'Pakistan pursuing flawed policy toward Afghanistan'

Prominent author and Afghan expert Ahmed Rashid said, Pakistan should whole-heartedly pursue the counter-terrorism struggle and should not be reluctant to go into North Waziristan. He was speaking at a round-table discussion on reviewing the decade-long counter-terrorism struggle organised by Individual and a non-profit Islamabad-based think-tank.
Rashid said that it was time to say good-bye to the double-game Pakistan has been playing in Afghanistan. "The dual policy Pakistan has been pursuing vis-à-vis Afghanistan was flawed and has proved counter-productive for the interests of our country," he said.
Rashid said that a co-ordinated and concerted political and military strategy was the need of the hour in Fata. "The problem is that the army is sole in charge of the policy in Fata, there has to be a significant civilian input in the process," said Rashid.
Leading defence analyst Lieutenant General Talat Masood (Retd) said that Pakistan must decide now that whose war is it. "If it is the US war than we should disengage ourselves from Fata and if it was Pakistan's war then we must employ a concerted counter-insurgency strategy," said Masood.
He said that any counter-terrorism measure should be accompanied by the development package especially, in education and employment. Prominent journalist and author Khaled Ahmed said that terrorism was eating away at the ideology of the state. There are significant signs lately of eroding state's writ in rural areas of the country and if not stemmed now, this menace of terrorism will win and the country would lose this war. Ahmed said that the tribal areas needed heavy investment in infrastructure.
Columnist and writer Wajahat Masood said that our priorities as nation-state had to be redefined. He said that the Sri Lankan model of counter-insurgency would prove helpful in Pakistan. He said that currently the institutions of the state are far weaker to combat the huge challenge ahead.
Researcher and commentator Imtiaz Gul said that the consequences of losing this war on terror would be fatal for the country. He said that all extremist networks under the guidance of al Qaeda were gaining strength and could only be defeated with a clear-cut vision of the state. The scholar Naveed Shinwari also spoke at the conference.