Pakistan is a victim of a vicious circle. Our national character fatally generates one-man rule (including elected dictators.) Dictatorships strengthen and exasperate the defects of national character with catastrophic results. If we are to be saved from our destiny the vicious cycle has to be smashed.

But how are we to achieve this? How are we to be made to think in collective terms and to collectively agree to fight against not only internal and external enemies, but also our own unfortunate proclivities?

The first thing is to do is to prepare the country for some sort of regimentation and discipline, even if as a people we find regimentation irksome, strict observance of the rules stifling and the dangers of war frightening. But the fact is that we need harsh laws, iron discipline; and a semblance of civilised order because otherwise the current anarchy and troubles will devour us, trade and industry will come to a halt and eventually life will come to a stop.

The way to begin is by forming a broad-based government, a War Cabinet plus, of politicians, technocrats, and anybody else who is needed regardless of party or persuasion; and from all parts of the country not just those living within hailing distance of Lahore.. But that alone won’t do.

We will also need to rope in men of proven competence and experience in their respective fields at senior levels of the federal bureaucracy; and this process will have to be repeated at the provincial level, the aim being to form ‘governments of all talents’ at the federal and provincial levels.

The choice we face is stark. In order not to be destroyed by jihadists, rebels, extremists and promoters of sectarian strife, we have to destroy them first; and to succeed, we require all kind of tactics including heavy-handed methods some of which will be cruel and ruthless.

For instance, we should be ready to see our prisons fill up to capacity and even build new ones to house fresh inmates. We should expect these prisons to remain packed for years till the jihadist poison that has been allowed to spread untrammelled is fully drained. It took a generation of starry-eyed religious fanatics in league with corrupt, cynical political and military opportunists to get us to this pass. And the route back will be as long and possibly as bloody.

We also need to restore the death penalty in practice even if that means annoying the Europeans. Having led the world for centuries in devising instruments of torture and novel ways of dispatching opponents, the Europeans have suddenly become squeamish. Yes, the death penalty is no deterrent for fanatics but no other punishment provides greater satisfaction for a public subjected to ceaseless terror than a terrorist mass murderer dangling from a rope.

So why beat around the bush? There will have to be hangings, many of them, and battlefield executions too for those caught in the act of rebellion.

Are we prepared for all of that? Have the people been forewarned of the consequences? Have our leaders stiffened their spines and, most of all, are they willing to lead from the front? You must be joking.

Most of our political luminaries have been termed ‘biological wonders’ – men who can somehow walk straight without a backbone. One of them, a leading light of the earlier coalition, spent much of his time abroad out of sheer blue funk. Another didn’t feel safe even in Dubai; it was not until he had crossed several oceans that he relaxed.

But what do you expect from businessmen masquerading as sher-like leaders. They do not have the good sense or the guile, the energy or the courage, to stop the enemy. They are not even certain who the enemy is and whether to embrace him or kill him. What they are good at is helping the populace forget disgrace and misfortune and lull its angst to sleep.

ZA Bhutto tried to inject a sense of shame in the populace by forcing them to repeatedly watch the disgraceful surrender ceremony at Dhaka on national TV. Rather than be subjected to such humiliation, he thought, we would choose death over dishonour. He was wrong.

Many interpreted his move as an attempt to rub salt in the wounds of a defeated military and demoralise them further and eventually persuaded him to stop it. “Given the odds against our soldiers what did you expect?”, said one true son of the soil. “To die fighting”, I replied. He looked at me as if I had lost my marbles.

A feature of our history has been the impotence of the local populace to resist and their readiness to resign themselves pliantly to the ways of rough, brutal and resolute invaders. They seldom asked the invader why or how dare he come, only where he was headed and whether they could be of any help. To expect such people to devise battle plans to fight the enemy is like asking for the moon.

I am not surprised that Kayani did not come up with anything worthwhile by way of a strategy to defeat the enemy. Talk about the ‘three Ds’ and the ‘three Es’ is mere cant. All our politicians really have to offer by way of a plan are the ‘three Ps’– pleas, prayers and parleys.

How then to avert the catastrophe that seems in store? Some suggestions:

The essential job of the army in the nuclear age is not external warfare but domestic warfare, counterinsurgency, pacification programmes and peace-keeping. The military should focus on acquiring these skills.

It is essential to integrate the military with the civil armed forces and create a joint force. At present these organisations are obstacles to organising themselves. The joint force must carry out intensive and regular patrolling of all public places, including train stations and airports. Its presence should be considerable, permanent and visible.

The state must not lose the initiative in the war nor let a hostile temporality impose itself. Except in movement, a war machine is not worth the name. Movement ensures that the enemy will be harassed constantly and neither allowed rest nor recuperation. In other words, the state must plan on, and respond to, the needs of uninterrupted and incessant war.

Each space conquered from the enemy must correspond with the state’s capacity to fill it, to configure it and to inhabit it. Nothing is worse than a victory one doesn’t know what to do with. Why ‘clear’ an area, if it is only to ‘re-clear’ later and lose precious lives in the process. The army must not leave empty any space once reclaimed.

Peace movements from among the population should be encouraged mostly because they will serve to isolate the terrorists politically and morally, force them to commit acts which will discredit them and deny them any kind of alibi of external or internal support. And that is the only reason to talk to the TTP. It’s not merely a question of our beliefs and values that will forever keep us apart but our respective mental equipment.

As I had said in an earlier article, ‘we face a domestic enemy that has no conscience, no pity, and no honour; that has no face, no nationality or religion’. To win, we must defeat them politically, morally, rationally and instinctively. Can we? We’ll know soon enough.

The writer is a former ambassador.

Email: charles123it@hotmail.com

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