The time of conflict is over

The time of conflict is over

Pakistan has survived a self-inflicted bloodbath for over a decade, or has it? This is a question that continually rattles the mind in the wake of the US entourage’s arrival in the country with a body language that is nowhere close to being friendly and a message that can only get Pakistan sucked in deeper into the quagmire.

While the US is preaching war, the unanimous resolution of the All Parties Conference (APC) called for ‘giving peace a chance’. So, at the outset, America and Pakistan stand at the opposite ends of the pendulum. Is there any prospect of reconciliation: either the US agreeing to accommodate the unanimous voice of the Pakistani nation, or Pakistan wilting, yet again, under the crude and mounting US pressure to launch another self-destructing operation?

What has Pakistan gained or lost in the last ten years of the unending conflict on its soil? Over 35,000 people including personnel of the armed forces dead, US$ 75 billion wasted on the fighting, suicide attacks across the length and breadth of the country forcing the people to live through a state of terror, economic prospects curtailed, foreign investment truncated and a general un-nerving state of tension afflicting the national psyche. Across the oceans, the US overlooks nonchalantly at the predicament of its so-called non-NATO ally and a frontline partner in the ‘war on terror’, repeatedly and belligerently coercing it to ‘do more’. It is in this environment that the Hillary Clinton-led group arrived in Pakistan - menacing in its demeanour and destructive in its messaging. How should Pakistan cope? By initiating a broad-based reconciliation process as envisaged in the unanimous APC Resolution or further accentuating the expanse and the intensity of a war that has created indescribable problems for its people and, if pursued any further, it harbours no prospects of any different results than what have been achieved so far?

Some may say the choice is simple: choose a path that suits Pakistan – the path of peaceful engagement with people who have taken up arms for a number of reasons ranging from defending their honour to a scathing hatred of the US intentions in this part of the world. That sounds simpler than it may actually be when it comes to walking the talk. There may be a genuine problem of perceptions. But more important than that are the alleged ‘unofficial’ commitments that our NRO-tainted leadership may have made to their foreign masters in facilitating their induction into power. Add to that the changed perception of the military hierarchy based on the experience of fighting a ‘foreign’ war for over a decade which has pitted out security personnel against their own people resulting in massive losses in men, material and stature.

It is widely believed that the political leadership is covertly desirous of acceding to the US demand of opening a new front against the Haqqanis in North Waziristan, thereby further stretching an already over-stretched army. They want to do so because they owe their ascendency and survival in this country to the blessings of the US leadership that ‘manufactured’ the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) with General Musharraf and his associates. A recent article published in the US also speaks of a letter understandably written by President Zardari to the US establishment to put pressure on the military leadership not to stage a coup d’état. In return, he promised to bring in new military and security leadership. The demand from the US is to honour the commitments that have been made as a quid pro quo for first coming into power and then prolonging their stay in the ruling echelons. So, as a first critical step to untangling the knot, all these commitments should be made public.

We may be headed in the direction of the inevitable confrontation with the US not because the political leadership desires so, but because the military leadership appears unwilling to make any further compromises potentially laced with prospects of damaging Pakistan’s security interests. There is a vast gulf that currently separates the humiliating political subservience from the ascendant military perception: while the former is willing, even insistent on ceding further ground to the US for the sake of staying in power, the military appears to have just about reached the end of the road in further endangering the national security paradigm. There is a growing assertion that Pakistan’s national interests alone should determine the position it should take in the so-called ‘war on terror’ and its allied undertakings.

Hillary’s aggressive posturing in Afghanistan and her subsequent ‘lecturing’ of Pakistani leadership, civil and military alike, on what the US expects of its ‘ally’ leaves little doubt that the two countries have nothing in common except some diplomatic niceties that may survive the bitter entanglement. A strange but significant component of the cumulative message that Hillary has delivered here is the one relating to the need to eliminate corruption. Now, everyone knows where the comment is directed which is like a public charge-sheet for the NRO-benefited leadership. Should it, therefore, be construed as a not-so-veiled threat to the political government to do as ordered, or they would be eased out by using the stick of corruption? The question would then arise: if not the incumbent conglomerate, then who? The military is already at odds with the US perception and is assertively unwilling to engage in expanding the network of war. While the military under General Musharraf played a strategic role in bringing the current corrupt concoction into power, the military under General Kiyani, by and large, has looked the other way as the presidential cronies and NRO-reprieved mafia unleashed an unrelenting spree of loot and plunder. But, the military has also shown a consistent unwillingness to take charge. Consequently, the only rational explanation of the comment would be that it is a blatant warning to the much-compromised and complicit political leadership to take heed and implement the NRO quid pro quo that brought them into power. That’s where the buck stops. Apparently, murmurings are distinctly audible from the corridors of power as to the possible fallout of the threat.

Whereto from here? An increasingly menacing US leadership demanding more and an equally unwilling Pakistan military hierarchy to oblige constitute the components that may hasten the departure of the political mafias entrenched in Islamabad. The dossier on their corruption is stacked before so many benches of the Supreme Court that, strangely, has repeatedly refused to go the full hog. Has the time finally come for bringing the curtain down on a poorly-scripted and directed drama that has been heartlessly played to a stricken audience without a break for almost four years now? Has the option of another election being a panacea to the ills afflicting the country been replaced with the prospect of an interim arrangement to address the cardinal issues of corruption and accountability? Whatever its nature and construction, would this option carry constitutional and judicial legitimacy for implementation?

All said and done, the time of the incumbent regime appears to be nearing as the prospect of another election is gradually giving way to the urgent need of a more clinical operation to cleanse the stage of a lot of muck generated over decades.