The 'by Hussain Haqqani' written right below the headline sure implied that he did. But if he didn't, I'll take back my comment about him pretending to be fully American.
It will last long enough, now that the Afghan government is reasonably strong and co-operating to secure the Durand Line. It is fully and completely serious, there is no doubt about it. It always was serious, only now it's more complete with the comprehensive Zarb-e-Azb operation instead of occasional, smaller-scale ones as was tried in the past.
The rest of the world hasn't rejected the principle of using Non-State Armed Groups either. Until recently your own US was using Syrian rebels that have resulted in ISIS, along with anti-Russia elements like the Chechen rebels. Russia supports groups in Ukraine and Syria, while India has constantly supported Balochi rebels in Pakistan for a long time now. Asymmetric, proxy and non-state warfare is now dominant in the world - Pakistan isn't alone and Pakistan completely rejecting all non-state groups won't change anything unless other nations follow suit; and even when they do, as long as the underlying conflicts remain, blood will be spilled in one way or another.
Your suspicion is flawed. The Zarb-e-Azb operation started long before the Peshawar attack and was just as serious; the main change caused by the Peshawar attack was in the civilian aspect, with extremism, hate-speech and mullahs being cracked down on by civilians within the urban areas - very little changed in the military offensive in the tribal areas, except a huge rise in individual soldiers' determination.
You mean like this?:
Kashmir - 19 year old Muslim protester shot dead by Indian forces.
Good point, wrong country.
No, I don't. That's the problem: you want Islam to be seen as lies and religious hate, and you want all Muslims to accept they are liars and hate mongers, which means you want 97% of Pakistanis (along with 1.5 billion Muslims around the world) to believe that their religion is lies and religious hate - guess what: if you convince Muslims that religious hate is part of Islam, you'll increase that hate tenfold.
Abandoning Islam means LOSING. It means accepting that Islam is violent and hateful, which means conforming to the terrorists' ideology. It also means increasing religious extremism since you've basically accepted that Islam itself is what the terrorists say it is, and that to follow Islam one must follow those terrorists. You might want Muslims to lose the ideological fight against terrorism, I sure as hell don't.
You suspect absolutely wrong and you have no idea what you're talking about when it comes to Pakistani internal politics.
Islam has nothing to do with officials' corruption, absolutely nothing. None of the parties in power today or for the last few decades was/is religious, based on religion or in any way related to religion. The most corrupt government Pakistan has ever had was in fact the Liberal and Secular PPP under Zardari, which ruled right before the current government.
Absolutely nothing will change in officials' corruption even if Islam is eradicated from the face of the Earth. Nil, zero. They'll stay as corrupt as ever.
Every Muslim knows what I'm talking about, I don't need to emphasize on anything. That's why not.
-Honesty
-Integrity
-Morality
-Trust
-Modesty
-Justice
-Accountability
-Humanitarianism
-Shura, i.e democratic participation
-Charity
-Distribution of wealth
-Respect
-Welfare
Now would you like a couple of dozen more of these points, or verses and hadith to accompany all these, or is this much enough?