Pakistan can’t bomb or bargain its way out of the TTP

P ublic debate on key issues related to politics, law and order, and national security seems to be stuck in a perpetual loop. In the last 10 or so years, we’ve had pretty much the same conversation on what to do with the TLP , what to do with ethnic secessionism, what to do with religious fundamentalism, what to do with the TTP , and what to do with a restive western border. In fact, some of these issues have been debated for much longer than a decade.

The repetitiveness also demonstrates the protracted nature of these problems. Multiethnic societies of all types, especially in the developing world, have struggled with questions of political stability.

Similarly, there is hardly any country where tradition, in name or content, hasn’t been repurposed in modernity for the sake