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WikiLeaks confirm what the domestic commentators have been saying all along: the army calls the shots, hates India, wants a stranglehold on Afghanistan, and hates Nawaz Sharif and Zardari in varying and fluctuating degrees. The ISI is an internally fractured organisation following different policies at the same time and letting retired officers like former ISI boss Hamid Gul run the outfit through personal loyalties. Pakistan plays a double game in answer to Americas double game in what is called a transactional relationship complicated by Pakistans misperception that America needs it more than it needs America.
When Hamid Guls shenanigans were revealed by WikiLeaks in July 2010, he said it was all a plot by the US to malign him. He was joined in this later by ex-army chief Aslam Beg who wants to build the scenario that America is Pakistans enemy number one, thus confirming the general military view in Pakistan that Pakistan must fight two powers at once, global America and regional India, while Pakistans economy is belly-up feeding the sprawling military establishment. The most interesting commentary offered by WikiLeaks, however, is about the triangular relationship among the army chief, Nawaz Sharif and Zardari. What is revealed is a complex picture in which the three protagonists are confused about one another, which is worse than if the lines were clearly drawn.
From troika to triangle: And this springs from General Kayanis decision so far not to oust the incumbent government one way or another. The leaks also tell us that he has often vacillated in this determination. He doesnt like Zardari and there is evidence that he has his ear close to what the media is saying and wants to remain popular as an army chief who does not interfere. He also does not like Nawaz Sharif and that has happened because of the past experience with the Punjabi leader who can be more powerful than Pakistans dominant army can stomach. Yet he cannot remain aloof from the view taken by the rest of the top brass that Nawaz Sharif is close to how the army thinks about terrorism and America.
There was a time when Pakistan wrongly thought that a triangle of power in Islamabad called troika ensured stability. The president under Article 58/2/B plus the army chief on one side and the prime minister on the other was the three-way extra-constitutional distribution of power that was supposed to preclude the imposition of martial law in the 1990s. What happened was a sad series of topplings in which the president repeatedly ganged up with the army chief. The decade turned out to be the most disastrous in the countrys history, a truth that was realised by the two repentant mainstream parties when they wrote up the Charter of Democracy in 2006.
Principled Nawaz Sharif and tight-lipped Kayani: The pavlovian reflex however is at work again. What has the army experienced at the hands of the two parties? The GHQ has always thought that the PPP was too liberal therefore not sincere to the countrys ideology and not outspokenly against India. It had also to live down the memory of its founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto humiliating an already defeated army in 1971 when he arrested its top brass. On the other hand, the GHQ, formerly affectionate towards General Zias protégé politician Nawaz Sharif, had to bear the shock of the rightwing leaders firing of two army chiefs, Jahangir Karamat and Pervez Musharraf, one after the other.
Nawaz Sharif has been called unreliable by WikiLeaks and PMLN spokesman Ahsan Iqbal rightly says he is seen as unreliable because he is principled. (In a weak state, lack of flexibility is indeed dangerous, which makes Maulana Fazlur Rehman a much better politician than Imran Khan and Qazi Hussain Ahmad.) But Nawaz Sharif is playing his cards very carefully this time. He knows the army likes him for saying that the war against terrorism is not Pakistans war and wants General Kayani to know that he is hardly dangerous this time around. WikiLeaks have him praising Kayani after the phone-call he made during his Long March to restore Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. He has got his brother Shahbaz Sharif to call on the army chief on a regular basis. The old game of toppling is being played but with more sophistication than during the crude 1990s.
Mind games amid clouds of ambivalence: Ambivalence reigns supreme. General Kayani has Zardari playing ball on the question of normalisation with India and Americas do more policy. Why should he get rid of a government that at times goes beyond what he wants it to do? WikiLeaks force one to believe that he is playing a complex mind game with the two political rivals, using the popular power of one against the parliamentary power of the other. But the two politicians are also playing mind games of their own. Zardari is sinuously complex, even liable to over-reach himself in his tactical suppleness. But Nawaz Sharif is no less creatively complicated as revealed by his Charter of Pakistan which contains all sorts of things in it, including a stiff dose of the toppling medicine of the 1990s to keep General Kayanis interest alive.
But Nawaz Sharif is convinced that Pakistan cannot survive without normalisation with India. One can safely reveal that one of the messages taken by Shahbaz Sharif to General Kayani was about how much Pakistan will gain from of a normal trade relationship with India. The message was drafted by one of Pakistans leading economists and passed to Nawaz Sharif by one of the leading industrialists in Lahore.
Nawaz Sharifs message to General Kayani: It made the following points: Free trade with India will lower bilateral tension; it will obviate Pakistans matching of defence expenditure while the latter is growing at the rate of 8 percent of the GDP; it will boost Pakistans GDP and enable it to achieve higher security; Pakistan will be able to avoid seasonal price hikes of goods; Pakistani farmers will benefit from technical knowhow, leading to rise in rural incomes; legalised trade with India will increase revenues; tariff barriers by India will be removed by Pakistan joining many other external traders; and Lahore will emerge as the centre of commerce and finance serving many cities across the border.
Will the general pay heed to this part of Nawaz Sharifs Charter of Pakistan? Or will he be forced to embrace an increasingly unpopular Zardari even more firmly? He is a tight-lipped man, which is good for the mind games he is playing at home, but not so good when it comes to moulding the thinking of the army to changing regional and global conditions.
Welcome to The Friday Times
General Kayani and Nawaz Sharif
Khaled AhmedWikiLeaks confirm what the domestic commentators have been saying all along: the army calls the shots, hates India, wants a stranglehold on Afghanistan, and hates Nawaz Sharif and Zardari in varying and fluctuating degrees. The ISI is an internally fractured organisation following different policies at the same time and letting retired officers like former ISI boss Hamid Gul run the outfit through personal loyalties. Pakistan plays a double game in answer to Americas double game in what is called a transactional relationship complicated by Pakistans misperception that America needs it more than it needs America.
When Hamid Guls shenanigans were revealed by WikiLeaks in July 2010, he said it was all a plot by the US to malign him. He was joined in this later by ex-army chief Aslam Beg who wants to build the scenario that America is Pakistans enemy number one, thus confirming the general military view in Pakistan that Pakistan must fight two powers at once, global America and regional India, while Pakistans economy is belly-up feeding the sprawling military establishment. The most interesting commentary offered by WikiLeaks, however, is about the triangular relationship among the army chief, Nawaz Sharif and Zardari. What is revealed is a complex picture in which the three protagonists are confused about one another, which is worse than if the lines were clearly drawn.
From troika to triangle: And this springs from General Kayanis decision so far not to oust the incumbent government one way or another. The leaks also tell us that he has often vacillated in this determination. He doesnt like Zardari and there is evidence that he has his ear close to what the media is saying and wants to remain popular as an army chief who does not interfere. He also does not like Nawaz Sharif and that has happened because of the past experience with the Punjabi leader who can be more powerful than Pakistans dominant army can stomach. Yet he cannot remain aloof from the view taken by the rest of the top brass that Nawaz Sharif is close to how the army thinks about terrorism and America.
There was a time when Pakistan wrongly thought that a triangle of power in Islamabad called troika ensured stability. The president under Article 58/2/B plus the army chief on one side and the prime minister on the other was the three-way extra-constitutional distribution of power that was supposed to preclude the imposition of martial law in the 1990s. What happened was a sad series of topplings in which the president repeatedly ganged up with the army chief. The decade turned out to be the most disastrous in the countrys history, a truth that was realised by the two repentant mainstream parties when they wrote up the Charter of Democracy in 2006.
Principled Nawaz Sharif and tight-lipped Kayani: The pavlovian reflex however is at work again. What has the army experienced at the hands of the two parties? The GHQ has always thought that the PPP was too liberal therefore not sincere to the countrys ideology and not outspokenly against India. It had also to live down the memory of its founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto humiliating an already defeated army in 1971 when he arrested its top brass. On the other hand, the GHQ, formerly affectionate towards General Zias protégé politician Nawaz Sharif, had to bear the shock of the rightwing leaders firing of two army chiefs, Jahangir Karamat and Pervez Musharraf, one after the other.
Nawaz Sharif has been called unreliable by WikiLeaks and PMLN spokesman Ahsan Iqbal rightly says he is seen as unreliable because he is principled. (In a weak state, lack of flexibility is indeed dangerous, which makes Maulana Fazlur Rehman a much better politician than Imran Khan and Qazi Hussain Ahmad.) But Nawaz Sharif is playing his cards very carefully this time. He knows the army likes him for saying that the war against terrorism is not Pakistans war and wants General Kayani to know that he is hardly dangerous this time around. WikiLeaks have him praising Kayani after the phone-call he made during his Long March to restore Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. He has got his brother Shahbaz Sharif to call on the army chief on a regular basis. The old game of toppling is being played but with more sophistication than during the crude 1990s.
Mind games amid clouds of ambivalence: Ambivalence reigns supreme. General Kayani has Zardari playing ball on the question of normalisation with India and Americas do more policy. Why should he get rid of a government that at times goes beyond what he wants it to do? WikiLeaks force one to believe that he is playing a complex mind game with the two political rivals, using the popular power of one against the parliamentary power of the other. But the two politicians are also playing mind games of their own. Zardari is sinuously complex, even liable to over-reach himself in his tactical suppleness. But Nawaz Sharif is no less creatively complicated as revealed by his Charter of Pakistan which contains all sorts of things in it, including a stiff dose of the toppling medicine of the 1990s to keep General Kayanis interest alive.
But Nawaz Sharif is convinced that Pakistan cannot survive without normalisation with India. One can safely reveal that one of the messages taken by Shahbaz Sharif to General Kayani was about how much Pakistan will gain from of a normal trade relationship with India. The message was drafted by one of Pakistans leading economists and passed to Nawaz Sharif by one of the leading industrialists in Lahore.
Nawaz Sharifs message to General Kayani: It made the following points: Free trade with India will lower bilateral tension; it will obviate Pakistans matching of defence expenditure while the latter is growing at the rate of 8 percent of the GDP; it will boost Pakistans GDP and enable it to achieve higher security; Pakistan will be able to avoid seasonal price hikes of goods; Pakistani farmers will benefit from technical knowhow, leading to rise in rural incomes; legalised trade with India will increase revenues; tariff barriers by India will be removed by Pakistan joining many other external traders; and Lahore will emerge as the centre of commerce and finance serving many cities across the border.
Will the general pay heed to this part of Nawaz Sharifs Charter of Pakistan? Or will he be forced to embrace an increasingly unpopular Zardari even more firmly? He is a tight-lipped man, which is good for the mind games he is playing at home, but not so good when it comes to moulding the thinking of the army to changing regional and global conditions.
Welcome to The Friday Times
