As those who know me on this forum already recognize, I have always been very critical of the military's political role and also the government's tendency to use the military as a stop-gap to perform civilian duties for which separate ministries exist but fail to perform.
Similarly, I am also critical of the social engineering that went into creating a "jiahd mindset" during the 80s and 90s and although it follows a context, albeit a short sighted one, I shall not be focusing on that. Instead, allow me to call chronology to my aid.
After 1971, the military was broken, demoralized and essentially dead. Mr Bhutto was arguably thus, the strongest civilian ruler to ever have held power as there was no alternative nucleus of power to oppose him. He demonstrated that power by unceremoniously dismissing much of the leadership of the military at the time and working to restructure the system and yet it was him, the powerful socialist Mr Bhutto, that first brought Islam to the fold as a political force and had Ahemdis declared as non-muslims, he followed it up with the blasphemy laws, the ban on alcohol and his pursuit of a policy of muslim power.
We all know the shit that went down in the 80s, no need to even go there.
Then in the 90s, both Benzair and Nawaz Sharif persisted with the same policy of utilizing Islam as a political tool for their career.
The fact remains that the military was not an isolated actor in developing this flawed narrative, it was in fact born out of necessity and the realization that the underlying basis of this narrative had always existed. The civil and military leadership of the 70s, 80s and 90s simply played it in their favour. And like a dose of heroin, the next hit had to be stronger than the last and by the time we realized how deep we had fallen into the rabbit hole, there was no visible way out.
So I would like to point out that the democratic forces are very much a part of the problem, if they had remained in power, one might argue that things would have been better but I would contest that they would only be marginally so.