Nawaz appeasing Taliban: Calls for Taliban talks

[Doppleganger]

Re: Nawaz appeasing Taliban: Calls for Taliban talks

@mAd_ScIeNtIsT

Remember, Nawaz Sharif is a politician. Promising to try to hold talks with the Taliban is a smart promise to make, because he knows it will go nowhere.

One of the criticisms of the PPP government and the Musharraf government before it was failing to stop the Taliban. The most visible approach to the Taliban problem these governments used was force.

The war against the Taliban is unpopular because of its failure to fix the problem. In opposition and running up to the election, it was easy for Nawaz Sharif to draw support by promising to try a different approach, that of talks.

I honestly believe that Nawaz Sharif knows that the Taliban’s demands are so outragous that talk will lead nowhere, but that doesn’t matter. Promising to hold talks was one of his campaign promises, he will hold talks that won’t lead anywhere, then he will resume the previous policy while being able to legitimately claim that he fulfilled his promise to hold peace talks. He will simply regret that the peace talks led nowhere.

But he will point to his holding of the peace talks as proof that he is an honest politician who followed up on his commitment to the nation. Note that he did not promise success through peace talk. He’s just being a politician.

Nice and to the point. But it is still sad that we don’t “get it” that crimes are to be prosecuted even if the criminals operate as “Islamists”.