The dreaded blowback

Legal eye

Everyone knew there would be blowback. But we are so self-congratulatory and flippant that we declared success in the middle of a fight while we thought we had an upper hand.

This week we saw a new round start and found the enemy alive and well. Those who declared the enemy’s back to have been broken might have to eat some words, work up the rage again and identify fresh conspiracies to explain the attacks. But the blowback is most depressing for those who felt all along that our prognosis was wrong and so was our treatment of the malaise.

At this stage the average Pakistani who fears for the lives of his loved ones is wondering if the state is really concerned enough about the loss of ordinary lives to be willing to go back to the drawing board and revisit the existing national security calculus. The average Pakistani also wonders whether, given existing priorities, the state has the ability to articulate a vision and policy geared towards protecting ordinary lives and whether the state has the capacity to take and implement tough decisions.

On February 15 after consistent attacks across Pakistan claimed by Jamaatul Ahrar, the prime minister stated – while expressing grief over loss of lives in Mohmand – that: “it is the sacrifice by [the] armed forces that has made the motherland’s security impregnable.” To eulogise, celebrate or express gratitude for sacrifices rendered by soldiers and policemen is one thing. But how does one characterise a PM’s disconnect from reality – a PM who declares that his country’s security is impregnable when it is under vicious attack?

After the Sehwan attack our army chief declared that “each drop of the nation’s blood will be revenged (avenged?)… No more restraint for anyone”, and further that “our security forces shall not allow hostile forces to succeed.” Daesh claimed the attack that took away at least 76 devotees of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar. The same day Daesh also claimed the deadliest attack in Iraq this year, killing 52 people. Was the army chief acknowledging and referring to Daesh as a hostile force to be defeated?

Given that the army chief has also warned foreign intelligence agencies to give up mischief mongering, has he decided to draw the hammer and we will now look for nails to be flattened?

The Pak-Afghan border has been closed down for now. This week the Foreign Office summoned the Afghan deputy head of mission to protest against Jamaatul Ahrar’s attacks from terror pads in Afghanistan. Are we contemplating doing what India claimed it did a few months back: carry out surgical strikes across the border to neutralise ‘terror-launch pads’?

When Afghans and Americans allege that we enable the Taliban and the Haqqanis to cross the border and attack Afghan forces, our formal response is that the border is long and porous and we can’t keep track of all those who cross it on a daily basis. On the issue of the Taliban, our more candid private response is that they control large swathes of territory in provinces neighbouring Pakistan and as the Afghan government isn’t really sustainable on its own or capable of exercising control across Afghanistan, antagonising the Taliban isn’t in our interest.

Are we now saying that because Fazlullah, TTP and JuA etc have taken refuge in Afghanistan, we are going to hold Afghanistan responsible for attacks they carry out in Pakistan? Is the irony within such reasoning lost on us? Afghanistan, India and the US have been alleging for years that the state of Pakistan is responsible for the actions of non-state actors based in Pakistan or linked to it by virtue of their origin. And we have vociferously argued that no state responsibility can be attributable to a state for actions of non-state actors. Are we now conceding?

Gen Kayani’s explanation for not initiating a cleansing operation in Fata was that it would create the revolving door problem (unless operations were launched by Pakistani and US/Afghan forces simultaneously) – ie when Pakistan hits terrorists in Fata they would flee to Afghanistan and keep doing what they are doing from across the border. When we launched Operation Zarb-e-Azb we knew of this conundrum. The APS attack was guided from Afghanistan. Two years later, why are we faced with the same problem and no solutions?

When Fazlullah was establishing control over Swat, locals believed no one could annex territory without the state’s acquiescence. To date there is no reasonable explanation for why Pakistan ceded control of vast chunks of its territory to the TTP. Now that the TTP is across the border in Afghanistan where the Afghan state has little control, do we wish to hold Afghanistan responsible for the TTP’s actions?

That Kabul hates Pakistan and blames the ISI for all that is wrong with Afghanistan is no secret. Let’s assume that Afghanistan is the enemy. What then?

Let’s assume we carry out strikes in Afghanistan and kill Fazlullah. Will that end terror? Was the TTP less vicious under Hakeemullah or Baitullah? When we blame foreign agencies, isn’t it true that we are blaming them for financing and patronising our home-grown terrorists gone rogue? Just like extinguishing the TTP’s emirate from Fata was necessary to fight terror but not sufficient, killing Fazlullah could be a morale booster and border control a needed containment measure. But none of these in isolation are end goals in the fight against terror.

Bravado is useful to bolster public confidence when under attack. But it is no substitute for sensible policy. Whether or not poverty, absence of upward mobility, lack of justice etc play a role in motivating terrorists to turn against state and society, we need to admit that the driving force behind terror is a faith-inspired violent ideology that justifies terror in the name of religion. We can call it misconception about scripture or abuse of religion, but we can’t disregard terrorists’ understanding of religion as a dominant reason for what they do.

What have we done so far to address the ideological basis of terror in Pakistan? Has the supply chain of hate-filled violent ideology been shut down under NAP?

The second problem area is our national security calculus. We acknowledge that there was a time when the state produced and patronised non-state actors as tools to promote security objectives. When did the state shut down this project as a policy measure, realising that it was misconceived? The argument in favour of such shutdown is that faith-inspired militants outside the discipline of state institutions can go rogue or be bought or inspired by foreign enemies and the state shouldn’t create weapons readily useable against its people.

How do we prevent the cooption of our home-grown non-state actors by hostile foreign states? We know that in 4th generation warfare non-state actors continue to gravitate towards newer terror outfits. No folks from the Levant have moved to Afghanistan or Pakistan to establish Daesh. It is the erstwhile assets of the Taliban, TTP and LeJ etc that have now sworn allegiance to Daesh. Can Pakistan deter hostile foreign powers from using Daesh or the TTP against Pakistan if we make evident our resolve to use non-state actors against them in a no-holds-barred manner?

Let us assume that for every Pakistani killed by terrorists we can employ non-state actors to claim an equal number of lives in Afghanistan or India, as required. Would that be a sufficient response? Would Pakistani lives lost in such a proxy war be an acceptable cost for the state? Is the cost that we will bear in terms of continued radicalisation of society even tangible? Is such an approach to a debilitating proxy war (relying on superior employment of a fundamentally flawed strategy) not itself insane?

To extinguish terror we will need to: (i) extinguish the faith-driven ideology of hate that continues to proliferate in Pakistan; and (ii) fix our national security calculus that seems focused on better controlling non-state actors and preventing their cooption by foreign enemies as opposed to liquidating them.

The writer is a lawyer based in Islamabad.

Email: sattar@post.harvard.edu