Editorial: 3Ds: dialogue, development, deterrence?

Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said at a press conference in Islamabad on Sunday that he had convinced the world that military operations alone were not the solution to terrorism, and that Pakistan’s “3Ds” strategy was essential to winning hearts and minds of the people involved in it. The 3Ds he explained as dialogue, development and deterrence. He also claimed that he had “convinced several world leaders that employment, development and alleviation of poverty were the key to success in the war on terror”. Mr Gilani spoke out again against the US policy of drone attacks inside Pakistani territory and he appealed to the US to share actionable intelligence with Pakistan. He said the war against terrorism could not be won without the cooperation of the people, and that army operations were not the only solution to it. He thought the possibility of a “foreign hand” could not be ruled out in Swat.

The three concepts are unassailable, divorced as they stand from the reality in Pakistan. Anywhere in the world, before the hostilities actually begin, it is perhaps the only policy to follow, with the exception perhaps that deterrence should always be a factor regardless of whether or not the fighting has begun. In this context, it is possible that Mr Gilani did not sequence his 3Ds in any kind of priority. He has put dialogue first but experience in Afghanistan and Pakistan is that, violence having begun, dialogue continues to be shunned by the militants. Their aim always is to bring the state on the table in order to make it capitulate.

In fact, dialogue in South Waziristan was always a non-starter because Nek Muhammad and Baitullah Mehsud had reached the level of rebellious capacity where they could bend the will of the state. So dialogue with the terrorists should come right at the end, after the government has fully asserted its monopoly of force and brought the terrorists to the negotiating table. It has to make sure that it talks to them from a position of strength. Dialogue after losing the writ of the state, which is Pakistan’s case at the moment, is of no use. The subsequent case of Swat has made it amply clear.

Similarly, experience shows that unless the target areas are sufficiently pacified, development simply cannot begin to take place. It doesn’t deserve the second priority given to it in the 3Ds. We all know that development in Afghanistan — whatever little there was despite the US approach of neglecting “nation-building” — simply could not go on in the areas where the Taliban could intervene and reverse the process. In Pakistan, too, the first thing targeted by the terrorists is the development infrastructure. The Taliban in Swat began their rebellion by destroying schools and other state-owned buildings. This week, North Waziristan has thrown out all the NGOs doing development work there.

Now let us come to deterrence. The state deters lawbreakers and the terrorists all the time. This is its normal function. If it neglects this function of normal deterrence by weakening itself through strategies of covert war and power-sharing with “non-state actors” within the country, the consequences include the slackening of the writ of the state and the proliferation of terrorists, including those who come in from the neighbourhood. Mr Gilani has hinted at a “foreign hand” but the world understands that when Pakistan says this it is not pointing to the foreign terrorists lurking in its territory but to foreign states. So this statement begs the question and is not helpful.

The stage we are at ordains us to fight the war against terrorism as the final war of the state. Dialogue and development will come after we have started winning it. *