Will Pakistan finally buckle? After a week that has witnessed some of the boldest and deadliest militant attacks against the Pakistani state and the headquarters of its most potent institution, the army, the question is asked increasingly widely. The short answer is no. But the country must brace itself for many more months, if not years, of traumatic conflict, especially as the army launches a major offensive in South Waziristan. This will deepen the conditions of chronic insecurity and political dysfunctionality to which its people have long been accustomed.
This is not to minimise the impact of the latest strikes that have convulsed Lahore, Rawalpindi, Peshawar and Kohat, or to play down the appalling loss of lives resulting from the attacks. Both have left the country in a state of shock not dissimilar to that which followed the terrorist attack on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad in September 2008. Many had hoped that the Marriott attack would finally bring the country together and help to forge a real national consensus to tackle militancy. Those expectations have long since disappeared.
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