Ayaz Amir
The army is running its affairs its own way, the way it thinks best. The political government is informed, in a broad sort of way; it is not consulted. It has no input on what’s going on in the security domain. The army, with the air force by its side, is doing the fighting in the north-west. If Indian shelling along the Line of Control or the Working Boundary requires a response, the army decides what to do. If a missile has to be test-fired, it is the decision of the army command.
This is the reality. The rest is bluff…or call it optics. A joint secretary in the ministry of defence is more relevant to the working of the ministry than the Minister of Defence.
When the newly-installed Afghan president visits Pakistan, eschewing protocol he heads straight for General Headquarters. When the Americans want to discuss the serious stuff they talk to the army chief. They lay out the red carpet for him during his week-long visit to the United States. Contrast this with the sorry figure the prime minister cut when he addressed the UN General Assembly.
Who says the dharnas achieved nothing? They have served their purpose. To use the Urdu expression, they have shown the PM and the civilian order their ‘auqaat’ – their standing. While the army chief is not only the army chief but also effectively the defence and foreign minister, the government has its hands full with Imran Khan’s threatened march on Islamabad on November 30.
The scales may be tilted against the political order. But the government does itself no favours when it pays scant regard to its own dignity. Should the PM have gone to New York to address a near-empty General Assembly? The German chancellor at least had the courtesy to host a lunch in his honour. But should the PM have gone on from Berlin to London where all he was able to meet was the British foreign secretary? PM Cameron simply had no time for him.
And what to make of this? The former British foreign secretary, David Miliband, visits Islamabad and gets to meet not just the PM but finds all key government figures lined up in dutiful attendance – Dar, Nisar, Fatemi, principal secretary to the PM, etc. Was this necessary? Miliband would have been delighted, not to say surprised. The PM represents us. When he appears in an unflattering light it touches us all.
The army chief should look embattled. After all, the army is engaged in a bitter, no-holds-barred conflict in North Waziristan and other agencies. It must also keep a wary eye on the eastern border. But it is the other way round. The civilian order looks embattled while the army chief goes about his business in a calm, almost serene, manner.
The army carries more weight in the ongoing scheme of things…true. But political inadequacy, to put it no stronger than this, is also part of the equation…as are the effects of the dharnas. They have not toppled the government – as they were not likely to without military intervention – but they have damaged the government and further compromised its already limited effectiveness.
Gas management seems too much for the government, every day a fresh announcement contradicting the previous announcement, the government laboriously making and then unmaking its mind, worried about the political repercussions of every alternative. This is the effect of the dharnas. Before them, before the so-called long marches, the government took its own MNAs and MPAs for granted. It had no time for them. Now it must calculate every move lest the PTI take advantage of anything.
Given this situation, one can only wonder at what prompted the adviser on foreign affairs, Sartaj Aziz, to make the remarks he did to the BBC. He basically said there was no reason for Pakistan to take on elements or outfits that were no direct threat to it…this right at the time when the army chief was in the US taking pains to stress that Pakistan was committed wholly to fighting all militant elements, without any distinction between ‘good’ or ‘bad’ Taliban. The exquisite timing of this is what takes the cake.
The Adviser to the PM on National Security and Foreign Affairs holds a grandiloquent title but he is a nominal figure with no real authority. He can’t move a sepoy in or out of the tribal areas. It is not for him to decide whom the army should take on and whom it should spare, or give a seat of honour to. He has nothing to do with security policy. A circumspect man with much experience behind him, he more than anyone else should have known how to choose his words carefully. In fact there was no need for him to talk to the BBC. Through it what great or subtle message was he hoping to deliver?
There has been some fuss about this statement in the American media but it is uncalled for. This was an unfortunate slip and, given the power equation in Pakistan, it really means nothing. From Raymond Davis to the Haqqanis and beyond, it is the army which calls the shots. If the political government can’t get David Miliband right, its ability to get the proper measure of things may be more problematic than we think.
There is therefore no ‘page’ on which the government and the army should be together. The scripts are different, the concerns are different, and the world-view is different. When it comes to taxation measures the government is very sensitive about the mood on Brandreth Road, Hall Road, in Liberty Market, etc. Take gas loadshedding…the government is sensitive about how it plays. By the same token, shouldn’t the concerns of the military be consulted on questions of ‘national security’ – say, with regard to relations with India? This is not weakness or kowtowing, just everyday prudence, incidental to the way any government functions …here or elsewhere.
This is where Pakistani democracy falters. Political leaders either flex their muscles in a way likely to raise military eyebrows – like Benazir Bhutto appointing a retired general, Gen Kallue, to head the ISI or president Zardari toying with the idea of putting the ISI under the interior ministry’s wings, or Nawaz Sharif doing the wrong map-reading in Gen Musharraf’s treason trial; or, when pushed into a corner, they abdicate responsibility completely, as happened with Zardari who washed his hands off security issues, and is happening now with Nawaz Sharif whose government has been reduced to the defence of Islamabad’s Red Zone.
Whether by design or accident the dharnas have reduced the space of the political template. There is a view in political circles that after surviving the dharnas the government will become more arrogant. This is a mistaken view. Bluster apart – and who is not entitled to this luxury? – the government’s confidence has been badly shaken. From now until the next elections, whenever they come, the best it can hope for is to limp along. The roar of the lion has gone.
(By the way, is there any other world capital with names such as Blue Area and Red Zone?) For the government the top-most priority: the defence of the Red Zone. The threat of Imran Khan will remain a dagger pointed at its breast.
A chicken plucked of its feathers, half-sighted ambition far outstripping understanding…or any ability to deliver. The miracle Pakistan most stands in need of: the political class somehow able to rise above its limitations.
No comments:
Post a Comment