Coup under carpet

[Ray]

Coup under carpet

The joke in Af-Pak circles in the US was readymade and inevitable : the Obama administration wanted the Pakistani military to act against the Haqqani network...and it obliged; except, it wasn't the Haqqani network that Washington had in mind! Last week, in continuing defiance of US diktats, Pakistan's military chief and de facto ruler Ashfaq Kayani got rid of the country's ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani, and in the process cut down to size the envoy's patron, President Asif Ali Zardari, and his civilian government, reasserting the primacy of the jackboots that has crushed the country for half its existence.

So much for the big picture. Now, the details. From the time Haqqani was appointed Pakistan's ambassador to the US in the first flush of the civilian government's victory over a declining Musharraf regime in March 2008, it was evident that his demise would begin the moment the military chose to reassert itself. In fact, it was something of a miracle that he survived so long, his appointment itself being a wonder given his strong antimilitary credentials. His seminal 2005 book Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military is a scathing expose of the military's use of terrorism as a policy tool and the nexus between the army and the fundamentalists. A journalistturned-political player (he alternately worked with both Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto), he was on a teaching gig at Boston University after falling out with Pervez Musharraf when the book boosted his credentials and made him a cause celebre on the diplomatic and think-tank circuit.

But Pakistan is a country of smoke and mirrors. Turncoats and quislings abound. As it became increasingly clear that the civilian government was a mere facade and the real reins of power rested with the military, Haqqani tried to ingratiate himself with the men in khaki, kissing up to Kayani and ISI's Ahmad Shuja Pasha during their visits to the US. It was true to form for a man who, for all his latter-day liberal-democrat avatar, began his political career as a foot soldier for the Jamait-e-Islami .

But it was becoming increasingly hard in Washington DC to bat for Pakistan's illiberal military-mullah axis that became more brazen in its use of terrorism, especially after the Mumbai 26/11 terrorist attacks and strikes against US interests in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Barack Obama's election to the White House led to a clear but informal designation of Pakistan as a terrorist haven with Washington pushing for more covert operations and operatives into Pakistan, an endeavour in which Haqqani necessarily had to be co-opted (to facilitate visas and undercover entry), even as the spooks in Rawalpindi raged against him and demanded his head after the Raymond Davis episode. Haqqani survived that scare, and when the military establishment was caught with their pants down during the US raid that killed Osama bin Laden, Washington's Haqqani network (as opposed to the one in Waziristan, this one has the Pakistani envoy and his few liberal patrons in Washington and Islamabad, including his wife, who is Zardari's advisor) decided it was the best time to tame the military - when it was down and out, humiliated by the Americans.

What happened next, especially why they would choose Mansoor Ijaz, a dodgy Pakistan-American expat, to execute the plan, is something no one has a clue about. A self-proclaimed investment banker and a political gadabout, Ijaz has dubious claims as a player in conflict resolution going back to the Bill Clinton era. He is also buddies with James Woolsey, a former CIA director, and has made a few TV appearances and written some op-eds on Pakistan, usually critical of the country, its military, and its policies.

According to Ijaz, Haqqani used him as a conduit to send a memo to a key player in the Washington establishment (then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen) in which he inter alia invited American intervention, offering on behalf of Zardari and his civilian government a reversal of the military's policy of using terrorism, greater accountability and transparency about the country's nuclear assets, peace with India and other neighbours, and reducing the over-arching power of the Pakistani military.

Why Haqqani would use Ijaz to pass on the unsigned memo when he himself had access to the highest levels of the US government is a mystery. One explanation is that it gave him "plausible deniability" if something went wrong or if the memo leaked, given Ijaz's dubious reputation (he could always deny being behind the memo, which he did). More mysterious is why Ijaz chose to rat on Haqqani and his network's effort to rein in the Pakistani military in a Financial Times op-ed , when he (Ijaz) professed the same goal in his previous writings . The explanation for this is that the ISI got wind of Haqqani's memo and forced Ijaz to expose him, enabling the military to get rid of a man they always considered a dangerous American stooge.

Haqqani's fate was sealed the moment he boarded the flight from Washington to Islamabad, given the weakkneed civilian government's grovelling before the military. His resignation was obtained, literally at gunpoint according to Pakistani journalists . But in a surprising twist, Islamabad announced that he would be replaced by Sherry Rehman, a Benazir Bhutto acolyte and liberal who was in the political doghouse after she ran afoul of fundamentalists for her effort to reform blasphemy laws.

Whether the military was on board Rehman's new appointment or merely acquiesced to the civilian government's token defiance of the Haqqani sacking and used her naming to buttress its credentials with Washington is not clear yet. But whoever okayed it, Rehman's appointment is considered a masterstroke because it underplays the growing military-mullah nexus in Pakistan and its slide into extremism that is worrying the daylights out of the US. Rehman can also counter the perception of an increasingly rabid nation intolerant of women and minorities, while begging more effectively for aid, present a respectable, liberal face to the American media and polity, and counter India's own accomplished envoy Nirupama Rao.

She will also be the key interlocutor between HRC (Hillary Rodham Clinton) and Pakistan's foreign minister HRK (Hina Rabbani Khar), between whom there's not much love lost, according to the grapevine. With so many women in the fray, you'd think the generals are almost irrelevant in Pakistan, but the truth is otherwise . Pakistan's military has once again stamped its authority on the country, which is ringing to the slogan of Khakistan Paindabad.

Coup under carpet - The Times of India

The military has used the Ambassador's faux pas (who anyway was anti military given the book he wrote as also a Jamaait fan) and has tightened it grip over the country, even though the civilian Govt has survived.

The civilian govt was, as it is, not in control, but with all the shenanigans on, the military will appear as the sole saviour of the country.

The attempt by Zardari to cut the Army to size has failed.

What will Pakistan politics and governance look like in the future and will the ascendency of the Army make the situation sour with India?

 

[Ray]

Cowardice, yes, treason no

If there was ever an issue to fully encapsulate civil-military equations in Pakistan, as well as Islamabad-Washington relations, the Memogate controversy would be it. Pakistan's civilian leadership has always been subservient to the military brass on one level, and the US on another. But such truisms do not portray the civilians' own contribution to this. Civilian governments virtually function like a federal unit of the Pakistan army, given that Islamabad has basically abjured affairs of defence, foreign affairs and even finance to Rawalpindi.

However, unlike a federation, civilmilitary relations are not governed by any written contract. (In fact, military interference is constitutionally illegal.) That the military has occasionally taken over directly has only reinforced this unwritten rule.

The civilians have never complained about their subservience - at least when in power. They have never taken the matter to the people or transcended party lines to form a united front against military adventurism. And when their attempts to correct, even slightly, this civil-military imbalance are uncovered, they act almost ashamed.

This has been made more apparent by Memogate. Now, it is yet to be determined whether or not Pakistan's current civilian set-up had anything to do with the secret memo to then Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen, seeking help in fettering a dangerously nervous and fidgety military post-OBL . By fettering, it basically meant that Admiral Mullen should call up Chief of Army Staff Ashfaq Pervez Kayani and tell him to stop pressurizing the civilians.

The memo had also pledged - or pledged to attempt - to uncover and rein in the military's ties with militant elements , which are inimical to the US as well as Pakistan and its neighbours; to meaningfully uncover and prosecute those found involved in the 2008 siege of Mumbai, whether those involved were state or non-state actors; and to practice proper discipline in handling of nuclear weapons, so that global concerns about their safety are assuaged. And it would do this with the US on board.

But somehow, the rhetoric surrounding the controversy has revolved around one word: 'Treason' . Cowardly, perhaps. But treasonous? Nawaz Sharif, the leader of the opposition PML-N has been the most vocal critic of the government on this issue, and has actually filed a petition in the Supreme Court. Yet, it was Sharif who had in 1999 asked the US for help in the face of an impending military coup in the wake of the Kargil operation.

No political voice has come forward to say that while Memogate's alleged modus operandi is questionable, the ends sought are perfectly acceptable and, in fact, desirable. The most telling reaction has come from the government itself. It has sacked its ambassador to the US under pressure. Leaders, including the PM, have worked overtime to prove the government's loyalty to Pakistan, and, more importantly , to the Pakistan military.

Until the OBL raid, the military and the government were on good terms. Which meant that there was no immediate threat of the government being toppled. It was given permission to exist. That permission came into question post-OBL , and is now at best tenuous post-Memogate . The government's instant capitulation has once again accentuated the notion that the military is in charge, while compromising bolder civilian decisions such as granting MFN status to India.

Memogate has proven to be a coup without there having to be one, in a land where it is in the national interest to violate the Constitution, but treasonous to uphold it.

Cowardice, yes, treason no - The Times of India

The Ambassador's memo exposed the double game played by the military and their support for terrorists.

Even Nawaz Sharif asked for US help during their kargil fiasco to tame the Pakistan military.

It just shows that the civilian govt want the Army to play its role as per the Constitution, but having tasted blood, it survives as the supreme dispenser of Pakistan's fate!