Operation Zarb-e-Azb: Looking Beyond the Battlefield — Editorial

Pak­istan military’s anoth­er major offen­sive against the TTP and oth­er mil­i­tants in North Wazi­ras­tan is in full swing. Accord­ing to the reports from the front line, the mil­i­tary is blitzkrieg­ing enemy’s units and hide­outs. Hope­ful­ly the oper­a­tion is not far from a com­plete vic­to­ry on the ground. How­ev­er, unlike ISPR’s rhetor­i­cal claim of not leav­ing behind a sin­gle ter­ror­ist, the real­i­ty is far from it. The less than expect­ed resis­tance on the ground hints to the fact that a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of mil­i­tants might already have escaped from the area. The con­tex­tu­al unfa­vor­able fac­tors of the porous bor­der to the West and mas­sive infil­tra­tion of mil­i­tants into oth­er urban cen­ters fur­ther rein­force such think­ing.
What dis­tin­guish­es this oper­a­tion from the ear­li­er ones is the clar­i­ty expressed both by mil­i­tary and civil­ian lead­er­ship in undo­ing the dis­tinc­tion between good and bad Tal­iban. Though com­mend­able, but so far this has only been a ver­bal com­mit­ment. While the crit­ics are already sus­pi­cious of this claim, based on our past record, our lead­er­ship will have to make sure to stay hon­est to this new com­mit­ment.

In order to fur­ther block the pos­si­bil­i­ty of such insur­gen­cies in the future, an addi­tion­al par­a­digm shift is need­ed in our secu­ri­ty and for­eign pol­i­cy: To get away from the pol­i­cy of sup­port­ing all non-state actors – and that applies to all oth­ers mil­i­tants based in var­i­ous places includ­ing Pun­jab. From Afghan Jihad in 80s to the Haqqani net­work, the fail­ure of sup­port­ing mil­i­tants for strate­gic objec­tives is all too obvi­ous.
The oth­er sig­nif­i­cant aspect of this oper­a­tion, like all oth­ers, is the pub­lic opin­ion front. On the face of it, the way dif­fer­ent polit­i­cal actors and ide­o­log­i­cal­ly oppos­ing fac­tions have come togeth­er to sup­port mil­i­tary in this just war is com­mend­able. Even those who used to term any such oper­a­tion a poten­tial sui­cide, instant­ly came to sup­port the mil­i­tary. Such dra­mat­ic change in pub­lic opin­ion is a reminder of the eerie fact of who calls the shots in this coun­try. Yet let’s not over­look the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a dif­fer­ent sit­u­a­tion after the oper­a­tion is over. The habit­u­al polit­i­cal point scor­ing and the unsa­vory oppo­si­tion can again jeop­ar­dize the civil­ian leadership’s attempt to tack­le in the prob­lem in the long run. End­ing mil­i­tan­cy is not just a mat­ter of mil­i­tary oper­a­tion. There are a num­ber of fac­tors involved in it which can­not be under­tak­en with­out civil­ian suprema­cy.

IDPs Cri­sis:
The stag­ger­ing num­ber of half a mil­lion peo­ple dis­placed as a result of the North Wazi­ras­tan oper­a­tion is noth­ing short of a human­i­tar­i­an cri­sis. As the oper­a­tion was planned and expect­ed way before it actu­al­ly start­ed, the acute lack of plan­ning in deal­ing with the cri­sis is noth­ing short of a shame. Apart from the human­i­tar­i­an aspect, the wretched­ness suf­fered by IDPs a poten­tial fac­tor for los­ing their hearts and minds in favor of the mil­i­tants. While PML (N) gov­ern­ment can spare bil­lions for youth fes­ti­val, the scanty grant of Rs. 500 mil­lion for the IDPs is sure­ly far from suf­fi­cient.