A simplistic view holds that the “war on terror is America’s war” and not Pakistan’s war. In support of this contention, it is argued that there was no terrorism in Pakistan before the US invaded Afghanistan in December 2001 and compelled the Musharraf regime to abandon the Taliban regime in Kabul. This, the argument goes, provoked the Afghan Taliban to perceive Pakistan as an enemy instead of an ally and retaliate in the tribal areas and cities of Pakistan. Corollary: Pakistan should not support American forces in Afghanistan against the Taliban and it should withdraw its army from the tribal areas if it wants an end to terrorism in the country. An indignant footnote is usually appended to this: “We should not be killing our own people at America’s behest”.
This analysis is wrong on every factual count.
The Taliban in Afghanistan were allies of Pakistan without being enemies of America from 1995 to September 2001. Indeed, Islamabad had helped them capture Kabul and drive out the Northern Alliance while the US had invited them to build and operate a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan and beyond. All was fine until Mullah Umar invited Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network to make a base area in Afghanistan and approved the latter’s unprovoked attack on America on 9/11, 2001. This unholy alliance of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda compelled America to target Afghanistan after the Taliban refused its demand to oust Al-Qaeda from their country. Conclusion: America invaded Afghanistan after it was attacked by Afghanistan’s Al-Qaeda/Taliban on 9/11.
At that point Pakistan had two options. It could have sided with the Taliban/Al-Qaeda and taken on America, the UN and the rest of the West, which would have been both immoral and suicidal. Or it could have withdrawn support to the Taliban and let the Kabul regime and its Al-Qaeda friends fend for themselves against America, which is what it did. However, Pakistan was dragged into the quagmire after the Taliban/Al-Qaeda abandoned resistance to America inside Afghanistan, took refuge in the tribal areas of Pakistan and made them a base area from where to regroup and launch attacks on American and allied forces in Afghanistan.
At that point, Pakistan again had two options: it could have sealed its borders and forced the fleeing Taliban/Al-Qaeda to remain inside Afghanistan and not embroil Pakistan in their war with America. Or it could have allowed them to settle in its tribal areas but stopped them from launching attacks on American forces in Afghanistan. In the event, it didn’t take the first option because it didn’t have the manpower and resources to seal its borders and it couldn’t make the second option stick because the Afghan Taliban were not only bent on attacking across the border but also successful in galvanizing local Pakistani Taliban support for their mission statement.
That is the dilemma in which Pakistan finds itself. America is constantly pressurizing Islamabad to “do more” to put down the Taliban/Al-Qaeda network inside Pakistan so that the network cannot sustain its resistance to American forces in Afghanistan. But the more the Pakistan government acts against this network, the more it opens itself to counter attack by them, including terrorism in its cities. If Pakistan were to stop doing this, it would objectively enable this network to become stronger and inflict greater wounds on the Americans in Afghanistan, thereby provoking them to take direct action against the Taliban/Al-Qaeda network in the tribal areas of Pakistan and violate its sovereignty. And why shouldn’t it do so? If someone constantly attacks you and then takes refuge in your neighbour’s compound, you are within your rights to ask your neighbour to expel your enemy or risk your wrath for protecting him. Conclusion: American strikes on Taliban/Al-Qaeda bases in Pakistan’s tribal areas are justified if Pakistan’s armed forces cannot expel them from there. By the same token, the Pakistani army’s action against local/foreign/Talibanised elements who defy the writ of the Pakistani state inside Pakistan are justified.
The argument that the Pakistani army should not kill its own people under any circumstance is nonsensical in this particular context. The Pakistani/Afghan Taliban are hurting the Pakistani state by their provocative alliance with Al-Qaeda foreigners. No state has ever had any qualms in killing its “own people” when its own people have risen up in revolt against it, whether it is Naxalism in India or Tamil separatism in Sri Lanka or Kurd nationalism in Iraq, Iran and Turkey, and so on.
The Pakistani “peace deals” with the Taliban must be seen in this context. They are doomed to fail if the Taliban/Al-Qaeda network refuses to heed the writ of the Pakistani state inside Pakistan and continues to use its territory to wage war against America in Afghanistan from Pakistani soil. The demands for “Shariatisation” of Swat etc are all red herrings. Conceding these will mean increasing loss of Pakistani sovereignty and territory to the Taliban/Al-Qaeda. This will enable them to launch more sustained attacks on Afghanistan, which will provoke greater retaliation by America in Pakistan’s borderlands.
That is why the people of Pakistan and their civil-military leaders must own the war on terror for the sake of their own state’s sovereignty, stability and well-being.