Militants Victorious

The Swat deal - termed 'Nizam-e-Adl Regulation', now endorsed by the federal parliament has clearly one winner at the moment.  The parliamentary system lays decimated and those who committed treason, victorious. 

Whatever the compulsions - to restore peace etc. - those who support the parliamentary system would be better served to refrain from illusions that giving in a small terrority will allow them to continue as before with the rest of the country. 

The militants, lead by Fazlullah are victorious.  They have secured power, and had their demands met not through elections, the only real measurable way to judge the 'will of the people', but through the barrel of the gun.  Now they have the federal parliament endorsing the judicial succession of Swat from the rest of the country.  

The illusion that perhaps some of the parties - namely ANP - seem to be carrying is that the problem is solved and the remaining province is no longer threatened.  

What is ignored is why would Fazlullah and Sufi Mohammad want to stop now?  If tomorrow elections are held, would Fazlullah and Sufi contest despite the fact that they rode into power via the gun?

To answer this question, one need look no further than General Musharaf.  Did Musharaf, who also came in through the barrel of the gun ever dare to contest popular elections personally?  The people of Swat had only recently elected their representatives in 2008 - an elections most everyone agreed was relatively fair and free.  Swatis saw their electoral mandate be torn up by a bunch of warlords.  

Why would these bands of warlords wish to 'return' to their homes now?  After all the attorcities they have committed, what if, when elections are held, the Swatis choose to 'undo' the chains strung by the militants?  Why would a band of warlords who think polio vaccinations are a western conspiracy wish to throw themselves into an electoral competition with modern society? 

If Fazlullah and Sufi Mohammad stop now, they will have reach the pinnacle of their power a descent, equally violent as their rise, would begin.  Their survival instinct will demand that having secured a part of the country through guns, they battle on.  They cannot afford to stop now.  While their demise is inevitable, they would rather prolong their end by continuing to defeat the apologetic and constrained leadership of Pakistan in more regions.  

 

These militants will sadly haunt many more before the rest of society grows the balls to apply similar techniques the militants have used against innocent millions through their decadent and perverse ideology.