Wednesday, June 10, 2020
Perils Of Proxy Wars In Afghanistan: A Comparative Study Of The ISI Of Pakistan And The IRGC Of Iran – Analysis
Proxy wars have been used by the powers to serve their national security and long term interests without being involved directly. The general syndrome is that a powerful country supports a state or even non-state actor who has mutually shared goals in a particular area or zone. But the history of proxy wars in our times is wrought with numerous debilitating moral consequences, threats to security and stability in the theatre of proxy war. In addition, it can simply drag the power into an unending stream of conflagration with a heavy cost of manpower and material. It may also cost the power in terms of credibility and aura of power.
Even in our contemporary times, proxy wars are tearing countries and regions apart with immensely destructive consequences for the population. A simple and cursory overview is enough to suggest that proxy wars suffer from several perceptible limitations. Besides the moral deficiency they run the risk of escalation, control over the arms and ammunition supplied and the risk of their slipping into bad hands and therefore violence continues in the post-settlement period with spiraling cycles. Proxy wars defy any intervention of peace measures and settlement.
There is worldwide attention towards Iran’s growing influence in the whole of the West Asian region with its very effective network of proxies across the region. This has caused huge consternation among its regional rivals — Saudi Arabia and Israel in particular and the interests of the US and its allies. The IRGC of the Islamic Republic of Iran has created a network of proxies through its Quds Force in the region and beyond, especially in Afghanistan. This has caught the attention of security professionals and academics. The activities of the ISI of Pakistan has adopted the proxy syndrome and has had devastating consequences for the countries of South Asia, including Afghanistan and Iran at large and India in particular owing to its historically hostile background.
A comparative study of the two — IRGC and ISI — and their proxy wars in Afghanistan will provide a necessary insight for an effective Indian strategy for dealing with this menacing national security threat and the adoption of a resilient and pragmatic policy towards West Asia, a region of extreme strategic and geo-economic significance. A critical perusal of the two will be a sure route to unravel their future pattern and their concomitant consequences.
The Directorate of Inter-Service Intelligence, generally referred to as ISI, is a ruthless separate entity of Pakistan, almost independent of its military and beyond any meaningful oversight of the civilian government.[1] It has huge political influence and around 25,000 personnel manned by motivated army personnel, including some members who are retired. Its Afghanistan operation is India-centric, and viewed from its India policy that the policy of Afghanistan towards India must be in line with Pakistan and adopts punitive approach and action in the wake of Kabul’s tilt towards India.[2] ISI’s coercive policy and proxy war in Afghanistan to attain its geopolitical goals has resulted in an unending stream of violence in the post 9/11 period, to remain relevant in the face of US presence and competition from other regional powers mainly Iran’s IRGC has assumed Jihadi route of unprecedented scale.
Besides the Taliban, ISI has promoted and supported the Haqqani Network, officially under the larger Taliban umbrella, and it maintains distinct command, control and lines of operations. A section of the Pakistan military view the network better as an ally proxy force for its Afghan interests, as the network has repeatedly targeted the Indian interests — infrastructure projects and construction sites in Afghanistan.[3]
The Network is based in Pakistan’s North Waziristan and comprised mainly of the Zardan tribe. The group has been very lethal and sophisticated in its targets against the US coalition forces and Afghan government security apparatus. It has demonstrated a high level of coordination in its operation and targets with small arms, rocket attacks, IEDs, suicide attacks and bomb-laden vehicles.[4] The US coalition has suffered considerably and has not been able to manage the affairs with the Pakistan government as these proxies are functioning under the directions of the ISI. The ISI has been able to manoeuvre successfully in their mission with these proxies in Afghanistan by disguising itself as friend of the US strategy in the country.
However, the most notable element in the Afghan imbroglio is the steady rise and spread of influence of Iran’s IRGC activities. Iran has a historical interest and stake in the affairs of Afghanistan. It also shares intimate ethnic, linguistic and religious with the Afghan Shia minority Hazaras in the central and northern region of the country. Its historical roots can be traced back to the Treaty of Paris, 1857 when Iran abandoned its historic claim on Herat, but reserved the right to send forces into Afghanistan if its frontier is violated.[5]
Given this background, Iran is firm with its policy direction towards Afghanistan — stable and friendly or at least, not an inimical government in the country to have stable border, and ensure the safety of its Shia minority, while maintaining cultural relations and economic engagements particularly in the Herat region.
Iran’s policy therefore, has been firmly ruthless, but evinces a pragmatic flexibility and dynamism to adjust in the changing geopolitical condition and security ecosystem of Afghanistan. The violent excesses of the Taliban against the Shia population and bloody raid of Iranian Consulate in Mazar-e-Sharif killing eight officials made the IRGC to cooperate and coordinate with the invading American army in 2001 by providing intelligence and even included IRGC elements fighting on the ground. This “alliance” soon dissipated, with the two parting their ways when Iran was declared as part of the “Axis of Evil” by the US.
The IRGC is an ideological driven entity and uses it ideology pragmatically to serve the larger interests of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Quds force of the IRGC is particularly assigned with its task abroad. The changing security and power dynamics in Afghanistan has made the IRGC to coordinate with the Taliban based on their shared Islamic ideology and common enemies — the foreign occupiers in the country. The continued presence of the Taliban and their control over large parts of Afghanistan has reduced their dependency on Pakistan for a safe haven.
The contact and cooperation between the Taliban and the IRGC has become a lethal combination against the US and allies in Afghanistan. For the IRGC it was a clever move to maintain leverage with the Afghan government. Through its special Quds force the IRGC has supplied considerable weapons, explosives, roadside bombs to the Afghan Taliban. The IRGC has a very farsighted vision and strategy behind such an unlikely alliance. A critical perusal leads to the fact that though it is against a hostile regime on its eastern border, the alliance is able to obtain gains for the Islamic Republic in many ways.
Using this leverage to escalate violence in Afghanistan can limit the constraining of Iran’s policy by the West. It also allows Iran to maintain its sphere of influence in Herat while Taliban violence continues in other parts of the country and to have strategic advantage for its transport linkages of the Gulf with Central Asia and the Far East. One of the Taliban governing councils or Shura is the Mashhad Shura in the Iranian province of Khorasan-e Razavi, initially opened as a liaison office between the Taliban and IRGC in 2007. The Ansar Corps was established by Gen. Qassem Suleimani and commanded by the current head of the Quds Force, Esmail Qaani for supervision and coordination of the IRGC-Taliban relations.[6]
The IRGC has used its ideological fervor to manage dynamically all its proxy theaters by creating network and mobilizing them across the sectors. The IRGC mobilized its military and advisors to Syria to prop up the regime of President Assad.
This included Afghan war hardened veterans of the Fatemiyon Brigade who created a revolutionary niche during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.[7] The Fatemiyon Division is an affiliate of the IRGC composed of the Afghani Shia. Its formation was initially mobilized to defend the shrine of Sayyed Zeinab in the outskirt of Damascus. Later on, the IRGC began cultivating the Afghan resistance narrative to the growing transnational Sunni jihadism. Their number has been expanding and has become an important factor in the Syrian battlefield.[8]
The pattern of the Fatemiyon in the Syrian conflict is going to be further expanded under the leadership of Esmail Qaani of the Quds Force. Esmail Qaani has long association with the Fatemiyon Brigade and has been nurturing the group for a substantial period of time. Even in 2018 he visited the country with an Iranian delegation and had talks with President Ashraf Ghani and Mr Abdullah Abdullah, the Chief Executive of the country.[9]
The IRGC has grown in strength in Afghanistan and adopting its old tested tactics used in Iraq by the Quds force, the tactics of abduction. This tactic has put the Afghan government under strain and all other actors in the country — the US coalition and the Pakistani proxies operating in the country. To expand its support base and ideological penetration among the populace, the Iranian region with its IRGC network has opened a TV station and is promoting Islamic fundamentalism with regular programs. It is thus apparent that the influence of the IRGC in Afghanistan is on the constant rise, which makes the conflict in the country further complicated.
The Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) group was formed in 2015 with estranged and defected members from many terror groups based in Pakistan, such as Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Lashkar-e-Taiba, Lashkar-e- Islam, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the Haqqani group and Islamic movement of Afghanistan under the leadership of Hafiz Saeed Khan, a veteran of Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP).[10] The membership and leadership of this additional group hardly leaves any doubt about its patronage of the ISI and it project of targeting against Indian interests in Afghanistan. The recent gruesome attack on Gurudwara in Kabul killing 28 innocent worshippers by the IS-K and the claim by the perpetrators that the attack was aimed at avenging Indian action in Kashmir and the report disclosed by the NDS that the arrested leader of the IS-K, Abdullah Orazkai alias Aslam Farooqi has revealed his close relations with Haqqani Netwrk and Lashla-e Taiba (LeT) and having links with “Regional Intelligence Agency” a euphemism for the ISI.[11]
The ISI wants to have an unchallenged influence in Afghanistan and does not want the rise of increasing Shia power in the country — an apparent syndrome of global competition between the Shia and Sunni. With its loosening control over the Afghan Taliban, the ISI wants to disrupt the growing proximity of the Afghan government with the Islamic Republic of Iran along with India through their joint project of Chabahar that sits strategically on the Indian Ocean. The port is considered as a gateway to opportunities for trade with Central Asian countries.
Besides supporting both the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network to conduct attacks on India and Afhanistan, the ISI is responsible for attacks on the Islamic Republic by the Pakistan-backed terror group, Jaish al-Adl particularly in Chabahar zone.[12] The pattern is not new rather it appears to be a regular and planned activity as there has been similar attacks on the IRGC elements in that area. The attack which killed 27 members of the elite force (IRGC) in December 2019, and the beginning of such attacks on the Iranian border guards, can be traced since 2013. In October 2018, the Jaish al-Adl operation led to the abduction of 12 Iranian security personnel near Zahedan along the Iran-Pakistan border.[13] It seems that the IRGC and ISI tussle for influence and their proxy pursuit in Afghanistan is being played out in this new sector as well.
Chabahar is the convergence point of geo-economic and geopolitical interests of India and Iran in Afghanistan. For Afghanistan it provides the much needed strategic relief from its dependence on Pakistan to get access to the Indian ocean. Such developments are at loggerheads with Pakistan’s Afghan policy which has made the Pakistani deep state, ISI to create an atmosphere of disruption through its proxies. There was a similar attack in the port city of Chabahar by Pakistan-based Ansar al Forghan with links with the outlawed Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM).[14] Such developments has brought the IRGC and ISI face to face to the detriment of the possible peace and security in Afghanistan and the larger atmosphere of peace in the region.
The IRGC has for a long time nurtured its ideological entity inside Pakistan among the poorer and discriminated Shia population. The Zaynabiyon or Zainiboun Brigade is recruited by IRGC from the Pakistani Shia immigrants in Iran. As per intelligence reports, Shia men are recruited in Karanchi, Gilgit, Quetta and Prachinar to fight in Syria. Major General Qassem Soleimani was training them for years to participate in the Shia jihad in the region.[15] This group has been used by the IRGC to counter the ISI designs against the interests of the Islamic Republic in the area and their extended face off in Afghanistan. As per the Quds Force strategy, Zaynabiyon fighters are expected to be used in the strategic Syria-Iraq border — a necessary corridor link for these two countries in the overall strategy of the IRGC.[16]
The US-Taliban Agreement signed on February 29 amidst this devastating proxy war propelled by IRGC and ISI doesn’t appear to be bringing any semblance of peace in the country. The intra-Afghan talks are going to be a very rough road to reach any point of agreement. The Taliban office in Doha, the seat of talks between the US and the Taliban seems to suggest that Taliban has grown in autonomy from its early backers — Saudi Arabia, and ISI influence. The role of Saudi Arabia in the blockade of Qatar and the latter’s growing proximity with the Islamic Republic seem to have helped clear the misunderstanding and mistrust between the Taliban and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The IRGC has stitched together this alliance through its spreading networks in Afghanistan based on their common vision of political Islam and the expulsion of the foreign occupiers from Afghanistan in particular and entire West Asia. Thus behind the scenes, the IRGC is sure to play a considerable role in the ongoing intra-Afghan negotiations. The IRGC and the Taliban share common interests and common threat perceptions, and therefore this will remain a strong factor in the Afghan politics and its peace and security.[17] The withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan can thus create a potential power vacuum that may lead to the increased influence of these proxy actors and IRGC as happened when the US left Iraq in 2011.[18]
The proxy wars of IRGC and ISI have compounded the Afghan conflict. Such policy pursuit in the garb of religious fervor and ideological competition by IRGC and ISI has pushed Afghanistan in an unending track of violence and turmoil. Its dangerous spill-overs are the natural corollary that is proved by the increasing entangling of the Afghans elsewhere, such as the Fatemiyons in the far away Syrian conflict in West Asia. History bears the fact that the end-result of such proxy war games are also devastating for the peace and security of the sponsor countries. Currently, there is a risk that such a scenario is bound to have a dangerous syndrome in Afghanistan, with its spilling over in the region of South Asia and West Asia. Such a dose of religious fervor and ideology in proxy wars based on narrow national interests determined by regime interests and organizations like the ISI and the IRGC will have far deeper dangerous implications for global security and order. India has strong strategic interests in Afghanistan and Iran and assumes it to be of a paramount significance to realize those goals. Therefore India must tread carefully in the wake of these proxy war games between the ISI of Pakistan and the IRGC of Iran to pursue its interests in Afghanistan and beyond. India must device and pursue a policy based on pragmatic national interests and a larger requisite of global peace and security as a responsible democratic country.
#CoronaInPakistan - Govt plays down WHO warning as Pakistan reports 6,000 new infections
In the wake of the rise in the infection across the country, the WHO had suggested that the Punjab government may impose a strict, intermittent two-week quarantine to stem the spread of the pandemic.
In a letter to Punjab Health Minister Dr Yasmin Rashid, WHO Country Head for Pakistan Dr Palitha Mahipala had stated that the country does not meet any of the organisation’s six technical criteria for easing a lockdown as was done on May 1 and then on May 22. However, the warning fell on deaf ears. Mirza responded to the report, saying that the UN body was viewing the situation through a “health lens” whereas the government was following a “holistic” strategy to deal with the threat.
“The government’s choice of policies has been guided by the best evidence available about the disease spread and our best assessment of the fast deteriorating socio-economic conditions in the country,” said Mirza.
He recalled that a ministerial-level meeting took place at the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) every day in which the government with the help of experts “reviewed the disease data and trends very minutely and took a holistic view of the situation along with the provinces and developed recommendations”.
The adviser further recalled that Pakistan was a low middle-income country where two-thirds of the population was dependent on day-to-day earnings. “[The government] has made best sovereign decisions in the best interest of our people,” he said.
He added, however, that the government has to make “tough policy choices” to maintain the balance between lives and livelihoods. He said that although the lockdown had been eased, there was an increased focus on enforcing the standard operating procedures (SOPs) issued by the government to prevent the spread of the virus.He noted that wearing masks in public had been made compulsory and the government had developed a “robust” mechanism for dealing with the spread of Covid-19 which includes tracing, testing and quarantine to identify and seal off hotspots. He added that another strategy included shoring up the health system to cope with the influx of patients.
Mirza said the government “appreciated” the WHO’s recommendations but it had to look at a “holistic picture and make decisions on relative risk assessment basis”. “This has been the case in Pakistan all along,” he added.
MURAD BLASTS GOVT OVER POOR HANDLING OF COVID-19:
Asked at a press conference to comment on the coronavirus situation, Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah said he didn’t need to say anything on the issue because the latest numbers of virus cases are “self-explanatory”.
“Today we had the most cases and most deaths. Yesterday, we had 105 national deaths,” he noted.
“Now if they don’t care or don’t realise [the situation], what can we do?” he added, in an apparent reference to the federal government.
Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah says his government was helpless in imposing restrictions to control the spread of Covid-19 after orders were issued by the Supreme Court to reopen businesses and the federal downplayed the threat.
“We appeared in SC and told them that we don’t want to reopen [the economy]. Then we were told to follow the federal government’s lead on opening. After a strict order like that, what could we have done?” Shah said while answering a reporter’s question.
He said following the SC order and after the “mindset” of the federal government became clear, “people stopped caring about corona and said stuff like ‘this corona is nothing'”.
Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah says he had proposed on March 13 that the country’s borders should be closed to control the spread of the coronavirus, “but no one listened to us”.
“And on March 17, the nation was told that ‘corona is just a flu. You will recover after a bout of flu and cough’,” he said at a press conference, referring to the federal government.
“Due to mixed messaging, can you even blame the common man for not taking this virus seriously?” he asked.
LOCKDOWN ENDED WITHOUT MEETING REQUISITES: WHO
The WHO, in its letter, had said that Pakistan has been ranked among the top 10 countries in the world reporting the highest number of new cases of Covid-19 and advised the government to enhance daily testing capacity to 50,000 to assess the actual prevalence of coronavirus across the country.
While expressing concern over the hasty lifting of restrictions, the WHO said Pakistan did not meet any of the prerequisites for the opening of the lockdown.It also alerted Pakistan to its high positivity rate, underlining the seriousness of the Covid-19 situation and poor efforts of the government in this regard.
As a strategy to help contain the massive transmission of coronavirus, the WHO recommended the imposition of a two-week lockdown. “WHO strongly recommends the two weeks off and two weeks on strategy as it offers the smallest curve,” the letter said.
Alerting Pakistan to its high positivity with a weak surveillance system, the WHO said: “The positivity rate is high at 24 per cent (above the required level of 5pc), the surveillance system (identify, test, isolate, care for the ill including identification and follow up of contacts and quarantining) is weak.
“Decisions will require the need to balance response directly to Covid-19, which includes intermittent lockdowns of target areas (districts, towns, section of the town or village) as a first option and should be dealt on priority basis while simultaneously engaging in strategic planning and coordinated action to maintain essential health services delivery, mitigating the risk of system collapse,” the letter added.
https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2020/06/10/govt-says-following-holistic-strategy-to-stop-pandemic/
On the Coronavirus, Pakistan’s Government Is Missing in Action
BY NEHA MAQSOOD
“Twenty-five percent of Pakistanis are below the poverty line,” Khan said. “Today if I impose a complete lockdown, then my country’s rickshaw drivers, pushcart vendors, taxi drivers, small shopkeepers, daily wage earners … all of them will be shut in their homes.”
In Pakistan, where around 30 percent of the population lives in grave poverty, avoiding catching the coronavirus isn’t the only thing on people’s minds. Staving off hunger often comes first.
The coronavirus pandemic and the economic recession the International Monetary Fund predicts will follow it have imperiled the food security of many Pakistanis, and a broader economic collapse and escalating rates of unemployment would only add to the country’s poverty.
Pakistan’s citizens are nevertheless coming together to tackle this pandemic the best way they know how—through the act of charity. Given that Pakistan is a state whose tenets are rooted in the Islamic faith, many of its citizens believe that the best way to combat this crisis is through the spirit of altruism.
Pakistan’s citizens are nevertheless coming together to tackle this pandemic the best way they know how—through the act of charity.
The government has launched its own initiatives, including the Ehsaas Program, which has been providing cash assistance of 12,000 rupees (approximately $75) to low-income families. Within a few weeks, the government managed to disburse 55 billion rupees (about $344 million) to 4.6 million families that registered for the program through a text-message service.
On April 1, Khan also set up a COVID-19 relief fund; the premier urged citizens via Twitter to donate funds to help those made destitute by the lockdown.
Meanwhile, local volunteer organizations and ordinary citizens have been using WhatsApp and various social media platforms to make appeals for donations and food—especially essential grocery items including sugar, oil, flour, lentils, and tea, a list that nowadays also includes sanitizer, masks, and soap.
The Human Development Foundation Pakistan, one of the oldest nonprofit development organizations based in the capital, Islamabad, has set out to support 5,000 impoverished families, according to the foundation’s CEO, Azhar Saleem. So far, the organization has provided rations to approximately 14,000 people.Even ordinary citizens have stepped up to the plate, including Omair Shakil, a Pakistani physician and public health expert based in Boston. Shakil told Foreign Policy that by leveraging the power of social media, he managed to raise over $12,000 within two weeks.
He then proceeded to work with vetted organizations and individuals to distribute cash, ration bags, and personal protective equipment to public and private hospitals in need.
But despite their best intentions, community relief efforts and government schemes such as the Ehsaas Programme and the COVID-19 relief fund will have limited results.
Reports from those working on the ground indicate that most food and medical aid distribution has been limited to areas near major cities, depriving those living in rural areas. The latter, whose workers make up most of Pakistan’s informal sector and are dependent on daily wages, are more likely to be affected by the stringent lockdown measures.
Further, cash assistance programs like Ehsaas can become vectors of disease transmission, because they require in-person interactions. As Shakil noted, “The requirement for beneficiaries to collect their allotted monies from cash distribution centers carries the risk of community spread of the very disease that the program is meant to curb.”
Moreover, Ehsaas, which only provides monetary assistance to those who register via text message, is not particularly user-friendly, given that many rural families do not own smartphones and don’t always know how to claim the relevant benefits. Such programs only cater to people who can read and understand text messages written in Urdu.
In most regions of the country, Urdu is not the first language and Pakistan’s low literacy rate of 58 percent means that, without assistance, many non-Urdu readers will be unable to access the benefits of Ehsaas.
“Overall, community organization efforts can only work if citizens and NGOs have the support of the local administration,” argued Ahsan J. Pirzada, a lawyer who—by his count—raised over 7 million rupees ($44,000) through various online platforms and has been delivering ration packets to marginalized groups in Pakistan, including Christians, the transgender community, and slum-dwellers.
“The government could at the very least pass an ordinance which makes it easy for community organizations and citizens like me to register and open a bank account where people can donate,” Pirzada said.
While community relief efforts have provided temporary relief to the poor, they may not be a sustainable option.
While community relief efforts have provided temporary relief to the poor, they may not be a sustainable option given the protracted length of this pandemic and the uncertainty of future vaccine development.
For a nation that struggles with a weak health care infrastructure and still faces preventable deaths from polio and diarrhea, managing the COVID-19 crisis has been a major challenge.
As the pandemic threatens livelihoods, the country’s poor are relying almost exclusively on the charity of fellow citizens.
During a televised broadcast on March 22, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan expressed his hesitancy in imposing a nationwide lockdown in response to the coronavirus pandemic, explaining that such a move would have devastating economic consequences for the poor.
The Khan administration’s blasé attitude came to light when Pakistan’s minister of health, Zafar Mirza, erroneously declared on Feb. 19, that the nation’s health care facilities were adequately resourced to tackle any outbreak, just as the pandemic was making its way around the world. At the time of writing, there are over 30,000 confirmed coronavirus cases in Pakistan with 667 reported deaths. It’s clear that the preservation of national pride and the government’s reputation was the greater priority at the time. The skyrocketing of cases caused by the mishandling of pilgrims returning from Iran in mid-March revealed the complacency of the leadership. The faulty testing of the pilgrims, who were kept in quarantine near the border with Iran, allowed them to return to their hometowns, where they spread the coronavirus. Given that Pakistan shares borders with China, Iran, and India—three countries with a high number of reported cases—there was a dire need for effective cross-border cooperation and active health surveillance along the borders. When the lockdown came, implementation was delayed or piecemeal, exposing the government’s lack of swift decision-making. Even after the application of strict social distancing guidelines, children and young adults—who can be an asymptomatic vector of transmission—continue to line the country’s streets playing cricket and socializing at roadside shops. Meanwhile, health care workers are refusing to come to work, condemning the lack of personal protective equipment provided by the government. Many health care workers at public hospitals are reportedly paying out of pocket to procure protective gear for themselves, hospital cleaners, and security staff. Without adequate testing and protective equipment, there has been a mass undercounting of cases, which has allowed for a faster spread of infections. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/11/on-coronavirus-pakistans-government-is-missing-in-action/
Army tightens grip on Pakistan again as Imran Khan’s popularity wanes
By FASEEH MANGI, ISMAIL DILAWAR and KHALID QAYUM
The military’s heightened profile comes as Imran Khan sees his influence & popularity fall due to slowing economy, high consumer prices & corruption investigations.The generals are back in control in Pakistan — unofficially that is.
There’s now more than a dozen former and current military officials in prominent government roles, such as running the state-owned air carrier, the power regulator and the National Institute of Health, which is leading the country’s pandemic response. Three of those appointments happened in the last two months.
The military’s heightened profile comes as Prime Minister Imran Khan sees his influence and popularity dwindle due to a slowing economy, high consumer prices and corruption investigations involving his close aides. Analysts have long seen army support as critical for Khan’s party, which holds 46% of seats in parliament, to hold together a government that relies on several smaller coalition partners to stay afloat.
In some ways, this is nothing new: The military is Pakistan’s most powerful institution and has directly ruled the country for large parts of its seven-decade history. Yet it’s a far cry from the “New Pakistan” Khan promised when he took office back in 2018.
“By appointing an increasing number of current and retired military officials in key positions, the government is ceding what little space civilians had in developing and executing policy in the country,” Uzair Younus, non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said by phone. “The military’s overt and covert role in governance continues to grow.”
Key Roles
Many in Pakistan can see the shift during government virus briefings on state television, in which uniformed current army officers are seen assisting the government’s pandemic response. Retired lieutenant general Asim Saleem Bajwa is now Khan’s communication adviser and also oversees the implementation of about $60 billion in Pakistan investments as part of China’s Belt-and-Road Initiative.
At least 12 army loyalists in the cabinet also took part in dictator-turned-President Pervez Musharraf’s administration, which ended in 2008. That includes Interior Minister Ijaz Shah and Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, Khan’s finance adviser.
The greater military involvement even has the support of civilian government advisers such as Zaigham Rizvi, member of Naya Pakistan Housing Program taskforce in charge of running Khan’s main economic project of building low-cost houses. Two army officers were appointed to the body last month.
“There was a feeling that if we give the majority leadership to the army, the army has a good system,” said Rizvi, who worked at World Bank for 10 years as an housing expert. “They get things done.”
Pakistan’s army declined to comment. Nadeem Afzal Chan, a spokesman for Khan, wasn’t immediately available, while Information Minister Syed Shibli Faraz didn’t respond to a request for a comment.
Economic Distress
Khan has long dismissed allegations that he was too close to the military, saying in 2017 ahead of his election win that any notion that he’s an army stooge was a “bizarre conspiracy.” Last year he told local media “the army is standing with me.”
Yet economic distress from the pandemic is again raising tensions. Pakistan is the most infected nation in Asia after India, with more than 108,000 coronavirus cases and about 2,200 deaths.The economy is forecast to contract for the first time in 68 years, with the central bank expecting the economy to shrink 1.5% in the year ending June. The nation received an emergency loan of $1.4 billion from the International Monetary Fund in April, and is among countries seeking debt relief.Questions over the army’s role in running the government came to the fore when the virus started escalating in March. While Khan addressed the nation and urged citizens to remain calm, it was the army spokesman who announced the lockdown the next day. Most of the press statements from the country’s virus nerve center, chaired by Planning Minister Asad Umar, are produced by the army’s media wing — complete with its byline and logo.
On March 24, Khan was visibly annoyed when reporters asked him “who is in charge here?” Although there was no reference to the military, he threatened to leave abruptly.
Then in late May, his aviation minister, Ghulam Sarwar Khan, defended the national carrier’s performance and its military leadership following a passenger plane crash in the financial capital, Karachi. “It’s not a crime to appoint people affiliated to the military,” he said.
Diminishing Power
Khan’s hold on power will likely continue to diminish as current and retired army officers, as well as army-backed political appointees, assume more executive authority, said Arif Rafiq, president of New York-based Vizier Consulting, a risk advisory firm focused on the Middle East and South Asia. He noted Khan will come under further pressure as Pakistan’s economic challenges continue to mount.
“The army has signaled its dissatisfaction with Khan’s handling of the coronavirus lockdowns — there are also indications that the army has not been happy with the handling of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor as well as governance in Punjab, the largest province,” Rafiq said. “We’ve seen the chief military spokesman openly push for a tougher lockdown and a retired army officer assume roles as a government spokesman and top CPEC administrator.”
The military last year had already begun taking a more active role in policy making beyond foreign and national security policy, with Army Chief Qamar Javed Bajwa meeting top business leaders privately to find ways to boost the economy. The country’s Parliament adopted a law in January giving Bajwa a three-year extension starting from November 2019 and he was also made a member of a government’s economic board.
While many democracies appoint retired military officers to senior government positions, it becomes a problem if the civilians aren’t calling the shots, according to Michael Kugelman, a Washington, D.C. based South Asia senior associate at The Wilson Center.
“And herein lies the risk to democracy,” he said. “If retired generals are more influenced by their former bosses than by their current bosses, then democracy is not being properly served.”- Bloomberg
https://theprint.in/world/army-tightens-grip-on-pakistan-again-as-imran-khans-popularity-wanes/438867/