KARACHI: ARMY...An option?

pakistantoday.com.
The People’s Party has spoken. The government is not going to be calling the army to restore peace in Karachi. The president, prime minister and interior minister have all ruled out the option in separate statements. The no-army school also has on board some rather surprising members. Former information minister Shaikh Rashid, no one’s idea of an army basher, has also said, in his inimitable style, that the army, if deployed, won’t limit itself to Karachi. You would see it in Gujranwala and Faisalabad too.
No one needs to be tutored right now in the perils of involving the army in civilian matters. They are clear to all. Even proponents of a Grand Operation cite the Naseerullah Babar’s deal in ‘96, not the Asif Nawaz fiasco of earlier.
Would it that things were this simple. By now it is clear that the situation in Karachi has ratcheted irrevocably out of the hand of the civil administration. True, the police could be empowered to take strong action but, going by what happened to the veterans of ‘96 later in the Musharraf era, it’d take nothing short of a miracle to motivate the police. Even if that were the case, the extraordinarily political requirements in the Karachi police (again, Musharraf) seem to have all but closed that door.
In the recent London riots, the British premier recounted in parliament his discussion with the metropolitan police chief regarding the option of calling in the army. The police chief had replied that he’d rather be the last man standing before letting the army do its thing. Though the premier had appreciated his spirit but told him that the army was still an option if all else fails.
All else has failed in Karachi. If the British have no compunctions against calling in the army, neither should we. A different country with a different history, granted. But an army operation well within the ambit of a civil czar-liaison wouldn’t be quite the departure from democracy it is being made out to be. If the military can operate in the troubled north, with rights’ activists cheering them on, why not in Karachi?