Pakistan army chief gets three-year extension in office

ajtr

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A General Stays On, Solidifying the Army's Power in Pakistan


The speech may have lasted just three minutes, but it spoke volumes about where power lies in Pakistan. Late on Thursday, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani suddenly appeared on national television to address the country. Pakistan is passing through a critical phase, he said, reading intently from a script on his desk and stealing only furtive glances at the camera in front of him. He praised the Pakistani army for its successes in military operations against Islamist militants and singled out its commander, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, for his "excellent military leadership qualities and pro-democracy views." For those reasons, Gilani said, despite the fact that Kayani's term in command of the army was about to expire, Pakistan's civilian government had decided to keep him on for another three years.
There was little enthusiasm in the Prime Minister's voice. It had been widely expected that Kayani would be granted an extension if he sought one, because the civilian government is too unpopular and too weak to resist a powerful army chief's whims. But what did surprise many was the length of the extension: Kayani had been due to retire this November; now, underscoring the military's enduring clout, he will remain in his post until 2013, establishing himself as the most powerful man in the country.
(See the 2009 TIME 100: Ashfaq Kayani.)
Since assuming the top post in November 2007, Kayani has done much to efface the ignominious record of his predecessor, Pervez Musharraf, who ruled Pakistan for eight years as a military dictator. In the battle against militants in South Waziristan and the Swat Valley, the army's fresh resolve has been rewarded with significant success and popular support. Relations with the Pentagon and NATO have improved, and Kayani is well regarded by senior Western military officers. By shunning the overtly political role claimed by his predecessor, Kayani has also done much to rebuild the army's public image.
(See photos of Pakistan's vulnerable northwest passage.)
"I think it's a good decision for Pakistan," says Talat Masood, a retired lieutenant general and military analyst. "General Kayani has shown that he's professionally very competent, has leadership qualities and has generally stayed away from politics. He has influenced foreign and defense policy but has done so discreetly. And he has established good relations with the U.S. and NATO forces. Even if they disagree with him, the respect is there."
But many Pakistanis question the wisdom of granting Kayani an unprecedented three-year extension and raise concerns about its implications for democracy and civilian control over the military. "It's completely wrong, and I'm aghast that the civilian government has done it," says Kamran Shafi, a prominent commentator and a former soldier. "It augurs badly for democracy in this country. The last time a civilian government gave a military chief an extension, it was General Ayub Khan. Later, he took over, ruled the country as a dictator for a decade, in the first of four military dictatorships. It's been downhill ever since."
Kayani may have avoided interfering in the affairs of government, but he has left no doubt as to who calls the shots in Pakistan. In 2008, when President Asif Ali Zardari, in a gesture aimed at India, suggested that Pakistan might stand down on its first-strike nuclear capability, he was severely admonished by the generals. Later that summer, a government attempt to bring the military's controversial Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency under civilian oversight collapsed in less than 24 hours. After the November 2008 Mumbai massacre, Prime Minister Gilani's decision to dispatch the ISI chief to New Delhi was reversed under similar pressure. Kayani also intervened in March 2009 to avert a political crisis by pressing a reluctant government to restore deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry to the bench. And last summer when the civilian government cheered the prospect of U.S. legislation tripling nonmilitary aid, the generals stepped in to denounce its conditions as humiliating.
(See TIME's video: Where Should Pakistan's Army Aim Its Guns?)
"When it comes to policy in regards to the U.S., Afghanistan and India, it is General Kayani who is calling the shots," says Najam Sethi, the editor-in-chief of the Friday Times. Last week's failed peace talks between the Indian and Pakistani foreign ministers underscored the influence of hawkish elements in both countries. And domestically, efforts to beef up the counterterrorism capability of civilian law-enforcement agencies have suffered as military-controlled intelligence agencies retain their preeminence.
Washington and its allies, however, are likely to embrace Kayani's extension, given the critical state of the Afghan war. Believing that the U.S.-led war effort next door is doomed, Kayani and his top lieutenants have opened direct communication with the government in Kabul and are maneuvering to broker a peace agreement with the Taliban and its allies. Washington has not publicly supported these back-channel efforts, but local analysts believe these moves have tacit backing from the Obama Administration. "If they fail," says Masood, "then the U.S. can exert pressure on Pakistan to take action against [Afghan insurgent] elements [on its soil]." Amid such delicate maneuvers, any change in the Pakistani high command would be seen as an unnecessary risk.
For Pakistan, however, the episode repeats a familiar cycle, in which the geopolitical agendas of others inevitably put military men in power.


Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2006175,00.html#ixzz0ueKIoCJ1
 

ajtr

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General Kayani makes Pakistan's strategic decisions – not the civilian government



The Pakistani government extended the term of General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani as army chief by another three years on Thursday. Kayani, already considered the most powerful official in Pakistan, has led their armed forces since November 2007. According to the New York Times, General Kayani makes all the vital strategic decisions and not President Asif Ali Zardari's civilian government.

The U.S. supported the move publicly, but behind the scenes the Americans have been disappointed with the general's inability and/or reluctance to disown the Afghan Taliban, especially the Haqqani Network, who have enjoyed sanctuary in Pakistan's tribal areas since the war began, despite the U.S. paying the Pakistani military an estimated $1 billion a year to fight militants.

U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, has paid regular visits to General Kayani to encourage him to cease Pakistan-based Afghan Taliban from crossing over into Afghanistan and attacking American and NATO forces.

The 58-year-old Kayani replaced the former president Pervez Musharraf who had hand-picked Kayani to succeed him, superseding General Tariq Majid, the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee. Musharraf gave himself a tenure of nine years as the Army Chief.

General Kayani is seen as an unassuming, highly intelligent officer who is uncorrupt, although he heads an institution notorious for their rampant corruption. Before taking on the top job in the military, he was the head of Pakistan's spy agency, the Directorate of Inter-services Intelligence (ISI).

The General is known for caring deeply for the well-being of his soldiers. He helped push and implement across-the-board pay raises earlier this year and has visited troops in every remote corner of the country to boost morale.

As the head of the ISI Kayani had intimate knowledge of Pakistan's "proxy" anti-Indian assets, which were terrorist organizations the ISI developed over the years to fight against India. Now some of those assets, such as the Haqqani Network, are fighting American and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), who many believe were behind the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, is another group closely associated with the ISI who are currently believed to be as dangerous as Al Qaeda and the Taliban by U.S. officials, a judgment voiced this week by U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke.

U.S. officials believe Kayani has not done enough to root out the Haqqani Network from their base in North Waziristan. The General has said his military was too tied up fighting the Pakistani Taliban in South Waziristan and other agencies. Within the last month or so it has been rumored that Kayani even tried to convince Afghan President Hamid Karzai to strike a power-sharing arrangement with the Haqqanis.

The truth is, Kayani has always prioritized Pakistan's struggle against India over anything else, which he has been very transparent about. Earlier this year he made it very clear to a group of foreign journalists that Pakistan's chief enemy was a "richer, bigger India". Kayani will not allow anything to distract Pakistan from its mission against India.

However, not only has this detracted from the war against the Afghan Taliban but Kayani has not paid very close attention to Al Qaeda as well. According to B. Raman on his strategic analysis blog, Al Qaeda has enjoyed more security under Kayani than they did under Musharaff:

He [General Kayani] has avoided any action against Al Qaeda elements which have taken sanctuary in the non-tribal areas. Under Musharraf, the Army and the ISI were much more active against Al Qaeda in the non-tribal areas than they have been under Kayani. The anger of Al Qaeda and its associates against Musharraf because of the action taken by the Army and the ISI was responsible for the virulent campaign of Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri against Musharraf and the Army. They abused Musharraf as apostate, collaborator of the Hindus etc and thrice tried to kill him---once in Karachi and twice in Rawalpindi. Compared to that, there is hardly any Al Qaeda campaign against Kayani. There is a greater threat to Mr.Zardari from Al Qaeda than to Kayani. The Army and the ISI have managed to create an impression in the tribal areas that Mr.Zardari and not Gen.Kayani is responsible for the facilities extended to the US for its Drone (pilotless plane) strikes in the tribal areas. Since Gen.Kayani took over, while many Al Qaeda leaders have been killed in the tribal areas by the Drone strikes, there have been very few arrests of Al Qaeda elements in the non-tribal areas. Al Qaeda feels more secure in the non-tribal areas of Pakistan today than it was under Musharraf.

Arif Rafiq who writes for the The Pakistan Policy Blog said in a Foreign Policy piece that many of Pakistan's nationalist and Islamist groups were not necessarily thrilled about the situation:

Some of Pakistan's nationalist and Islamist commentators have also reacted with suspicion toward Kayani's extension, describing it as a result of Hillary Clinton's "lobbying" or as a continuation of the reviled American and British-arranged power sharing deal between Benazir Bhutto and Pervez Musharraf.

Josh Mull from Rethink Afghanistan reported that the Americans love Kayani for some reason, despite his record of duplicity. Mull advocates working with the Pakistani civilian government and wants the U.S. to withdraw from Afghanistan ASAP. Mr. Mull wrote today in The Huffington Post:

Damn, we really love this guy. What are we thinking? Whatever it is we like about him - his style, his centered demeanor, his subtle hand in politics - General Kayani is still just another military dictator, another crook in a long line of corrupt, tyrannical, warmongering thugs. He is not our ally, not our friend, and his extension, now a full fledged dictatorship complete with a compliant, ruling political party, is just plain bad news for the United States.

The US must immediately end all military aid to Pakistan, and should pursue sanctions against the ruling elites in the PPP until such time as their government can prove its legitimacy by way of free and fair democratic elections. Barring such extreme measures, the US must engage exclusively with Pakistan's civilian government, while working toward greater inclusion of opposition parties like the PML-N (who are presently too close to radical Saudi Arabia, and could stand to be moderated with more international influence).

More importantly, the US must end its war in Afghanistan. Not only is not in our interests to fight a civil war in Afghanistan, but it is even less in our interests to have our US troops used as pieces in Kayani's personal chessboard. Our troops fight and die for our national defense, not for Kayani's insane militarist objectives against India. Pakistan is catastrophically unstable, and US military leaders are moving to escalate our involvement. Further war in the region will prove to be disastrous for the US.

Even Dawn, the country's most prestigious newspaper has expressed skepticism over the move. According to Dawn editor Cyril Almeida:

"Kayani is supposed to preside over the finest institution in the country and if he regards himself as indispensable, it cannot be read in a positive way."
For other Afghanistan Headlines Examiner articles, click here.
 

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