth century: "Most people live for love and admiration. But it is by love and admiration that we should live." He explained that the leadership of Pakistan hungers for unmerited adoration, but has singly and collectively reduced the country to a common marketplace for the buyer and seller where only the cost of everything but the value of nothing matters.
This, he said, is what the TTP has exploited and has justified terrorism as "a war of ideologies for the establishment of an Islamic system." Its weakness is that its ideology is false and is far removed from the tenets of Islam. This is what the government has to expose because the war against terror will ultimately be fought and won in the ideological battlefield.
The writer is the publisher of Islamabad-based Criterion Quarterly.
 iftimurshed@gmail.com