Now that Pakistan has taken the fight to the Taliban, one
wonders why it did not so earlier. The country’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik
has been quoted as saying of the Taliban, “We will not tolerate them anymore.”
The resolve in that assertion ought to make the international community happy.
He also said something that should have been the guiding
principle of the government from the get-go. "No one will be allowed to
challenge the writ of the government," Malik said. The writ of the
government was not just challenged by the Taliban when it took over the Swat
Valley, it was ridiculed when it walked into Buner District unmolested.
A major military offensive was launched in the Lower Dir
area, which is about 170 kilometers northwest of the capital Islamabad. So far
some 70 militants have been killed in the action which is likely to continue. North
West Frontier Province (NWFP) Information Minister Iftikhar Hussain repeated
Malik’s comment when he said, "The government needed to deploy security
forces in Buner because the militants were challenging its writ.”
Pakistan has to be aware that this is not a fight it can
leave halfway in the hope that the military has made its point. The Taliban has
been known to be both persistent because it sees its fight as an eternal one.
Their goals and those of Al-Qaeda are so nebulous that it is hard for any military
force trained to understand and deal with a conflict in terms of its beginning
and end to effectively deal with the Taliban-Al Qaeda combine.
It is some consolation that Islamabad was propelled into
action by the mounting criticism of its handling of the crisis around the
world, particularly in Washington. Unless the Pakistanis see this fight as a
battle for their own survival and create enough pressure on the country’s military
and political institutions it is unlikely that the campaign against the Taliban
will be sustained.
In this context one has to mention the highly mature role
played by some of the country’s leading newspapers in reminding the government
as well as the military that their focus should be the Taliban’s immediate
threat rather than obsessing over what India might or might not do. "At
this juncture, we know that we have the army strong in numbers and strength to
take care of the Taliban, but we first must convince it that the threat from
India is only relative while that of the Taliban is absolute,” The Daily Times
said in an editorial.
This distinction must be at the center of any policy shift
in Pakistan vis-à-vis India. There is no serious constituency in India that is
even remotely interested in engaging in any military adventurism in Pakistan.
The major demographic shift in India in the past two decades, which has led to
a population of 550 million people below the age of 25, is bound to cause a
fundamental policy shift as well. Young Indians, like young people anywhere in
the world, are no longer interested in settling historic scores. Slow but
surely India’s political classes have begun to understand this important
development.