Pakistan: After the leak, what next?

BY Mosharraf Zaidi

The Abbottabad Commission report is now in the public domain. Its authors, the members of the commission, should be seen as national heroes. The level of detail, the intricate analysis, the bold and fearless judgements and the searing truthfulness of the assessments in the report merit more than one reading of the report. It is a great report. So what happens next? The only way to answer that question is to examine what has been happening thus far. When PM Nawaz Sharif took office, it was obvious his priorities lay in addressing domestic economic and social concerns. Pakistan needs electricity and jobs. The PML-N government wants to deliver these things. A rare confluence of policy needs and political will. What could go wrong? As it turns out, plenty. For starters, the "extremist infrastructure" that the Abbottabad Commission report had recommended be "disbanded" is living la vida loca. The Lashkar-e-Jhangvi enjoys virtual impunity to kill Hazara Shias as it pleases. The mischievously named Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, which is actually just the Pakistani Al-Qaeda affiliate, has so much freedom that it advertises changes in personnel, as was evidenced by the appointment of a new spokesperson. I use the politically correct term spokesperson here out of habit and principle, as if there may one day be a female TTP spox. The situation is beyond absurd. This is a group that has declared war on Pakistan, declared war on the people of Pakistan, declared war on the constitution of Pakistan: the very constitution that declares, quite rightly, God Almighty, to be The Sovereign. And the national conversation has veered toward, "Why did the TTP change spokespersons?" Maybe it's because they know how easily manipulated and how keenly subservient our evening chatter can be? It would be cute to reference Kafka here, if it weren't for the thousands of body bags in which Pakistani mothers have welcomed home their solider sons, Pakistani wives have welcomed home their slain policeman husbands - all while the Pakistani government, including both civilian and military leadership, have presided over a rapid descent into complete state dysfunction. Hypernationalists get very upset with this kind of rhetoric. And of course, the term 'complete state dysfunction' is rhetorical. There isn't complete dysfunction yet. In his testimony, the Grand Mufti of Hypernationalist Pakistanis, Gen Shuja Pasha, says that Pakistan "is a failing state, if not yet a failed state". And if we examine the ways in which the state is not failing, it is easy to see. The lights are on in Bahria Town and DHA. They are off in Laalu Khet and Miranshah. The water in your tap could kill you, and that same water kills thousands of Pakistanis every year. Pakistan has a polio problem - one of only three countries on the planet with this problem. If you are in Lyari, duck. If you are in Fata, relocate. If you are in Islamabad, try not to vomit. Of course, the state still works for the District Management Group and the various ancillary civil service groups that have learnt how to compete for the spoils of maladministration. And, just to be entirely fair, let us also remember that the state works very well in Rawalpindi, in most cantonments, and save the frequent successful terrorist attacks, at our naval, air and army bases. Apologists of the military establishment will remind us that this is because the forces have discipline and integrity. But it sure doesn't hurt that they have most of the money, and all the guns (save the ones that terrorist Fedayeen attackers and the hordes of contractors like DynCorp, XE, and others have - all of whom entered Pakistan on the watch of the most patriotic Pakistani of us all, Gen Musharraf). If the tone of this piece seems intemperate, those capable of concentrating beyond the 12 minutes of uninterrupted analysis on television should try their reading skills on the Abbottabad Commission report. Nobody will accuse the report's authors of being anything other than faithful and patriotic Pakistanis. Well, maybe nobody. I am hesitant because I recall the blasphemy case on Akhtar Hameed Khan, the daylight assassination of Hakim Saeed and the regular attacks on the character and integrity of anyone that dares to express their intolerance for a Pakistan that fails to live up to even the most basic requirements of what Iqbal and Jinnah would expect. Nevertheless, Ambassador Ashraf Jahangir Qazi, Gen Nadeem Ahmed, IG Abbas Khan and Justice Javed Iqbal are not ordinary people. They have all been part of the broader Pakistani establishment, to varying degrees. That it is their steady and credible hands that have drafted the report is the best inoculation against the stupidity of large swathes of our TV-ratings-driven national conversation. Virtually every aspect of national public life gets brushed under the carpet in Pakistan. The Abbottabad Commission report essentially lifts the carpet that has carefully been laid over the country by myriad narrow private interests, all claiming to act in the greater good. No greater good could have been done by the commission than the report they have produced. The 337-page report is not difficult to read. But it will take time. You must read it. Someone – and I don't expect it will be the Ministry of Information (though it should be) – has to translate this report into Urdu. And then, someone should do an audio book of the report, and play it on the radio, over, and over, and over again. The words incompetence and negligence appear far more frequently than the word complicity. This is very likely the correct balance - though complicity cannot be rule out in getting Bin Laden into Pakistan, helping him move around over nine years and ensuring his safety in Abbottabad for the final six years of his life (all facts ascertained by the Abbottabad Commission). Nor can complicity be ruled out in the US Navy SEALs operation that killed him. We already know about Shakil Afridi - no doubt there were more. The question remains, what will happen next? If the recent past is any indicator, we can be assured, not very much. Consider the situation in foreign policy. PM Nawaz Sharif had known for many months that the PML-N would likely win the election. It is over a month since he took oath. Our embassy in Washington DC is still without an ambassador. Perhaps he has yet to find someone old enough for the job. Consider the response to the report by the previous government. Only two of 32 recommendations have been acted on. Neither will serve to fix anything that is broken. On the most important recommendations, there has been only silence. What should happen? PM Sharif needs to appoint at least three blue-ribbon commissions through an act of parliament. One of them must simply be a monitor for the implementation of the Abbottabad Commission report. The other two must deal with structural and across the board government reform (the first recommendation of the commission), and national security policy (the fourteenth recommendation of the commission). The leak of the Abbottabad Commission report could be a seminal moment in Pakistani history. But only if PM Sharif wants it to be. He's the boss.