One high-profile attack after another, all in a matter of days. Looks like Hakimullah Mehsud means business to the point that the days of battling Baitullah now seem like a kindergarten fight.
If General Headquarters can be attacked with such audacity as we just saw, you can forget about any inch of Pakistan qualifying as "secure." It seems that the shocks to our national psyche would not end anytime soon, as if sytematically calibrated by Divinity in whose name this entire bloody carnival is going on.
When the Sri Lankan cricket team, with its "head-of-state security protocol," was ambushed in the middle of Lahore, we consoled ourselves that a mere politically motivated transfer of a police official at the worst possible time opened an unfortunate gap for the militants to jab their fingers into. The escaping Sri Lankans took with them international cricket from Pakistan's stadiums for the forseeable future. Militants 1; Pakistanis 0.
The attack on the Manawan Policy Academy in Lahore landed as another punch to the guts. Things did not look good. The war was no longer in those Godforsaken tribal areas, which we could conveniently lump together with the even-more-Godforsaken Afghanistan. This battle was now being fought in the country's political and cultural heartland - if there ever was a Pakistan, it was in Lahore - and it was obvious that the Pakistani state was being washed away.
The Islamabad Frontier Constabulary Camp. The Jandola Fort. The United Nations compound in Islamabad. And now, this!
The attack on GHQ is over, but its effect will be longstanding. It opens possibilities that were previously ludicrous, and poses new questions about where the Pakistani nation could be headed:
1. The war against Islamist militants in Pakistan has reached the military's doorstep, quite literally. An assault on the Waziristans is inevitable now, along with a few other tribal areas thrown in. This not only means an eventual end to the political status of FATA, but it would also mark the turning point for the Pakistani army from an India-specific force to a counter-insurgency apparatus. Whether the army can go through this transformation smoothly is critical for the future of that country.
2. This is the moment of truth for Pakistan's ideology as an Islamic state. So far the government has desisted from demonizing the Islamist militants as it should have long ago soon after the first time Pakistani cities were targeted. But a direct attack on the military calls for a comprehensive and all-out strategy. Could this be the Ataturk moment of labeling every beard and burqa as anti-state? Could this push the government into actually taking control of every pulpit in mosques around the country, and rein in lay imams and religiously-inclined political parties from the incitement that has been their manifesto and rallying cry? In short, could this be the moment that takes religion out of Pakistan's political ethos? And if it is, what does that mean for the country that has since 1971 relied on its religious identity as its primary bulwark against further dissolution?
3. The threat of Islamist militants is dangerously real and uncomfortably close for the average Pakistani now. If GHQ can be penetrated, then the beardos with guns are already everywhere. It is too early to say, but such moments create public revulsion for those who threaten to upset the status quo, no matter how unsettling the status quo is. Almost everyone knows, including the religious parties, that the rise of Islamists is no Iranian Revolution, but simply a descent into chaos with no prospect of any recovery for many decades. If the population of the country starts becoming wary of the beardos, what does that mean for the nation's general parameters of political discourse? Would Pakistanis reflexively start moving to the left?
These are truly exciting times.
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