A Note for Gen Kiyani. [Through Lt Col Tahir H. Shah]

My dear Tahir.

I would just like to give you a very short brief of my understanding of the events in Swat etc to be conveyed to the Chief.

1. Just a little while back, there was very little support for the counter-insurgency operations among the people of Pakistan, the people of Swat, and even within the army. The main reasons for this were twofold:

1. A very strong anti-US sentiment among all sections of society, the prime cause of which was the perceived anti-muslim policies of the US generally, while within the army there seems to a fairly well ingrained belief that whereas on the one hand we are being goaded into this war by the US, on the other the US seems to be stoking the insurgency in Baluchistan, and doing the same through their Indian proxies in the Frontier as well.
2. At a fundamental level, though unarticulated, this is a war of the have-not against the have, brought about by more than sixty years of poor governance, the most vivid manifestation of which is shameless corruption at all levels of society. In such circumstances the only thing that can breed unhindered is anti-establishment sentiments and anything that can break the status quo, is invested with hope.

2. But in the last couple of months these feelings changed suddenly, and there was a surge of anti- taliban sentiment both among the general population, and within the army. The primary reasons for this, in short, seem to be as follows:
   1. As the ranks of the taliban got swelled by criminal elements in Swat, and the sort of governance this led to, quickly disabused the general public of the hopes they may have entertained in this new order.
   2. This change of sentiment quickly spread to the population of the country at large, of which the army is but a small part, and so it could not remain unaffected by it. At a more intimate level though, the incident that really brought anti-taliban rage to the fore within the army was the killing of the SSG personnel by the taliban, and the humiliation to which they subjected the bodies of the dead.
3. Thus galvanized, the army, supported by the change of sentiment among the people of Pakistan and of Swat in particular, took on the taliban in Swat. And by all accounts, this seems to have met a fair degree of success. What has stood out in these operations is the high ratio of the casualties among the younger officers, which means that the troops were being led by their officers.
4. The danger in this success though is, that it may lead to good sense being subverted by “gung-ho” madness. In every era in history, this is what has led to overstretch and defeat of all attempts of projection of raw power on a permanent basis. If the army does not very consciously guard against being lured into such overstretch, it will potentially be putting itself into a situation of bringing upon itself an eventual defeat.
5. It seems that the next large operation the army will be conducting will be in Waziristan. If the army goes into this operation before fully pacifying AND reconstructing Swat, [of which a very important part will be winning goodwill of the IDPs] it will lead to overstretch, and this will lead to all the gains of the army being inverted, most especially its own present high morale. Whereas continued success in the pacifying of Swat and reconstructing it will lead to new respect for the army, which will keep its morale at a sustainable level, any operation in Waziristan will have the potential of destroying all of the army’s present gains–whether they be of new prestige and credibility, or those of military/political nature.
6. Operations in Waziristan will differ from those in Swat because of the following:
   1. A majority of locals in Swat are timid by nature, while those in Waziristan are the opposite.
   2. It seems that a majority of the real hardliners operating in Swat were not locals, while those in Waziristan are likely to be indigenous to the area and their kin from across the border.
   3. In Swat most areas where the taliban were holed up, were probably more accessible, than what most of Waziristan is likely to be.
   4. In Swat, the hardliners came and “occupied” places like Mingora etc. This is not the scenario which will be encountered in Waziristan–they are already there. When you attack them, they will not wait to be attacked as happened in Mingora–they will simply disappear, and reappear when the army moves on.
   5. FATA has this very long border with Afghanistan. It is therefore entirely foreseeable that the Afghan insurgency is going to be sucked into FATA, with the whole of the Pakistan Army pitched against them in a deadly war of attrition for years to come. This is what an unthinking approach to the problem could finally lead to. Already, in my view, Musharraf’s worst blunder was to send the army into FATA, no matter who asked him to do this. It is this that brought the war into Pakistan. If we now get sucked into FATA in what is likely to be a state of permanent occupation, it is likely to upstage any disaster we have experienced in the past.
7. To conclude, I sincerely believe that Pakistan must concentrate on cleaning out Swat, winning the hearts and minds of IDPs, and reconstructing the devastated areas. This will enhance the prestige of the army and keep its morale high. It should not gamble this opportunity away. The only real thing that Pakistan has won in Swat, is time. Time to put its house in order–to build up its intelligence and para military apparatus for its war against the insurgency. This is not an operation made for a conventional army. No army has been able to sustain such operations for long. Prolonged exposure to these operations will crack up any conventional army. For the moment therefore it will be better for the army to contain Waziristan and control egress and ingress into FATA, while rebuilding and pacifying Swat. Success in Swat will have a direct bearing on the thinking and attitudes of the people of Waziristan.

Sincerely yours.