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So which is it? Apocalypse or sunny blue skies? Well, neither. We're not at the point at which Pakistan will disappear six or 12 or 18 months down the road. Nor have we turned the corner and are on our way to wiping out the militants. What is being contested though is the shape Pakistan will take in the next five to 10 years.

Will we sink to a low-level equilibrium, one where security is tenuous, the daily grind grows progressively more difficult and we face the prospect of a 'lost' generation, or will we rise to a higher-level equilibrium, one where Pakistan is no more asphyxiated by its security-obsessed world view and knuckles down to becoming a middle-income country which offers its people real economic and social opportunities?

The only thing that's clear at the moment is that the status quo cannot continue much longer. There is a rising tide of militancy and it's quantitatively and qualitatively a bigger problem than it was five, seven or 10 years ago. Cutting through all the complexities and difficulties though, at the root of that growing strength lies the security establishment's continuing distinction between 'good' and 'bad' militants.

Ultimately, that's what is causing the great national uncertainty. The politicians may be inept, the state's resources inadequate, the army's counterinsurgency capabilities suspect, but until the security establishment decides to abandon its policy of distinguishing between good and bad, white and black, 'our' problem and 'their' problem, we will never be able to get out of this mess.

So if the security establishment does not change course, a low-level equilibrium is all but guaranteed, the only question being how bad it will get. And since the calculations of how far the security establishment will go in crushing which groups of militants are shrouded in secrecy, it is not difficult to see why doomsday scenarios have increasingly gained currency.

But the real question is whether it ever made sense in the first place to put the militants in different categories. Did it make sense to say that the Haqqanis and the Hekmatyars — the militants oriented towards Afghanistan — were not our problem, while the Al Qaedas and its affiliates — the ones inclined to stir up trouble inside Pakistan — were our problem?

Frankly, the evidence of cross pollination, of good turning bad, of white turning black, has been available since very early on into what was then known as the 'war on terror'. The security establishment didn't even need to go out and look for the evidence; the militants themselves brought it to the highest ranks of the Pakistan Army.

On Dec 25, 2003, two suicide bombers struck Musharraf's motorcade in Pindi. One of the attackers, Muhammad Jameel, hit the car carrying Nadeem Taj, who went from being Musharraf's military secretary to DG Military Intelligence and finally DG ISI.

Muhammad Jameel's case makes nonsense of the distinction between good and bad militants. From Ismail Khan's report in this paper on Dec 29, 2003

Dawn's investigation revealed that Muhammad Jameel, 23, was affiliated with the banned Jaish-i-Mohammad, a militant organisation that had training camps in Rishkore near Kabul in the Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and was actively involved in the occupied Kashmir....

Investigations revealed that Muhammad Jameel, resident of Androot, Police Station, Torarh in Poonch district, Azad Kashmir, had received only primary-level education and was a Hafizul Quran (memorised the Holy Book by heart).

Fired by fiery speeches by jihadi leaders, Jameel went to Jalalabad via Torkham in eastern Nangrahar province in January 2001 through an Afghan cloth merchant in AJ&K. Soon afterwards, he moved to Kabul and lived in Darul Aman area on the outskirts of the Afghan capital.

Jameel, however, was wounded and captured when the US-backed Northern Alliance attacked Kabul later that year. He was shifted to a hospital and remained under treatment for 15 days. The transitional government in Afghanistan led by President Hamid Karzai handed him over to Pakistani authorities along with 29 other militants that same month and they were flown to Peshawar in a military aircraft.

They were re-arrested by the Pakistani authorities and charged with entering Pakistan without travel documents.

Significantly, though, Jameel was declared 'white' by security agencies when interrogated by a Joint Interrogation Team in April last year. The JIT had concluded that the suspect was not involved in any anti-state activities and since nothing adverse had been found against him, the JIT had unanimously declared him 'white' implying that his custody was not required by the agencies.

In April 2002, Muhammad Jameel was the quintessential 'good' militant, one fighting in Afghanistan, not 'our' problem and of such little concern to the security establishment that they actually let him walk free. Twenty months later, Jameel blew himself up while trying to kill Musharraf.

Now imagine the ramifications of the good versus bad distinction that has held firm for nearly a decade. How many more Muhammad Jameels are out there today? A hundred? A thousand? Ten thousand? Twenty or thirty thousand? Does anyone really know, even in the security establishment?

What is extremely unlikely is that they have already reached a critical mass. Even if they number in the tens of thousands, the militants today can't really overrun the country and knock over the state. What they can do though is push us into a low-level equilibrium, where violence is endemic, security scarce, the economy is in the doldrums and quality of life is on the wane.

And from there, if the security establishment still doesn't budge, the distance to becoming a truly failed state may be uncomfortably short.

cyril.a@gmail.com