Topic: “Dialogue is the best course to combat terrorism”
Paper: 2010, Essay Writing
• Introduction to “terrorism”
• The 911 incident
• Global War on Terror
• The Guerilla Warfare of Taliban
• Policies being pursued since 911
• Pakistan’s role in the war
• Increase in the Terrorists’ attack
• Reasons for the increase
• Pakistan’s situation
• Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan
• The Taliban perspective
• International powers in a fix
• War shifting to Pakistan
• Dialogue – The need of the hour
• Necessary steps to be taken for the initiation of the dialogue
• Role of Pakistan
• Hurdles in the dialogue
• Role of U. S. A., Iran, India, Russia and China
• Reconstruction of Afghanistan

Essay:
Terrorism is a special type of violence or violence exercised on a large number of people in order to put pressure on the state or its people for the attainment of certain goals. It is a tactic used in both peace and war. At times, it can be the reason of transmitting from a situation of peace into a situation of war.
According to the definition put forward by the U. S. department of Defense “terrorism is the calculated use of violence or the threat of violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious or ideological”.
This definition was carefully crafted in order to distinguish between normal violence and terrorism. It clearly indicates that only an act of violence committed in order to coerce something onto the government will be taken as an act of “Terrorism”. This term has been in use for a long time. Even the Indian and Irish “freedom fighters” were labeled as “Terrorists” before the liberation.
In the year 2001, on September 11th, the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre were hit by planes. This was indeed the most brutal act of terrorism in the modern history as passenger-aircrafts were crashed into the buildings. These towers were the hub of American trade. They were the symbols of pride for America in its economy. The world saw on T. V. screens the big hundred and ten storeyd tower coming crashin down to the earth. Some fifteen hundred lives were lost and the financial loss can never be calculated as though the planes had only hit the twin towers but the entire economy of the United States had to face the loss. The horrible scenes were seen throughout the world and there was a strong anti-terrorist sentiment all over the world. Al-Qaeda had become the symbol of hate. The public opinion was in favor of bringing the war over the terrorists and thus, in November 2001, United Nations allowed the U. S. A. and its allies to attack Afghanistan where the pro al-Qaeda government of Taliban headed by Mullah Omar operated and supported al-Qaeda. It was believed that the Afghan mountains were the safe-heavens for al-Qaeda. Therefore, in November 2001, Afghanistan was invaded by the U. S and its allies that included United Kingdom, NATO, Pakistan, Australia, Japan and others. Daisy-cutters, Scud missiles, B-52 jets were used and by the end of February 2002, most of Afghanistan had been captured by the “Allies”. Taliban government had been demolished and Taliban had laid down the arms in most of the parts of the country. Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance, which was an anti-Taliban alliance fought on the side of the Allies and Kabul was occupied.
According to the media reports and the statements issued by the officials of the Pentagon “peace had been restored in Afghanistan”. But the reality seems to have been different. Taliban were never in a position to fight the most technologically advanced and lethally equipped Allied forces in regular warfare. There were factions of Taliban who had really laid down the arms and some of them had actually joined hands with General dostam of the “Northern Alliance” against the Taliban, but the ideological Taliban had not given up there struggle.
They launched the Guerilla war. Suicide attacks was the route, that Taliban had opted for, in order to pressurize the Allies in Afghanistan. The Allied forces were kept constantly engaged by the Taliban with these “Fidai” attacks on the American, British and NATO troops.
In the beginning, there was also an anti-Taliban sentiment among the public of Afghanistan. This was the main reason of the failure of Taliban against the allied forces in the initial combat. The allies were able to occupy Kabul because there was hardly any resistance shown by the public. It was the time, when the policy makers should have thought of making a return policy from Afghanistan. A timely initiation of dialogue with the stake holders in Afghanistan and the initiation of reconstruction process could have won over the hearts of the Afghans over. If the think-tanks, instead of of thinking of the ways of prolonging their stay in Afghanistan and keeping a check on China, Russia, Iran, Middle East, Central Asia, Pakistan and India, had thought of devising long-term policies for the welfare of Afghan people and of establishing democracy and democratic institutions in Afghanstan, they could have kept the Taliban out of the equation. But the American policy was to keep the Afghans down and prolong their occupation of Afghanistan. Americans were interested in the mineral wealth of Afghanistan. According to some highly anti-America thinkers, Americans were more interested in Pakistan and its nuclear assets than in Afghanistan. General (r) Hameed Gull, who was the pioneer of the Afghan Jihad and an expert on the Afghan issue, declared that the real victim of this was entire game was Pakistan. One of the greatest Islamic scholars of our times, legendary Sheikh Imran Nazir Hossein, who is from Trinidad and stuied at Jamia Azhar in Cairo and the University of Karachi in Karachi published a small treatise in December 2001 and had indicated in that treatise towards the Israel and the Jewish lobby for being responsible for all this game and he alleged them to be originally pursuing a plan against Pakistan’s nuclear program, which, according to him, is the only hurdle in the way of Israel in declaring itself as the new sole super power o the world. He claims that Jews are in total control of the world economy as the largest banks of the world are all owned by the Jews and also the big commercial units. Another renowned scholar Berzinski is also of the same views.
All this might have been their personal speculation, but since the beginning of the war, Americans had been accusing Pakistan of helping the Taliban and al-Qaeda (it is also important that in the beginning Americans never tried to distinguish between Taliban and al-Qaeda, which according to some analysts was a serious mistake) and claimed that Federally Administered Areas (FATA) of Pakistan are the safe heavens for the terrorists. They also accused time and again that most of the attacks on the allied forces operating in Afghanistan were actually triggered from FATA.
As a matter of fact, Pakistani forces launched an operation in Waziristan in 2004. The seasoned thinkers like Gen. Hameed Gull, Roaedad Khan, Gen (r) Asad Durrani and Imran Khan kept warning the Armed forces and the government of that time that it will be an act of suicide for Pakistan but all in vain. It is also important to be stated here ethe Pakistani forces ere the the fighters on the fronts against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Only they were able to combat the guerilla warfare of the Taliban. Another notable thing is that Pakistan, before 911, had always backed the Taliban government and had been a fast friend of Taliban. It is alos a fact that Pakistan played a pivotal role in establishing the Taliban rule in Afghanistan in 1995-96 after the civil war in Afghanistan. Pakistan’s decision to go all out against the Taliban was taken as an act of betrayal by the Taliban. Mullah Omar is quoted to have once said, “If India attacks Pakistan, the place where Pakistanis will only sweat, their Afghan brothers will shed their blood for the survival of their brother Pakistanis”. And now the same Taliban, after being betrayed in their opinion, turned against Pakistan.Another important thing is that on both sides if the Durand Line, there is a large number of Pakhtoons who are highly anti-American and the American invasion of Afghanistan. They share common grounds on many a fields specially religion, ethnicity and tribal traditions.
When Taliban were unable to win over the Afghans, they turned towards Pakistani Pakhttoon community . They already enjoyed sympathies in FATA, so they settled in here. It was an intelligence failure on the part of Pakistan that they were allowed to settle in. Meanwhile Talibanhad realized that Pakistani fighters were the backbone of the Allied forces in Afghanistan and unless they are contained, Allies could never be pushed back. Therefore they started to launch suicide attacks in Pakistan . Initially they targeted the Army, but later on widened their scope first to Police and then later on to the common public of Pakistan. Their aim was to keep the Pakistani forces engaged in Pakistan so that they were able to carry out their plans against the Allied forces in Afghanistan.
Due to this shift in Taliban thinking, the war has now by and large shifted to Pakistan. Just within two years (2007-2008), there were 115 suicide attacks in Pakistan in which 1611 people were killed and 3500 persons injured. In 2009, Pakistan topped the list of countries in number of suicide bombing deaths so that it left Iraq and Afghanistan behind.
In the year 2009 Tehreek-i-Taliban Pskiatan emerged as the most furious terrorist organization in the region. It established its hold in a number of FATA agencies including North and South Waziristan, Bajaur agency and others. The most terrifying news was when Swat fell. Maulana Sufi Mohummed had become the Ameer of Swat and the Government of Pakistan was forced to sign a treaty with them.
However, a month later Pakistani forces launched the operation against them in Swat and forced them back to the FATA and restricted their movement. But this sudden emergence of this outfit jolted the whole world and specially the Pakistani people. For the first time in the long decade of war, the public opinion turned against Taliban. They whole-heartedly supported the Army.
Although Taliban’s moving forward was restricted but the suicide attacks are sill occurring in abundance. The war is being pursued from both the sides – Taliban in their traditional guerilla style and allies in their modern technological way.
Meanwhile the economic slump has hit America. Thewars in Afghanistan and Iraq have weakened the economy of United States. The value of Dollar is on a decline. The conflict with Iran and the Iran’s eventual decision to deal in Euro with the European countries in the oil trade instead of Dollarand the recent Chinese decision to deal in Chinese Yuan in its oil and other trades with African countries especially Sudan have been two big set backs for the American economy.
In these circumstances, it has become difficult for the Americans to sustain their occupation in Afghanistan. They have already given the time frame to initiate the evacuation of Iraq from 2011.all these elements have compounded together to make the U. S. policy makers to formulate a return strategy for Afghanistan. The poor economic conditions and worst ever situation of unemployment at home have molded the public opinion against the war. The regional stake-holders like Pakistan. India, Russia, China and Iran also know that the Americans will sooner or later have to leave Afghanistan. The Taliban also know it.
In this situation America cannot afford to fight vigorously against Taliban as it cannot sustain the vigor for a long time due to poor economic conditions at home and the poor conditions of troops in Afghanistan. In these circumstances, the only way out for the Americans is a dialogue. They have already seen in the recent Presidential elections in Afghanistan that diplomatically Pakistan is still the lion of Afghanistan. America and India together with all their might and resources was unable top deploy Abdullah Abdullah as the President of Afghanistan. And Pakistan’s candidate Hamid Karzai yet again got elected as the President. This has made it clear in the minds of the Americans that Pakistan still holds the key to the solution of Afghan issue. The diplomatic pressure of the Americans has decreased on Pakistan and now they are asking Pakistan to help them in negotiating with all the stake-holders in Afghanistan. They know that it is only Pakistan that can bring all the stake-holders on the negotiating table.
In this context the role of Pakistan has become highly important and delicate as well. And as the saying goes “there is an opportunity in every crises”; this is also a golden opportunity for Pakistan to use it not only as a bargaining chip but also restore permanent peace in Afghanistan, so that the region remains in peace for the generations to come.. Allama Iqbal, the spiritual guide of the Pakistanis was of the view that Afghanistan was the heart of the Asia. Peace in Afghanistan means peace in Asia and war in Afghanistan means war is Asia. He peace in Afghanistan will ensure better economic opportunities for Pakistan as this peace after an exhausting war will open new gates for investment in both the countries.
But the problem is that none of the stake-holders is willing to give anything up. The Americans being the super power do not want to give an impression that they are retreating.
India wants to get a lead role in the reconstruction and thus move out of the region and find new markets for trade in Central Asia. In this way they will be able to keep China in its limits and on this issue, the thinking of the Indians as well as the Americans is alike. India will also be able to sandwich its traditional rival Pakistan in this way.
Iran wants to stay in Afghanistan to further its plans to dominate the Middle East and also utilize the Afghan resources for its own requirements.
China has already engaged the U. S. A. in Pacific Ocean and now wants to give her tough time in the Central Asia and Middle East as well.
Pakistan wants to counter the Indians, keep Afghanistan under her thumb and find a gateway to Central Asia to fulfill its energy needs.
In this proxy war of the global and regional powers, Afghanistan has become the battle field of this new “Cold War”. All these powers should collaborate and bargain with each other on their targets but the welfare of the Afghan people should be their foremost objective. Although right now all the stake-holders are yet to show their cards and all are trying to force the other to retreat from its stated objectives but in a short span of time, they all will be exhausted and only the one with the toughest nerves will be able to win the battle on table, but ultimately they all will have to sit down on the table and negotiate with each other. The peace is likely to be restored but it should be made sure that this time this is solid and permanent and no bone of contention should be left for the future.
For Pakistan, peace is most important becausefor others Afghanistan is a way to further their plans or increase their strength but for us, it is the battle for survival.
Pakistan and Afghanistan, together, should communicate to the world that the dialogue is the last way out and the land of Afghans will never be allowed to be used by others for fighting their proxy wars.
The last available option after this long exhausting decade of fierce nerves shackling war is to make Afghanistan on the basis of the Switzerland model after the World War ii a neutral zone. Because peace in Afghanistan will ensure peace in Asia the way peace in Switzerland had ensured peace in Europe.