Pakistan is under attack by the Taliban who are determined to destroy Pakistan's secular values, and by the Americans, who are also determined to eliminate the Taliban. Poor Pakistanis are being squeezed to the limit and there is no way out for the ordinary Pakistanis and they are trapped in this unavoidable battle.
Pakistan did the right thing by aligning with the United States to fight the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, but it has been hell after that. Unknowingly, Pakistan and the United States gave birth to Al Qaeda, the biggest terrorism threat that we face today, when they started inviting religious fighters from around the world to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. Now, we are paying for not anticipating the growth of religious fervor.
Leaving aside the chatter that we hear from knee jerk experts about "Pakistan is not doing enough', the situation on the ground is deteriorating every day and we do run the risk of losing the fight in FATA, the central battleground of war against terrorism. Quite frankly, no one, despite the claim, no one actually knows what is going on inside Pakistan and how the war on terror is being handled by the military under the civilian leadership. What we do know is that Taliban are strengthening their grip on areas they control, and the forces responsible for fighting them are both losing ground and naturally, losing the nerve to fight. It is only natural that the people in uniform are not equipped despite having better equipment because they are fighting an elusive, brutal, and committed-to-die enemy.
Now we have a new president in Pakistan who appears to be saying all the righting things, but we have to wait to see how he handles the war now that he himself his in-charge. The god thing from Pakistan's perspective is that his elevation to the presidency would continue the flow of aid to Pakistan. And given his progressive outlook, it is an also understandable that he won't back down from a tough fight from the Taliban.
The not so good news is that the current government in Pakistan is entirely dependent on its allies and some of the allies are opposed to the war effort. Hence the challenge!
Washington should, if it could, move to connect with non-religious parties who are opposing the war effort against the nutty militants. Yes, it is a painstakingly slow process because we will have to reach them one by one, but once we have them fully on-board, it would become a lot easier to have the majority of the secular population on our side in this battle against the Taliban. This might not be the most desirable option, but it will yield spectacular results in the long run, if implemented properly.
Bilal Qureshi
