THE road from Shakai, South Waziristan, where the first peace accord with the Pakistani version of the Taliban was signed in 2004, is a long and winding one. It has been through Sararogha, Miramshah, Khyber and, perhaps most infamously, Swat. There have been several other stops along the way. And, while the focus in recent days has been on the many rounds of talks and why they failed, there is another essential aspect that has been somewhat overlooked: the TTP of 2014 is nothing like the Nek Mohammad-led group of predominantly Mehsud militants in 2004. In fact, Nek Mohammad would possibly not even recognise the TTP of today — though he would surely admire the scale and scope of its activities and ambitions.

When it comes to dealing with the TTP threat, the many strands of the issue often get mixed up and sometimes conflated. As it exists today, the TTP is not large or formidable enough to genuinely threaten the overthrow of the state. Nor by engaging the state in talks will the TTP necessarily be able to buy the time and space it needs to become a force capable of overthrowing the Pakistani state anytime soon. But that does not mean the TTP is not the single greatest threat to the internal security of Pakistan that this country has ever known — and that failure to deal with it now will not have catastrophic consequences for this country and its future. The real threat the TTP poses is twofold: one, the increasing clarity of its goals and agenda; and two, an ever-growing resilience and understanding of how to achieve its goals.

Those twin realities are particularly on display in the latest leadership of the TTP. Mullah Fazlullah is fiercely clear about what he wants to achieve — the takeover of the Pakistani state to begin — and, perhaps more than any previous TTP leader, understands what makes mainstream Pakistan tick and how to manipulate the public and its leadership. The moniker Mullah Radio was a precursor to a criminal mastermind who not only knows what he wants, but has all too obviously spent a great deal of time thinking about how he can achieve his objectives. Fazlullah also has the benefit of hindsight: his movement’s overreach in Swat is fairly plausibly the only reason why its rule was wrapped up so quickly. Merge a ruthless streak (there is absolutely no doubt that Fazlullah is one of the most ruthless militants Pakistan has ever seen) with the benefit of hindsight and a cold, calculating mind and there stands an enemy who can and has quickly run circles around the country’s leadership. Even now, with the government once again offering dialogue on unspecified terms and seemingly no red lines, the TTP has shown its shrewdness by conditionally accepting the dialogue offer while questioning the composition of the government’s dialogue committee.