NOT a day passes without further news of death and disaster from the tribal areas along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.

These reports of the deteriorating law and order situation are increasingly featuring in the western media where they are viewed with growing alarm.

For instance, The Times, London said in an editorial titled ‘Khyber Impasse’ on June 26: “Pakistan is already an anomaly. Without being labelled a failed state, it comprises large swaths of territory where its central government’s writ does not run and its forces dare not deploy… in Swat, where troops have been withdrawn and Sharia has largely replaced Pakistani law; and in South Waziristan where the power vacuum has been filled by Baitullah Mehsud, leader of the Taliban faction that is now encircling Peshawar.

“Officially, Islamabad has not ceded control of Peshawar to anyone. Yet the Taliban are already closing down music shops and internet cafes. Those business owners who can are leaving… Mr Gilani and President Musharraf have both used the same rationale for doing deals with separatist militants. It is better to appease them, they argue, than to wage an unwinnable civil war that could engulf the whole country.

“Yet where Pakistani forces have withdrawn, the Taliban have muscled in, with Al Qaeda in its shadow. Cross-border attacks into Afghanistan have more than doubled since last year, hampering Nato’s and President Karzai’s nation-building efforts and making Islamabad look weak, not wise. Peshawar is where Mr Gilani must be strong. It is sovereign Pakistani territory, unambiguously and vitally. It must not fall.”

My excuse for quoting this view at such length is that it basically repeats what some of us have been saying for a long time. The erosion in the writ of the state has been steady and relentless, with the previous government giving in repeatedly to militant pressure. Perhaps the prime example of this masterly strategy of perpetual retreat is the Lal Masjid disaster. For months, Musharraf and his advisers dilly-dallied while militants built up their defences. Instead of doing the obvious, and getting the children’s library vacated, the female madressah students were allowed to occupy it for months. Many of us had argued from day one that the government should just cut off utilities, and force the students to emerge.

From the very beginning, this creeping insurgency has been treated as an ideological and strategic issue, rather than the law and order problem it basically is. By negotiating endlessly with violent law-breakers, we have given them a legitimacy they did not deserve. Emboldened, they have used classic salami tactics, slicing off bits of land and sovereignty. And predictably, they have used the respite provided to them by these long-drawn out talks to strengthen their position. Time after time, they have then broken their word, and attacked government targets yet again.

There is a kind of blind desperation in the government’s desire to sign a peace deal at any cost. Unfortunately, the price these extremists want to extract is very high: they want nothing less than to impose Taliban-style rule across the country. In a sense, those in charge are negotiating from a position of weakness as a significant segment of the military and civil bureaucracy as well as a large section of the media, are ideologically on the side of the militants.

Understandably, the West views these developments with alarm. Its worst nightmare is an expansion of the territory the extremists already control. In a recent survey conducted by the American publication Foreign Policy, and the Fund for Peace, published in this newspaper on Wednesday, Pakistan was placed ninth in the list of dysfunctional states. The survey uses a number of criteria to calculate the stability of 177 states, and our situation has steadily worsened over the years.

Fortunately, the present government finally seems to have grasped the gravity of the situation. In a recent meeting chaired by Prime Minister Yousuf Gilani in Peshawar, and attended by the top army brass as well as provincial leaders of the NWFP, a number of decisions were taken to tackle the threat faced by the province. How effectively these will be implemented remains to be seen. Thus far, our troops, especially those from the various militias and the Frontier Constabulary, have shown little stomach for a fight. Even regular soldiers have shown an embarrassing propensity to lay down their arms rather than face the militants.

Psychologically, a civil war is one of the hardest conflicts to fight as it pits brother against brother. One reason our officers and soldiers had no compunctions about shooting at Bengali civilians in 1971 was that they saw them as enemy aliens, and not our own kith and kin. Much of the army is drawn from Punjab and the NWFP, and because of family and tribal links, using them in these provinces is tricky.

The other problem is that our soldiers believe the insurgents are fighting in the name of Islam: mullahs leading prayers across the country have been urging their followers to reject their leaders and accept the rule of the Taliban. This skewed ideology has gone unchallenged by the establishment, making soldiers and officers susceptible to the blandishments of self-styled religious leaders.

At the recent meeting in Peshawar, it was recognised that the threat from Islamic militants was the most serious one being faced by Pakistan. And yet, little effort has been made over the years to convince the public of the reality of this danger. The result is that there is huge ambiguity on how to counter it. Anti-western sentiment has gained ground, and has made it correspondingly harder to fight the common enemy.

Given the altered threat assessment at the highest level of government, it makes strategic sense to re-orient our defence posture. Keeping the bulk of our army on our border with India is now out of sync with our security requirements. It does not take a Napoleon to work out that it is in India’s interest for Pakistan to win its existential struggle against the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

Indeed, if we are to win, New Delhi, Islamabad and Kabul will have to cooperate and fight the common enemy. This will require a fundamental change in military thinking, but without it, the entire region risks being engulfed by the forces of darkness.

irfan.husain@gmail.com