There is an eerie feeling that the country's political leadership hasn't come up with a harsh enough condemnation of the murderous attack on senior army officers on Sunday. Going by the statements made by the politicians in the National Assembly and outside their response to this dastardly attack is at best lukewarm, if not thoroughly opaque. What they have said so far poorly matches with a flourish of trumpets accentuating the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan's claim of killing Major General Sanaullah and his men. Except for offering 'fateha' for the fallen soldiers the National Assembly failed to bring the incident under spotlight, so much so that Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali told the house pointblank that he was not going to make a policy statement on it. He apparently discussed the matter with others by reaching them at their desks, but to considerable bewilderment of many in the galleries no joint resolution was moved in the house. It was only after a lot of criticism of the media that the parliament on the day after adopted a resolution on the issue. Is it then that the perspective nurtured by the civilian leaders is at odds with that of the military so aptly reflected from the statement made by Army Chief General Kayani earlier during the day? Outside the parliament this perceptional mismatch was even more obvious. Not that there was none of the recognizable faces of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government at the funeral of Major General Sanaullah - he was serving in that province and attained martyrdom there - the statements of leaders having stakes in the KP are quite disturbing.

Imran Khan wants both sides to declare ceasefire because "this is what happens elsewhere when warring factions engage in dialogue". Is Pakistan government a 'faction' as it carries out its constitutional obligation to clear the country of terrorists? Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman is one more lobbyist of the Taliban cause; he has advised the federal government 'not to accept anyone's dictation regarding talks with Taliban'. That he was referring to General Kayani's statement he leaves no one in doubt by drawing a dubious parallelism between the situation today and when "a dictator (read former army chief Pervez Musharraf) had handed over national assets to foreigners on just one phone call".

We don't know if Imran Khan and Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman were echoing the TTP chief Hekeemullah Mehsud's take on this incident because he too insists that this incident would not have happened 'had the government declared a ceasefire before opening of formal peace talks with them". If the terrorists outfit believes that by killing Major General Sanaullah in an ambush it has succeeded in demonstrating the inevitability of ceasefire before talks then it is mistaken. Having learnt first-hand the futility of ceasefire with terrorists the men in the battlefield would not be taken in by such arguments, and the warning comes from none but the Army Chief General Kayani. "No one should have any misgivings that we would let terrorists coerce us into accepting their terms," he says. Knowing the enemy and his designs better than the politicians the army high command has pledged its institutional support to the political process, but it had cautioned against militants taking advantage of it. Suppose the army withdraws, stops military operation and releases the TTP detainees, as demanded by them. Is their any one among their political supporters who can guarantee that the terrorists would stop terrorising the people? What is there for the government of Pakistan to concede to the Taliban in whose ideology there is no place for constitutional democracy. But they should know that howsoever violent and murderous they may be they have just no chance of winning the hearts and minds of the people of Pakistan. Now that they have exposed their mindset even before the table for talks is laid the government should give a second thought to its offer for dialogue. In the meanwhile, the military operation must continue, even in those areas that have been left unchecked. Army has the ability to take the fight to them, as said by General Kayani, and it should take the fight to them. As to the fate of the APC resolution it has already been written; it is too idealistic to survive given the perfidy that is so much part of the TTP thought process.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2013