Is Nawaz Gambling on the Military Chief?
By Karamatullah K. Ghori
Toronto, Canada
Don’t blame those who have always suspected Pakistan being a military-centric nation and infatuated with its generals in shining uniforms. Just look at the fanfare that surrounded the change of military command, last week, in Islamabad and Rawalpindi.
The hour-long ceremony at the Hockey Stadium next to GHQ in Rawalpindi was covered live by television channels with the imprint large on it of a major national event. The grand spectacle was the closest Pakistani version of the inauguration of a new president in Washington. At least my memory runs dry in search of a comparable fanfare surrounding the passing of the baton to a new military chief in any other country, developed or under-developed.
But this weird sight of a news media going gaga over what should pass as a normal event in a normal country had a lot of meat in it for pundits to chew on and try come up with a logical rationale for it.
However, rationale or logic was quite conspicuous by its absence in this whole episode. The Pakistani news media just seems to be getting completely bowled over by unbridled freedom that has become its staple and thinks it’s its right to sensationalise anything routine or normal. Its infatuation with magnifying the trivia beyond all reasonable limits is becoming its bread and butter; and there is no end to it in sight, sadly.
Nawaz Sharif may have, inadvertently, whetted the eager-beaver media’s appetite for ‘ever more’ by not disclosing his hand until there was hardly a day left in the retiring General Kayani’s term at the helm of the military.
Nawaz may have had legitimate reasons for taking time—a lot of it—before making up his mind on which horse he should bet on. He’d every reason to be cautious, given the pivotal position of the army in Pakistan’s history and the tragic tale of the brass meddling in the way the state should be fashioned or run.
But in Nawaz’ case caution and trepidation was warranted on the basis of his own experience in the past. The last time around when he faced the challenge of selecting a military chief he ventured into a huge blunder. He was soon after made to pay the exorbitant price of his poor judgment in banishment not only from power but from the country, too.
Nawaz’ partisans, however, are quick to rise to his defence and argue that past is another country. Once bitten twice shy is understandable but, they insist, that this time around Nawaz has deliberated long and hard on his choice of General Kayani’s successor and that history is not about to repeat itself with the resurrection of Musharraf’s ghost.
Fifteen years ago when he committed the Himalayan blunder of settling on one of the most notorious generals in the history of Pakistan as military chief, Nawaz was not only relatively inexperienced but also guided by narrow and parochial motives. Nawaz thought he’d come up with an ace in by-passing the two senior-most generals on the list of eligible candidates for the office and selecting the third one on it. General Pervez Musharraf was an outsider in the Punjab-centric army culture. The son of an Urdu-speaking ‘babu’ serving in the Pakistan Foreign Office, Pervez Musharraf, Nawaz thought, was a soldier without a constituency or following. He was, in other words, with the least potential to turn the tables on his mentor and more likely to remain a loyal protégé.
But what Nawaz didn’t know—or was too naïve to perceive—was that Pervez Musharraf—with more black spots on his dossier than any other general in the top echelons of the army—was a street-smart operator. It didn’t take him long to create a network of other power-hungry Bonapartes like himself in the GHQ high command. The rest is history. Musharraf found a convenient alibi to do to Nawaz exactly what General Ziaul Haq had done to Bhutto.
But the Nawaz defence league argues that this time around he may have, again, chosen the third most senior man on the list of eligible generals but it’s a very safe bet he has made.
General Raheel Sharif, Nawaz’ choice as Kayani’s successor is a soldier’s soldier. A scion of a deep-rooted soldiering family he has the perfect pedigree needed for the job. His father retired as an army major and his older brother—who happened to be a course-mate of Musharraf’s—was none other than Major Shabbir Sharif, who won the most coveted medal of gallantry—the hallowed Nishan-e-Haider. A soldier-to-boot, pundits argue, wouldn’t easily betray his commitment of loyalty to arms and allergy to meddling in politics.
That may all be very well. None should begrudge Nawaz accolades for making the right choice, even though it may have taken him longer than necessary. With history of army’s past reckless conduct in regard to its abuse of power so well known to all and sundry, Nawaz should be excused for thinking hard and long over a question of great sensitivity. The old adage—once bitten twice shy—works itself neatly into the equation here. Ends, in this case, should be allowed to justify the means if things should work out exactly the way Nawaz and his partisans may have planned.
The task at hand is not to seek to cut the army down to size, much as some hot-heads around Nawaz may argue. The Pakistan army is bloated. It has grown to become a behemoth, which can’t be justified against the scant resources of a country like Pakistan perpetually stranded at the door of international lending agencies—headed by the likes of IMF, with all its notoriety of an anti-people vehicle of economic torture.
No, Pakistan isn’t Turkey and shouldn’t even ponder in its wildest dream of emulating the Turkish model. What PM Erdogan has done—in cutting an equally pompous and puffed-up military cabal down to size—is masterly and amazing. But the Turkish model wouldn’t work in Pakistan for a variety of reasons, which can’t be elaborated here. That should be the subject of a separate column.
But what Nawaz Sharif can—and should—learn from Erdogan is how to rally the middle class behind him, and not a pampered few, and then use the power of a galvanized solid middle class to write a new script for the economy and a new agenda for the country. Erdogan is a hero to the vast majority of Turks not because they see in him a generals’ slayer. No, they dote on him because he has turned a sick economy around and morphed it into an economic dynamo worthy of emulation in both East and West.
Nawaz’ challenge is a work cut out for him: energize the people, and make them a willing force to rally behind you. Borrowing a famous American catch-phrase, ‘it’s the economy, stupid’ that should become the guiding light—the lode star, proverbially—for Nawaz to chart his course in its light.
The new military chief’s work plan is also clear as crystal or daylight. He has an insurgency to fight and throw back the challenge from a blood-thirsty gang of marauders with the mentality of the Stone Age people.
Of course the army will not be fighting the battle alone. This battle belongs to the nation. The direction of it should come from the civilian government; Nawaz Sharif, as PM, should lay down the policy guidelines to be executed by the men in uniform. It shouldn’t even remotely be a game of one-upmanship, for either the PM or his anointed military supremo. It will have to be a team work in order to stand a chance of success.
If he’s guided by vision and not naked ambition, Nawaz should count it as a blessing that the years since he made that fatal choice of Pervez Musharraf as his man to run the army the judiciary, which was less than independent or judicious around that time, has emerged as a powerful third force—as it should have been, all the time.
A pro-active judiciary independent in the real sense of the term, should be an asset to both the civilian and military arms of the state. It’s there to stand as a referee—an honest broker in the strict sense of the word—between the two executive branches of the state. The system would work, flawlessly, if the high judiciary is allowed to function according to its constitutionally-mandated role: a watch-dog standing guard on both the civilian and the military setups and making sure that their lines are not crossed.
Nawaz doesn’t have the reputation of a gambler. He isn’t that smart, to be honest. But he may have unconsciously gambled on the right man to succeed an astute and apolitical Kayani. The sensitivity of the times, and fragility of the state exposed by the Taliban’s egregious challenge, demanded a soldier’s soldier to lead the army at this supra-critical juncture in the history of Pakistan.
There’s simply too much at stake for either the civilian government or the military brass to err. General Raheel Sharif will have little incentive to become a Bonaparte if Nawaz Sharif doesn’t entertain, or nurture, ambitions of becoming an emperor.
- K_K_ghori@yahoo.com
(The writer is a former ambassador and career diplomat)
