We all know what has been happening in Pakistan since 9/11. Steadily, we are slipping away for trying to be clever by half, fooling the only super power [the US] and cheating an ally by playing the 'Good Taliban' and the 'Bad Taliban' card, and to pretend to help the Americans while keeping their most wanted man in our custody, besides a whole lot of other duplicitous behaviour.
We have avoided a full scale wipe out of terrorists that we nurtured, trained and equipped. Having taught them that jihad will get them victories in Afghanistan and Kashmir, there was no way a politician would accept a closure of jihad without attaining Kashmir.
A u-turn would be political suicide. Conflicting interests about the purpose of various terror groups, front organizations and tanzeems that the regime kept, prevented full closure of terror outfits.
The Pakistan Army has remained an arbiter all along, without ever receding too far into the background. Over time, it has acquired the role of defender of the realm and the ideology of Pakistan, which in essence means Islam, and affirmation of the 'two nation' theory.
The army was, therefore, battling Hindu India for the survival of Pakistan, and over time, it is the army that came to own Pakistan, and not the other way round.
We adopted stupidly rigid positions of 'Kashmir or Nothing' or 'Kashmir My Way'. The Indians have turned around and said that if that is what you want, that is what you will get - Nothing.
More From This Section
We still keep harping on old themes like a stuck record and are unable to extricate ourselves. Nostalgia for old songs is good, but in geopolitics, you have to move on, like the Indians did and smartly.
Prime Minister Modi was barred entry to the US till May 2014, but by September of the same year, he and President Obama were doing a joint op-ed in the Washington Post.
During his visit to India, Obama and Modi will do a joint radio chat show. That is how fast things move these days. This is what pragmatism is all about. But who is to make our luminaries understand, keen as they are to push the country back to the seventh century?
Instead of reaping the benefits of globalisation and competing economically with our rapidly growing neighbour, we have used our territory to export jihad.
We wasted the first decade of the current century pretending to fight against terror, and in the process, got caught in lies and had our foundations affected by domestic terror.
In a way, this was inevitable because supporting terror adventures against other countries has a way of rebounding on the creator.
Peshawar was a sad and unfortunate example of terrorism devouring children. Our leaders - civilian and military - made that happen. We nurtured snakes in our backyard, and even Hillary Clinton warned us that you cannot train a snake to bite only your neighbour.
For far too long, we have fed our children with myths and lies. We have taught them about the so-called evils of Hinduism, described them as kafirs worthy of 'Wajib-ul-Qatal', we have used the term 'Bania' as a pejorative to describe them. As it happens, they turned out to be smarter than us, and all we have, are grand illusions of our leaders and the promise of 'hoors' in heaven for those poor blokes sent to their deaths to fulfil our dreams.
As for the 'India treat', is forever planning to devour Pakistan, this has been the army and the political leaders' line to us for decades. Forget it. India does not have an appetite for taking over a nearly decrepit country. The Indians are far too busy making a life for themselves; they have enough on their plate, and they know, they cannot handle another problem. Of course, there are differences but pursuing jihad won't solve these.
A mixture of repeated blunders and the inability to see what is good for us, political chicanery, military duplicity, uncontrolled greed and ego have led us to what happened in Peshawar and in its aftermath.
Our reactions, from being slow and confused, have become panicky and incongruous. These are sure signs of a dysfunctional government.
This article is the second of a four-part series written by Mr. Ghulam Ahmed. The views expressed in the article are that of the author.
