Battle for Pakistan 2007-2019: Pak-US Ties and Civil-Military Relations
By Riaz Haq
CA
Shuja Nawaz's "The Battle For Pakistan: The Bitter Friendship and a Tough Neighborhood" looks at key events of the last decade that have characterized US-Pakistan ties and civil-military relations in Pakistan. The biggest development in the period covered by Shuja Nawaz's book is the rise of Narendra Modi and the Hindu nationalists in India. His book is a well-written treatise but it is strangely silent on the implications of this major development for South Asia region and the world.
US Raid in Abbottabad
On May 2, 2011, US commandos raided a house in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad and killed Al Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden . There are many stories about who led the Americans to Bin Laden's hideout. The story that Shuja Nawaz appears to confirm is the one about ex-Pakistani spy Lt Col Iqbal Saeed Khan walking into the US Embassy in Islamabad to tell the CIA station chief the exact location of Bin Laden. This spy was apparently well rewarded for it. He now lives in San Diego, California where he owns a multi-million-dollar home and drives a BMW convertible.
“Col. Saeed, who ran a security firm in Islamabad, may have been responsible for providing logistic and surveillance assistance to the Americans in tracking and locating movements related to what turned out to the final lair of bin Laden in Abbottabad,” says Shuja Nawaz in his book. “Col. Saeed’s office in Abbottabad is reported to have been used as a listening and staging post. He is reported to have been recruited by Lt. Col. Hafeez, his predecessor at the helm of the 408 Intelligence battalion, who had been hired by the US, and according to one report, was even in the US, and that CIA Director George Tenet once brought him to a meeting with Gen. Kayani,” it adds.
Imran Khan's 2014 Dharna
Shuja Nawaz confirms what was widely reported by the Pakistani media in 2014: Pakistan ISI was behind I mran Khan's Islamabad dharna . He cites US Ambassador Richard Olson as his source. Olson said the following in a January 2017 interview with the author:
"We received information that Zahir [-ul-Islam, the DG-ISI] was mobilizing for a coup in September of 2014. [Army chief] Raheel [Sharif] blocked it by, in effect, removing Zahir, by announcing his successor...[Zahir] was talking to the corps commanders and was talking to like-minded officers... He was prepared to do it and had the chief been willing, even tacitly, it would have happened. But the chief was not willing, so it didn't happen."
Pakistan Military Dominance
Shuja Nawaz argues in the book that "the armed forces, and in particular the army, continue to dominate decision making in Pakistan" in spite of the fact that "the constitution of Pakistan established civilian supremacy". He explains that it is "largely because of its (army's) experience in running the country through successive military regimes and, to some extent, by the inability of civilian regimes to exhibit the political vision and will necessary to exert their constitutional control over the military".
Going back to the 1970s, Shuja Nawaz says in his book:
"The elder Bhutto (Zulfikar Ali Bhutto) had wished to cut the military down to size, demoting the commanders-in-chief of the services to chiefs-of-staff. But, he failed to understand that their power stemmed from their disciplined and organized institutions, while the political party that he headed, not unlike other political parties, tended to be fractured and weak, especially on governance...family rule was the order of the day. Civilian leaders failed to empower the people who elected them time and again, and they failed to deliver on the promise of economic development."
Shuja Nawaz's Silence on Rise of Hindutva
The biggest development in the period covered by Shuja Nawaz's book is the rise of Narendra Modi and the Hindu nationalists in India. His book is strangely silent on the implications of this development for South Asia region and the world.
Clearly, Nawaz did not foresee what has happened in India and Indian Occupied Kashmir with the revocation of Article 370 of the Indian constitution and the passage of highly discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act. Nor did he see Modi's dangerous gambit with the attack on Balakot in Pakistan. The Indian action drew strong Pakistani response with Pakistan Air Force crossing the Line of Control in Kashmir and shooting down two Indian fighter jets. Pakistan also captured an Indian fighter pilot who was shot down in Azad Kashmir. It was Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan's deft handling of the regional crisis that prevented further escalation into a full-blown India-Pakistan war that could have gone nuclear.
(Riaz Haq is a Silicon Valley-based Pakistani-American analyst and writer. He blogs at www.riazhaq.com )
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
