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Pakistan Army Chief, General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani’s face-to-face with Mike Mullen, Chairman U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee recalled a similar meeting of the vanquished and the victor in 1971, between Pakistan’s Gen. Niazi and India’s General Arora.
More humiliating was the scene where Pakistan’s president, prime minister, interior minister and army chief sat contrite like errant pupils receiving a dressing down. Clinton visited only after Kerry and Mullen had obtained Pakistan’s assurance that it will obey all commands without demur. At a media briefing after holding talks with the political and military leadership, Ms. Clinton indicated that Pakistan would be taking “decisive steps in the days ahead.”
The U.S. military chief, Admiral Mike Mullen, said on a television network after his return from Islamabad that the Pakistani government would launch a major offensive on militants in North Waziristan. “It’s a very important fight and a very important operation.”
But according to media reports, Pakistani military commanders rule out the possibility of a full-scale South Waziristan type operation on the ground that it is ‘unfeasible’ because of difference in ground realities. The operation when undertaken “will be very selective and intelligence-led.”
The military assessment is that there are only two to three pockets having terrorist presence which need to be cleared.
Meanwhile, Corps Commander Peshawar, Lt-Gen Asif Yasin Malik, who supervises all military operations in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and adjacent tribal regions, told a news conference in Mohmand Agency that he would undertake an operation in North Waziristan at a time of his own choice.
“We will undertake such an operation when it is in our national interest militarily,” he said, describing North Waziristan as “calm and peaceful as it was weeks ago.”
“I have no such plans as far as I am concerned,” he told reporters. “We will undertake operations when we want to do it, when it is militarily and otherwise in the national interest to undertake such operations.”
About the Haqqani network, Malik was dismissive. “We are misusing the word ‘network.’ It does not become a network if four people sit together somewhere,” he said.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani also said on his monthly television program, “We are not taking dictation from anyone. We’ll see whether such an operation is required.”
But how they would ultimately react to the heat America is gradually turning on remains to be seen. However, this time the U.S. seems to mean business. It is closely monitoring progress on the pledge given as evident from Hillary Clinton’s 10-minute telephonic conversation with Gilani a few days ago.
However, what shape the operation will take when it begins is still unclear. The United States has long demanded the operation to eliminate the Haqqani network, which it claims is protected by the Pakistanis. They allege that Haqqani masterminds the attacks by Taliban on its troops in Afghanistan and is a threat. But Pakistani military officials are of the opinion that the so-called Haqqani network is a myth and the threat is sheer exaggeration. Instead unnamed Pakistan military officials say, “We have been trying to convince the U.S. that the Haqqani network can be brought to the negotiating table.” Any military action against Haqqani would be counterproductive to the reported moves to forge peace between the United States and Taliban.
There is little question though that any operation in NWA will mainly target the Tehrik-i-Taliban militants who took refuge in North Waziristan after having been dislodged from the south. It is not going to be against the Haqqani “network,” at least for the present.
What lends credence to the possibility of a very limited operation is that military commanders are not speaking about any major displacement of people from the region though press reports have suggested that aid agencies were directed several weeks ago to prepare for an exodus of over 350,000 people from the area.
Another significant point of difference between the Pakistani and American approach to the North Waziristan operation is that whereas the U.S. is itching to be part of a joint operation, Pakistani commanders are reluctant to take any technical or intelligence support from the U.S. “Using American help will be suicidal,” they say and reject any question of a joint operation with U.S. forces in North Waziristan or anywhere else.
Moreover, any large scale operation would be unpopular. Many people displaced by the operation in South Waziristan are yet to be rehabilitated. “We fear the operation could trigger a mass exodus and we want the government to avoid military action because thousands would face starvation and diseases in camps,” Shaukatullah, a resident of Datta Khel, a tehsil of North Waziristan, told media recently.
Locals point out that for the past two years, the Pakistan army has been busy with operations in Kurrum, Khyber, Orakzai, Mohmand, Bajaur and South Waziristan Agencies, but has been unable to rid these places of militants. “But it is the poor people, who are living in camps, braving hunger, diseases and the scorching sun.”
Meanwhile, on May 31, a tribal jirga in North Waziristan appealed to the government to desist from army action, saying that peace had returned to the area and that a military operation would make the situation tense.
“We are strictly opposed to military action in the FATA because these operations have not done any good to the people. Education, health and social services have been destroyed due to the military presence in the FATA,” Gul Wali Khan, a shopkeeper from Mohmand Agency, was quoted as saying. He is himself a displaced person. For the past 18 months he has been living in Jalozai camp in the Nowshera district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which is home to about 95,000 people from different FATA agencies, who are facing acute shortages of food, water and medicine. The North Waziristan operation will be the last nail in the coffin of the tribal population according to Khan.
Interestingly, the U.S. has found a strong supporter in the Awami National Party, which rules Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, for a full-scale military offensive in North Waziristan as the only option to establish peace in Pakistan as well as in Afghanistan. Bushra Gohar, a lawmaker of the Awami National Party describes North Waziristan as the international headquarters of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
The situation will be clearer in the coming weeks because, with its troops drawdown program in Afghanistan to begin in July, Washington would be impatient for concrete and immediate results from Pakistan. But if the latest report that “around 150 militants armed with rockets attacked a security checkpost in Pakistan’s Waziristan, killing eight soldiers,” is any guide to the shape of things to come, it should give the planners a pause. The operation where its targets, all veterans, offer a back to the wall fight may be far from a cakewalk. 
S. G. Jilanee is a senior political analyst and the former editor of Southasia Magazine.
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