Events in Pakistan are fast approaching critical mass. Islamabad's deal with the Tanzim Nifaz Shariat-e-Muhammadi (TNSM) has set off alarm bells from Washington to New Delhi. This is such a big no-no. Signing off on a pending measure to increase the number of troops in Afghanistan by 17,000, US president Barack Obama drew a clear link between the situation there and the rapidly deteriorating state of affairs in Pakistan. New Delhi has been unequivocal in its condemnation of the truce and NATO has expressed misgivings as well. They all have cause for concern. Islamabad's actions have raised a multitude of troubling questions which the no Civilized Govt. can answer.
Shown in the figure is the Afghanistan -Pakistan border, with areas colored in Red under Taliban Control & in Yellow under Taliban Threat as of 2004.
Trying to discern which of its multiplicity of voices represents the real Pakistan is the foremost of these. President Asif Zardari's admission that the Taliban are taking over the country seems like a powerless head of state's desperate gambit to impel US action. The truce, on the other hand, bears Rawalpindi's fingerprints. Some analysts believe that it is a tactical retreat so that another front can be opened against the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in Waziristan. A far more troubling possibility, however, is that some generals are giving the Taliban breathing space, still believing it an asset to be controlled even if it means compromising the integrity of the Pakistani state.
Whatever it may be, the situation is close to crossing the red line beyond which the international community will have no option but to act. The Taliban is running a quasi-state stretching from east of Kabul to the western third of Pakistan with al-Qaeda elements finding safe haven in its territory. Threats have been made against India and there are indications of an eastward expansion by the Taliban into Islamabad. When US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said in Tokyo that the extremist elements in Pakistan posed a direct threat to the US, she was, if anything, understating the case. If the Taliban gains access to Pakistan's nuclear assets, it will be a game-changer for the world.
In such a situation, India can do little save focus on the security of its western border and keep open lines of communication with the US, Russia and China among others. To assume that the Pakistani military would be willing or able to regain lost ground after the truce would be dangerous. If I am correct, it was precisely in this way that the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan commenced in 1994, with a populace weary of constant warfare welcoming it as the bringer of a tenuous peace, and finding too late that it was riding a tiger. In Pakistan, where the civilian government does not control the military, jihadi elements permeate both the military and the ISI and the generals still cling to disastrous tenets of 'strategic depth', the fallout is likely to be worse.
So is this a political drama or an intelligent move by "Bureaucracy of Terrorism", we just have to wait and watch. But to rather think that the truce would ease the tensions on the border is a farce proposition.
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