The stakes are too high in Pakistan

By S.P.SETH

Reports from Pakistan suggest that its military offensive against the Taliban in South Waziristan is making progress. There is, however, no way of assessing the success or otherwise of military operations because, as of now, Pakistan is not allowing media access to the operational area.

It is not unreasonable to surmise, though, that Pakistani troops are having the upper hand. Apart from their large number at 30,000 troops against about 10,000 Taliban fighters, Pakistan military also has the great advantage of superior weapons and technology, access to American satellite intelligence and flow of US weaponry.

Therefore, in any set piece fighting against an insurgent force, a numerically large and better-equipped army is bound to do well, as should be the case with Pakistani troops.

But the Taliban have other advantages. First, the terrain favors them. It is rugged mountainous territory, enabling the Taliban to disperse and re-form in small formations. They are unlikely to be operating in static formations and will have the advantage of surprise and flexibility.

Second, they have imbued themselves as champions of Islam. There is a widespread view in Pakistan that their government and the army establishment are doing the US bidding in taking on the Taliban. The United States is not terribly popular, both with the nationalists and Islamists.

Therefore, even when the Talban are wreaking havoc on the civilian population, people seem to have divided sympathies. Most people don’t like what the Taliban are doing to their own Islamic brothers, but they are also not happy with their government’s perceived coziness with the United States.

Third, the army’s cause is not helped when its military operations lead to the internal displacement of the people in a haphazard and chaotic way. Which only adds to the dissatisfaction of the people, when they have to fend for themselves without adequate help from the state.

In this process, the state is increasingly losing whatever moral authority it had. And when it cannot even protect its own citizens against brazen terrorist attacks in their own towns, it is progressively losing legitimacy.

At a basic level, a state’s legitimacy depends on providing physical security to its citizens, and some sort of economic hope for the future. On both these counts, Pakistan’s establishment (both political and military) has failed.

Its citizens are the targets of random terrorist violence anywhere in the country. And a large number of them have no jobs and no prospects.

No wonder, a good number of them are easy recruiting material for the Taliban and other allied extremist outfits.

There is a terrible disconnect between the establishment and the people at large that simply plays into the hands of the Taliban.

Writing in a mid-year issue of the New York Review of Books, Ahmed Rashid said, “Pakistan is close to the brink…we can expect a slow, insidious, long-burning fuse of fear, terror, and paralysis that the Taliban have lit and the state is unable, and partly unwilling to douse.”

Since then the situation has only worsened, with the terrorists subjecting the country to endless violence. The terrorist bombing in Peshawar is the latest example of this dance of death in Pakistan.

Pakistan was created in the name of religion. But it has failed to forge a common identity, as was demonstrated when Bangladesh was born because of ethnic and cultural reasons.

Now the Taliban are bent on redefining Pakistan in the name of a different brand of Islam. And the way things are going they seem to be setting the agenda by creating mayhem all around. And if they succeed in bringing down the Pakistani state, the implications are horrendous.

Pakistan is a nuclear state. And with the state weakened or simply becoming non-functional, the Taliban might become the new state. And that will give them access to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.

As US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reportedly said last April, “One of our concerns…is that if the worst, the unthinkable were to happen, and this advancing Taliban… were to essentially topple the government for failure to beat them back, then they would have the keys to the nuclear arsenal of Pakistan… we can’t even contemplate that.”

Nor would the rest of the world.