Pakistan goes to war in Swat
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has declared war in Swat and he has all the important stakeholders on board. The peace deal — directly with Sufi Muhammad and indirectly with the Taliban — was sincerely followed by the government in the teeth of many dire predictions of conceding advantage to the Taliban under the guise of sharia embodied in the Nizam-e Adl. But even as Sufi Muhammad parleyed, his son-in-law and warlord Fazlullah violated the pledge of the “stand still” agreement, killed people, destroyed girls’ schools, maltreated women and generally intimidated a population that had returned from their earlier exodus by reposing trust in him.
The army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, says the army will fight till “decisive ascendancy” has been achieved in Swat. The army knows that it is backed by the entire nation. Earlier, when the parliament was briefed by the army on the expanding phenomenon of the Taliban, the reaction from the opposition was that it was “not Pakistan’s war” — and the general tenor of the joint resolution that emerged from it was for withdrawing troops and negotiating with the Taliban. When the NWFP government offered the Nizam-e Adl to Sufi Muhammad, the parliament endorsed its signature into law.
President Asif Zardari’s policy of getting the Nizam-e Adl clearly endorsed by parliament has turned out to be the right policy. The Taliban have offended all the parties that took part in this unanimous vote. The PMLN, which spent most part of 2008 garnering additional political support by positing military operations against the Taliban as “Pakistan fighting America’s war against its own people”, now has grounds for declaring that it “supports the government unconditionally in the greater national interest”. This support is crucial to the conduct of war in Swat. Together, the PPP and the PMLN have almost the entire voting population of Pakistan behind the war.
Labels: Army Operation, Pakistan, Swat, Taliban
posted @ 11:44 AM,
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