Ever since my column of July 13th (‘The greatest dilemma of the general’) I have been swamped with friendly and not-so friendly phone calls, emails and run-ins, with everyone asking me to “explain” the ominous sounding quote of a multi-starred khaki.
The quote was: “The army works in a different manner. A point comes where if the chief does not, or cannot, run the army then the army runs the chief.” So, was I talking about a coup against COAS Kayani by his own handpicked lot of corps commanders? Storming of the generals by angry colonels? And if neither, then how would the army run its own chief? I have been asked.
Allow me to explain. A generals coup is not even a remote possibility in an army structured like a pyramid, with the chief sitting at the pinnacle. The Pakistan army has a peculiar professional culture and anyone having the slightest insight into our khaki psyche and countenance would tell you that an inside coup is a ludicrous thought. Similarly, the chances of the mid-ranking officers going for their generals is as much a possibility as Osama bin Laden’s son becoming the next president of the US.
So how does the army then run its chief? The answer is deceptively simple as explained by my wise khaki friend. As matters stand today, all the corps commanders have been posted by COAS Gen kayani himself. The GOC’s too did not land in their coveted perches without his approval. The head honchos of the ISI and the MI serve at his pleasure. In fact, a large number of the freshly made major and lieutenant generals owe their elevation to Gen Kayani. And where he may not have as direct an involvement, all key posts have been filled by likeminded officers in turn appointed by his own trusted likeminded top guns.
All said, he today heads the circle of military elders handpicked by him, and hence the obvious deduction that their viewpoint and thinking had to be in line with his own. It would not be unreasonable either to assume that with none of this lot being a vestige of Gen Musharraf, the incumbent COAS can rest assured that his top generals are thinking their own thoughts and not being influenced by some third covert interest. His is today one happy family of trusted lieutenants.
And here comes the twist. What does the chief do, if he senses a slow but gradual divergence of views between the majority of his top generals and himself? He knows they want the best for him, the institution, and possibly the country as well, but while he agrees with the set of identified problems, his remedy may not entirely be in consonance with their desired solution. What happens when the bulk of his top officers, whom he chose with excruciating patience during the last three years, are not as patient as him in waiting for things to improve or for the present ruling dispensation to mend its ways. Add to that the burden of the three-year tenure extension and the perpetual struggle to reassure all of his loyalty being with the institution and the country and not to any one individual. He is then left with three choices: first, he either questions the judgment of his generals, or his own.
Secondly, he either leans their way or convinces, or forces, them into seeing things through his prism. Or he makes one last assessment of where the coin is likely to fall and then synthesise the views of the best, and the rest to come up with a compromise solution.
All scenarios however have one thing in common: the chief is being softly steered into taking hard decisions (which ultimately would be of his choice though) and the combined pressure of external events and internal opinion is forcing a timetable of sorts upon him. It’s not as if it is a deliberate ploy by a band of scheming generals but simply the compounded effect of “respected peer opinion” pressure. The army controls the chief by simply nudging him into speeding up his decision-making process.
And the fast deteriorating situation in the country is not helping in easing the pressures either. As the cliched slogan goes: democracy is not about how votes are cast but how they are made to count. What we are witnessing here is anything but democracy. What we have here is a mandated autocracy rather than a people’s democracy. The elected no longer appear answerable for their acts of omission and commission (pun intended).
The ruling political junta is openly defying the Supreme Court and ridiculing the chief justice-led benches. The country is in the midst of an economic meltdown and the government’s only response has been to print billions by the day and spend even more by nightfall. There has been no mentionable direct foreign investment in the last three years and even existing multinationals have started pulling out. The governor State Bank and the nation’s chief economist resigned within days of one another citing serious political manipulation of national finances, but nobody cares. The FBR has just been caught with its pants down while lying about its tax receipts. That in turn, amongst siring other problems, has also jeopardised badly needed foreign loans. The energy crisis is forcing the closure of industry and causing losses of billions of rupees on a daily basis, but where is a serious government policy response? A hundred people die in Karachi within 72 hours, thanks to power games between PPP, MQM and ANP, and the interior minister blames jilted lovers and vengeful wives (sic). There is a serious state security crisis.
Lawlessness is the new law both in Fata and the settled areas of the country. The army is stretched beyond its capacity to fight internally, while exposing the country to external aggression.
On the external front too the army has its hands full with the US, and others. Admiral Mullen, the once trusted friend of Kayani, openly states that military-to-military relations are in very difficult times and need “recalibration.” Admiral James Winnefeld dubbed Pakistan a very difficult partner who “did not always share the same worldview or the same opinions or the same national interest.” Add to that the very strong belief in Rawalpindi that if left to its own, the US would ensure that the organisational and operational structure of the Pakistan army is changed max within the next year or two. In other words, just like the country itself, the institution too is faced with an existentialist threat.
The only democratic resolution to all our national ills lies in a political alternative to the existing ruling setup. Unfortunately, utter confusion prevails on this count. Nawaz Sharif does not want to go the agitation route out of his fear of any khaki exploitation of the situation and would like to wait till the next general elections in 2013, or even 2012 as President Zardari is said to be toying with the idea of calling snap polls after the Senate elections in March next year. The question is, can the country survive that long if it continues to be (mis)managed in this manner? Will anyone be able to revive the badly stalling economy at that stage? Or whether there will even be anything left at all to salvage by then. Everyone is thinking about all these things including the generals, and voicing their opinion, including the generals. This is how collective thinking influences and ‘runs’ an individual perspective my friends.
0 comments:
Post a Comment