Challenging the often repeated accusation of not doing enough, the former governor of the North West Frontier Province, Lt Gen (r) Aurakzai aptly remarked that either NATO (US forces are part of NATO in Afghanistan) is trying to hide its own weaknesses by levelling allegations against Pakistan or is refusing to admit the facts. He questioned: "Why did the coalition come to Afghanistan? To find Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar and the Taliban; or for democracy, reconstruction and development, and [to] leave a stable Afghanistan which wouldn’t be vulnerable to terrorists. Tell me, which one of those objectives has been achieved? I went to Kabul … and they are all living in a big bunker with no control over Afghanistan. There is no law and order. The insurgency has become far worse…Is that success?"
Not astonishingly, General Aurakzai lost his job after these blunt remarks.
Pakistan’s political scenario has been changed after the February 18 elections in which Musharraf’s Muslim League-Q party was routed and Benazir Bhutto’s People’s Party and Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N emerged as the largest victors. The election results are widely seen as a repudiation of President Musharraf’s eight year’s autocratic rule as well as Bush Administration which has staunchly backed Musharraf for more than six years as its best bet in the campaign against the militants in Pakistan.
With a very vocal parliament, it will be difficult for President Musharraf and Army Chief General Kayani to yield to all US demands. This is the reason that Nawaz Sharif told Negroponte bluntly Pakistan is no longer a one-man show and the new parliament will decide policy about how to deal with extremism. The last parliament, elected after the 2002 massively rigged elections, was so docile that in its Defense Committee report for the last four years the only mention of the ‘fight against terrorism’ was about a resolution by the committee in 2007 criticizing the United States for threatening to link the amount of aid to Pakistan to the performance of the army.
Not surprisingly, the Pakistani media is reflecting this popular sentiment. The News, the English-language daily of Pakistan's biggest media conglomerate, published a scathing editorial headlined Hands off please, Uncle Sam: “For most citizens, the indications that Washington is eager to enforce its own writ in parts of the country or dictate policy decisions are highly distressing. This is particularly so as it is obvious that US-led policies in the Middle East have contributed to the growth of hatred for the country and those it supports. Inside Pakistan, that includes President Pervez Musharraf. The spate of terrorist attacks that have taken place, and indeed continue in an unceasing wave, indicate an urgent need to alter strategies and devise policies to save people from the wrath of the killers.”
Similar views were expressed by another leading newspaper Dawn: Pakistan needs little prodding from outside to fight terrorism today…..The Americans must know that Pakistanis, too, have borne the brunt of their right or wrong policies. Unless Islamabad fights terrorism as its own battle and as the elected government deems fit, raining bombs on tribal areas will not root out the problem but compound it, especially if innocent civilians keep falling victim to such strikes. The American strategy has failed in Afghanistan and Iraq; it will not work in Pakistan.
Another leading newspaper the Nation commented: “For Pakistan the best course is to tackle the situation with persuasion and for the US to beat a quick retreat from the Afghan arena. Otherwise if it continued to follow a hard line approach, the pervasive anti-US sentiments would get even more entrenched….It is quite clear that the military operations and Pentagon Predator missile attacks on Pakistan's soil, perhaps in complicity with Islamabad, have roused anger against the government and intense hatred of the US not only among the inhabitants of the tribal areas, but also in the rest of the country.”
In the past, President (General) Musharraf, who was also Chief of Army Staff till November 28, 2007, was able to implement an unpopular policy of Pakistan army’s operations in FATA and Swat but the new political leadership has to respond to the aspirations of the people who see the army operations quite differently.
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