PAKISTAN is at war with itself on many fronts. It is not only a battle for its soul but also for its very existence. But the battle is already half lost when there is confusion in the ranks about who is the enemy and fear paralyses the will to fight.

The declaration of the recent multiparty conference, called by Maulana Fazlur Rahman’s Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam, on peace talks with the Taliban was virtually a signing of a surrender document — weak political leadership buying security for themselves, leaving the people at the mercy of terrorists.

Less than a week after the declaration supporting virtually unconditional negotiations with the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, the terrorists struck again by blowing up, in Karachi, an entire block of apartments predominantly inhabited by the Shia community. There was no claim of responsibility for the gruesome attack that killed scores of men, women and children.

But the footprints lead to a Taliban aligned sectarian outfit. Last week another bombing destroyed a mosque in Peshawar killing several worshippers. The wages of appeasement are leading to the loss of more innocent lives and pushing the country towards more instability.

Not only did the conference concede to the Taliban’s conditions for so-called peace negotiations, it even dropped the word terrorism to mollify those responsible for murder. The killings of thousands of people were instead attributed to “lawlessness”, absolving the Taliban of suicide bombings and beheadings of security personnel for whom they themselves had claimed the responsibility.

Nothing could be more farcical than the conference declaration that reduced the whole issue of militant violence to a war between the Taliban and the army. For peace, it declared, it is essential to bring the two sides to the negotiating table. The fact that the TTP and its allies have declared a war on the Pakistani state was completely ignored by the participants in their eagerness to placate the Taliban.

The five-point declaration seems to be a part of the move by the political parties to distance themselves from the military operations against the militants in Fata. Thousands of soldiers have been killed fighting the militants who had turned the already lawless region into a new hub of terrorism presenting an existentialist threat not only to Pakistan, but also challenging regional security.

Nothing can be more treacherous than legitimising the violence and absolving those responsible for the death of thousands of Pakistanis. No wonder the Taliban have welcomed the multiparty declaration which has virtually validated the terms set by the banned terrorist outfits.

One can understand the defence of the Taliban by the JUI-F and other right-wing Islamic parties, who have contributed to the rise of militant narratives in this country. But the signing of the declaration by parties like the Pakistan Peoples Party, Awami National Party, Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement is quite shocking.

Although there is no formal government approval for the declaration, the participation of the members of the coalition at the conference provides tacit support to the peace talks. This has created huge confusion about the government’s position on fighting militant violence and the nature of the threat confronted by the country.

The peace talks would apparently be conducted by a tribal jirga under the supervision of the newly appointed governor of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, providing some kind of official sanction to the initiative. Although the formal negotiations have yet to start because of the non-response from the army leadership, the declaration seems to have already adversely affected the counterterrorism efforts of the security agencies.

The recent terrorist attacks in Karachi and Peshawar are glaring examples of unrelenting violence despite the peace talk offer by the Taliban. For sure there is a strong nexus between the TTP and the sectarian groups involved in the large-scale killing of Shias across the country.

What makes the declaration more absurd is that it makes a peace deal, if it happens, binding on any future government. These kinds of guarantees are obviously not going to work. But they can certainly be used by the militants to strengthen their position.

It is so obvious that the purpose of the multiparty conference, so close to the elections, was to mollify the Taliban to get them to halt violence during the election campaign. But there is no indication, yet, that there will be any respite in terrorist attacks particularly those directed at the parties on the Taliban hit list.

The militants have warned that they will continue to target the ANP, the MQM and the PPP, which unfortunately are also signatories to the declaration. Undoubtedly, the ANP has suffered the most with militant violence gripping Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. But it now appears to have relented after the assassination of its senior party leaders.

The effort to buy security through appeasement is certainly not going to work. Instead it will result in more insecurity. The Taliban and their allies only seek to buy time through engaging in so-called peace talks to create more space to expand their activities, as they have done in the past.

There seems no possibility of the peace talks taking off, but the declaration has further widened the gulf between the political leadership and the military with disastrous consequences for Pakistan’s battle against militancy and terrorism. Most definitely security forces cannot fight the enemy without political support. The multiparty conference has exposed the civil and military divide that has consistently hampered the formulation of a coherent counterterrorism strategy.

While most political parties, either out of fear or driven by political expediency, pursue a policy of capitulation, the military’s ambivalence on militancy and sources of extremism has contributed to the current paralysis of policymaking. It is the main reason for the failure to build a national narrative so important to ridding the country of the menace of terrorism and extremism.

The writer is an author and journalist.

zhussain100@yahoo.com Twitter: @hidhussain