insight: Zardari, army and the system —Ejaz Haider

[fatman17]

insight: Zardari, army and the system —Ejaz Haider

All actors, the government, the opposition and the army are skating on thin ice. This offers the system an opportunity to consolidate itself by forcing them to understand the limits of what they can do and thereby respect the rules of the game

One year after Asif Ali Zardari’s election as president and just over a year-and-half into the transition to democracy, how does the Pakistan Army, face as it does multiple challenges, feel about the political situation? An allied question would be: what are its options if it sees the situation going bad?

The answer to the first question is easy: the political situation or its handling is not much to write home about. To the second, the answer is much more difficult. Two problems hamper the army’s freedom of action in terms of influencing the system: it bears the heavy cross of the Musharraf years; and it is bogged down in tackling an internal threat which doesn’t lend itself to a clear definition of victory — or closure.

How do these two factors, working singly and in tandem, impact the army?

The Musharraf years mean the army will have a limited role in setting the political agenda of the country for some time to come. Musharraf’s unceremonious ouster showed the army was both unable and unwilling to let him continue in office in the face of overwhelming anti-Musharraf public opinion. That situation still obtains, despite the fact that the political system remains tenuous.

The second factor is the internal threat which demands the army’s undiluted attention and has already spread thin its resources. The two factors, even singly, are enough to keep the army shy of burning its fingers again. Together, they make it almost impossible for the army to think in terms other than working hard to keep the current system afloat, at a minimum.

One lesson the army has drawn from the Musharraf years is to be more concerned about the exit strategy than the entry point. This is not a bad development. The Musharraf years have proved that (a) army intervention, even when the situation is really bad, can only remain popular for a very short duration; (b) once the army has come in, despite its earlier claims to clean up quickly and get out, it gets sucked in deeper and ends up losing its sheen and promise; and (c) the issue of legitimacy, try as the army might, will always catch up with whoever is heading it and has intervened into the political system — especially, as the army chief begins to overstay his welcome.

The question then, at one level, becomes rather simple: even if the army goes in, what good would such intervention do to the country and itself? The implied reasoning in this question, that the army can’t do much better than the civilians anyway, is even more relevant today. The civilians may not have done well since February 2008, and they haven’t, but equally true is the fact that much of that has to do with factors that are outside of the control of any government — civilian or military. Also, some of the constraints are a legacy of the Musharraf years and so, to that extent, one can reason further against another round of the khakis.

The army is alive to this and for once has come round to thinking about intervention in Clausewitzean terms. War is not the only phenomenon with foggy conditions; indeed, politics is likely to have more drag and fog than even war. For any officer who puts more premium on strategy than tactics, more on the indirect than direct approach, the issue of intervention, by that very fact, must be decided less by whether the army can make a coup happen (entry) and more by what the army can achieve by making one. That’s the point where the question of exit comes in: when is the right time to get out.

Some weeks before the February 2008 elections, I met the army chief, General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, as part of a group. Kayani was, and remains, very clear about keeping the army away from the hurly-burly of politics. He has kept his word. But that does not mean the army is happy or has stopped playing any role. Consider.

The army doesn’t particularly like Zardari; but it dislikes Nawaz Sharif even more. This has worked to Zardari’s advantage so far. But here too, the issue is not so simple.

Zardari is clear about what Pakistan needs to do to address the internal threat. He, as well as the PPP, has never dithered over the requirement, like the PMLN, to fight and finish off the terrorist groups in Pakistan. The PMLN has come round to this view very late and then too reluctantly. The PPP’s position on the issue is therefore much closer to the army’s than the PMLN’s.

However, the army also looks at India as a potential threat based on a number of factors; it feels, given India’s interference in Balochistan and possibly FATA, that there is a linkage between the internal security threat and the traditional threat from India.

That is not Zardari’s view. His statements that India is not a threat and that Pakistan would be willing to relinquish its nuclear first use policy did not go down well with the army. The army has had to signal indirectly that that is not the case. The issue was settled after Prime Minster Yousaf Raza Gilani said, in so many words, that this was the President’s “personal” view. Let’s just say that Gilani’s intervention in the issue was interesting!

At the political level, while the army doesn’t like Sharif, it does begrudgingly acknowledge that he is a political force to reckon with and must be allowed to play his role in order for the system to stay stable. This is a mature approach. This is also why on the issue of the restoration of the Chief Justice of Pakistan, when Sharif threatened Long March, Kayani had to personally talk to the political actors and specifically to Zardari to convince the latter that restoring Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry might not be a bad idea after all.

There are many areas of friction and it is not necessary to go into small details. What is important to note is that, as things stand, the army thinks that Zardari and the PPP are a better bet than the PMLN. Since, as argued, the army cannot intervene directly or be seen to be doing that, the institution is relying on its historically dominant position and its institutional integrity and efficiency to find workarounds to keep its interests secure. But, it knows that it has to pick and choose its causes and battles carefully and cannot road-roller the politicians.

Far from being a disadvantage, this selective, behind the scenes and circuitous power play may actually redound to the army’s advantage by making its approach more nuanced, not only to the perception of its own interests but also to the interests of the politicians and the political process.

What I have said, however, presupposes that there will be no major political upheaval and the politicians, especially Sharif, would not keel over while playing the game of brinkmanship. This is what the army also fears because it doesn’t know what it would do if the situation were to really push it centre-stage again.

In a way then, all actors, the government, the opposition and the army are skating on thin ice. This offers the system an opportunity to consolidate itself by forcing them to understand the limits of what they can do and thereby respect the rules of the game.

Ejaz Haider is op-ed editor of Daily Times, consulting editor of The Friday Times and host of Samaa TV’s programme “Siyasiyat”. He can be reached at sapper@dailytimes.com.pk

 

[aimail]

Role of Army leadership has been commendable since Musharraf ouster. Mr Zardari refused to cut a deal with General Pervez Musharraf and spent almost a decade behind the bars. Zardari became a president. In the presidential election, he won convincingly, securing comfortable majorities in Parliament and three of the four regional assemblies. During last year President Zardari faced malicious campaign aimed at maligning his image worldwide but he managed to stand upright against all these conspiracies by anti-democratic elements. Role of Army in wake of Swat operation, Nizam-e-Adl regulation and towards other issues was quite ok. That really shows coordination of PPP led government and Army leadership. Both seem to have fully awakened to the situation unlike Nawaz Sharif rule.

 

[Kasrkin]

Actually, Zardari’s inability to cut a deal with General Musharraf was not because of his principles but because he had nothing to barter with, nothing to offer at the time he was languishing in jail. He was more than willing to cut a deal with the ‘dictator’ when such was possible, thus Musharraf was allowed a safe resignation in return for a comfortable transfer of power. Also, as far as ‘enemies of democracy’ questioning Zardari’s integrity, I’d have thought that proponents of democracy in Pakistan would be the ones scorning at his abysmal reputation. An enemy of democracy would actually be quite happy that ‘democracy’ is represented by the likes of Zardari.

This is an interesting article. Frankly, I don’t think the army would even consider a coup unless it was faced with exceptionally dire circumstances. The fact is that they don’t need to, they can protect their interests, and the country’s, from the back seat as they’re doing right now. Their presence in itself, I feel, will act as an incentive for the politicians to behave and perform.

It is very interesting to note the change in Zardari since he took power. Before he held office his speeches to the masses were vulgar and crude. He used to blame the army regularly for the country’s ills, including his own, he used to threaten the ‘establishment’ and talk of revolutions and ‘patience’ of the masses.

Now, only yesterday, I was observing that in reply to a question on his visit to the International Institute of Strategic Studies about the army’s supposed all controlling power, he defended the army’s influence in Pakistan by pointing how vital well trained armies are to keep the peace in third world nations like Iraq, Somalia and Afghanistan. Looks like being surrounded by our intimidating boys from the SSG 24/7 has inspired some sense into him after all. Or maybe he is just conscious of the need to protect his position now that he has achieved it. Either way, it’s an expected but welcome change, and one that’s not limited to him.

The author makes an interesting note about Nawaz Sharif and his only very reluctant acceptance of the role Pakistan needs to play in fighting terrorism with its own borders. I don’t think the army is too comfortable with the role he has played and the damage he has done to national security along with the likes of Imran Khan, Qazi Hussain and others. But he is a politician after all, he accused Musharraf of being an American stooge regularly despite that being exactly what he was called while his time in power. He accused Musharraf of increasing terrorism instead of eliminating it in its infancy, but sectarian and political terrorism only increased during his reign too. Also when Musharraf was desperately trying to tackle terrorism during the initial stages, PML-Q decried all that venomously.

Point being that he’ll bounce right back to the good side, like he did with the Swat operation once he saw people were fed up with the oppositions politicians excusing the Taliban and their atrocities and opposing military retribution. Politicians in Pakistan don’t have much of a stand or policy or agenda other than achieving and staying in power. Zardari, when he suggested the first no-use policy, probably didn’t know what he was talking about. He probably thought he had a spontaneously bright idea that he spurted out without ever having familiarized himself with Pakistan’s nuclear weapons strategy. He isn’t much trouble, the army I believe doesn’t take him too seriously.

Nawaz Sharif though is a more experienced player. He has exercised near dictatorial rule during his time in power. He think he has the army all figured, his party is likely to have more connections in the army too than the PPP. So if the army is content with Zardari then it is because of this, he absorbs all the flak that a national institution like the army is never designed to take (as discovered during Musharraf’s rule). And he keeps the slightly more dangerous figure of Nawaz Sharif at bay through a legitimate and widely accepted democratic victory.

A great article, was a treat to read.

 

[fatman17]

the ToE's are very simple - u dont step on our toe's and vice-versa. the army wants to protect its interests which is fine as long as they are within the constitutional ambit. they need to realise that they are not the "sole protectors" of the state. protection of the state is a joint effort between the civilian govt, armed forces and the people!