1
THE only certainty one can be sure of, they say, is change. And even as we look into an uncertain future, we can see some key trends. Then we look at the forces that are driving those trends and slowly a pattern begins to emerge. These visions make the future look less hazy. Here’s some of what we see:
Pakistan is facing a long war and this is not a war that will produce a victor and a vanquished anytime soon.
Pakistan is fighting a creed. This war is not so much with the Taliban as much as against the Talibanisation of our society — the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) representing only the extreme end in that spectrum.
The right-wing narrative is beginning to sound more and more ludicrous. False premises — that this is ‘America’s war’, that drone strikes are a key cause of terrorism and the Taliban are ‘misguided brothers’ — led to flawed prescriptions: block Nato supplies and negotiate with the Taliban. That narrative may well be at risk of becoming unhinged. It is difficult to decide which is more outrageous: Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar suggesting a ‘cricket match with the Taliban’; or Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chief Imran Khan suggesting that the majority of Taliban are ‘peace-loving’ and the TTP therefore should be allowed to open an office in Peshawar.
The relatively liberal parties are displaying clearer thinking, and a realisation that they may have a story that will better resonate with their constituencies. Expect them to keep churning the wheel to their advantage.
The parties of the right, arranged like dominoes, cannot stray too far from their long-held positions without appearing to be ‘switching sides’. Eventually if they do come round, they will find themselves in a squeeze zone, encroaching on the turf of the liberal parties whose story would be more original and spun to a greater degree of sophistication.
A continuous low to medium intensity conflict is foreseen. This is the ‘steady state’ that the talk-fight-talk-fight sequence appears to be heading towards.
The TTP will mostly strike military targets. The TTP as an Al Qaeda affiliate has been tutored in propaganda by the likes of Abu Yahya al Libi, Al Qaeda’s erstwhile chief information officer. Al-Libi was killed by a predator drone but not before he taught the current TTP chief Mullah Fazlullah that attacking military targets will raise the militants’ prestige without greatly alienating the right-wing civilian population. Only when a strong message needs to be sent to the civilian leadership will the TTP strike a civilian or political target.
The ‘cat and mouse’ game will continue without a decisive outcome. The TTP fighters will escape into Afghanistan when the fighting season ends or if they come under unbearable heat. Other fighters may melt away into the plains and settled areas and remain hidden for a while. This way, the TTP will pose a continuous and sustained challenge. Some factions seek to destroy the state and military, others seek to unravel it through breakdown and desertions and yet others, notably the TTP Mohmand, wish to seize the state intact. Quite likely that some factions will at times break ranks. Meanwhile, on its part, the military has already demonstrated its newer methods and technology and we can expect to see increasing sophistication in surveillance and targeting in the months and years ahead.
Right-wing and religious forces will harness the TTP threat to their advantage and insert themselves as interlocutors in the process. From this position they can leverage their strength and extract maximum concessions from a beleaguered state. As the TTP held the gun to our heads, the Council of Islamic Ideology was recently able to put pressure on us to change laws restricting polygamy and child marriages.
The situation ironically places liberal parties in an enviable position giving them an opportunity to craft a more sensible and sellable narrative with which to win back followers lost to the right.
To contain any such successful thrust from the liberal parties, the TTP will use the threat of violence as it did in the general election last year when it did not allow them to campaign or hold political rallies.
Pakistan will remain part of Al Qaeda’s larger battlefield which includes Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, North Africa and parts of Central Asia. The TTP will not only draw ‘franchise benefits’ but also fully leverage the ‘strategic depth’ available to it in Afghanistan’s Pakhtun territories.
This may yet be a simplified model but one that lets us construct more elaborate scenarios with these building blocks. Such scenarios can help us gain an understanding of the shape of things to come and hopefully prepare pre-emptive policy responses.
The writer is a strategist and entrepreneur.
