Has Pakistan made winning choices?

Let us examine Pakistan’s response to international pressure on three UNSC sanctioned groups – the Haqqani Network, the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Jaish-e-Muhammad.

The Haqqani Network (HQN) is now essentially the Afghan Taliban – whatever distinction we may once have been able to make between the two groups stands largely erased after the multiple changes at the top of the Afghan Taliban’s leadership, and the more prominent role for members of the Haqqani clan in that leadership structure. When anyone asks for the HQN to be shut down, they are essentially asking for Afghanistan to be rid of the most potent challenger to the US-backed Afghan state. So the question on the HQN really is this: What does Pakistan gain from clinging to the HQN and, in the bargain, destroying its friendship with the US?

The Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) is now essentially the Milli Muslim League (MML); whatever distinctions we may be compelled to draw between them are non-essential. Pakistani strategists have taken a long-standing international liability and transformed it into a domestic tumour. How fast it spreads and how deeply it penetrates will be determined by the people of this country – but, left unmolested, there are those who feel that ‘Prime Minister Hafiz Saeed’ would be the best antidote to Pakistan’s problems. That such people are not in jail, and not getting mental health support, is an indictment of the accountability mechanisms for public servants. When anyone asks about the LeT or JuD now, they are not asking for only about internationally sanctioned group accused of terror anymore, they are also asking about a political party that is perceived to be close to the views of some in the establishment.

So the question on the LeT, and more importantly on Hafiz Saeed is this: what does Pakistan gain from taking Hafiz Saeed out of house arrest, onto television screens with male bimbos interviewing him breathlessly, and into the political mainstream via the Milli Muslim League? Especially if all this is done whilst thumbing Pakistan’s nose at the international community – including, as it turns out, the Palestinian Authority, for whom Hafiz Saeed is what he is to the rest of the world: a terrorist.

The Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) receives the least attention, but represents the most complicated of the three. Unlike the Haqqanis, the JeM is not the guarantor of a Pakistani seat at the table. Unlike the LeT, the JeM has not been launched as a legitimate mainstream political party. When indications after the Pathankot incident pointed toward the JeM, and Indian officials suggested that there was no evidence that the JeM had the support of the Pakistani state, many optimists on the Pakistan-India relationship felt buoyed. But India’s suspicions are certainly piqued when China blocks the naming of Masood Azhar as a terrorist by the UN, not once but twice. So the question on the JeM is this: what does Pakistan gain from China going to bat for Masood Azhar at the UN?

These questions are deeply interlinked with the Trump administration’s dangerous and escalatory behaviour with Pakistan. The low-IQ reaction to American accusations of a double-game is to trot out the same hackneyed lines about Pakistan’s great sacrifices in the “war on terror”. This is low IQ for many reasons, but let us actually list some of them out to clarify what they are.

First, when Pakistan suggests that it should be respected because it has sacrificed 70,000 of its citizens in the fight against terror, it is shifting the agency for this fight away from Pakistan, and to those whose respect it craves. Did the Pakistan Army and the politicians who go along with it really fight the war on terror for America? Are the soldiers, spies and officers (not to mention police personnel) that have died in this fight a sacrificial offering to the US? No. They are not, were not, never will be. Pakistanis died for Pakistan. Not for the US.

Second, when Pakistan suggests that it should be respected because 70,000 lives have been lost in its fight against terror, it is attributing great competence and success to terrorists. Have you ever heard anyone try to win an argument by emphasising how much was lost? Pakistan is the only country in modern history to beat back a terror-fuelled, internationally financed campaign to destroy the country – what it has achieved against the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi are case studies in beating terrorism. No other country can boast of this kind of track record. Yet Pakistani talking points begin and end with how much Pakistan has lost: how many lives were lost, how much money was lost, how much of our syncretic culture was lost, how much tolerance was lost.

Meanwhile, Pakistan produced its best art, its best music, its best film, its best heroines, its best political resistance, its best urban infrastructure, and its best education, health and public services reforms during the same period when it was fighting the terrorists. So yes, many thousands of Pakistanis have died – but their deaths should not be currency in our negotiations with international partners or adversaries. We should have kept them alive. What we can legitimately be proud of is our ability to power through despite odds that would have flattened and destroyed many other countries.

Third, and this is most important, when Pakistan claims that it should be respected because of its sacrifices in the struggle against violent extremism and terrorism, it must remember that the country is then compelled to respect other countries with similar experiences. Most importantly, this would include Afghanistan, a country that has lived through conflict constantly since the late 1970s. Four generations of Afghans know only war and conflict. Four generations of Afghans know only displacement and disability. Four generations. There is no Afghan alive today that has not lived through a war that has destroyed major Afghan cities entirely. So if Pakistan deserves respect because it has suffered conflict and casualties and economic damage, then Afghanistan does too.

The problem with this moral equivalence is that Pakistan’s arguments for respect around the world are burdened with the HQN, LeT, and JeM. Pakistan’s case, otherwise very strong, is saddled with questions about what the country gains from continuing to cling to these three groups, that are deemed to be terrorist entities by the United Nations Security Council sanctions regime.

When Indians claim victimhood to terror, despite belonging to a country that elected a religious extremist with a reputation as a butcher, and despite the continued brutality of India’s occupation of Kashmir, the world listens. When Afghans claim victimhood to terror, they do it in sync with similar claims by the world’s most powerful country. The president of that country has now explicitly claimed this victimhood, and announced an intention to end it.

Most of Pakistan’s next moves will be determined by the military, because civilian leaders keep passing up opportunities to take ownership of the national security agenda. This is unfortunate because Trump’s tweet is like the US raid on Bin Laden or the terrorist attack on APS Peshawar, an exogenous shock that allows for difficult questions to be asked. While the world asks why Pakistan clings to the HQNs, LeTs and JeMs of the world, Pakistanis should know better. There is one reason and one reason alone: India.

So the real question is not why the HQN, LeT (now MML), or JeM are still in business. The real question is whether these tools have served in any way to prevent the emergence of a regional hegemon status for India. The real question is whether these tools have helped or harmed Pakistan’s own narrative about itself, for its people, forgetting for a moment what other countries think of Pakistan. The real question is: what do we think of ourselves? If these tools were meant to have prevented India from winning, and Pakistan from losing, then the real question is: is this what winning feels like?

The writer is an analyst and commentator.