The Pakistani Army Chief Gen. Raheel Sharif’s Washington visit comes at an extremely critical moment of regional realignments in the neighbourhood. It coincides with an increasingly pro-active Chinese role, spurred by President Xi Jinping’s Corridor politics. By throwing his weight behind the CPEC as the first priority, Xi has clearly marked his preference for Pakistan.
This also necessitates an active Chinese political role in the region (read Afghanistan). Many Afghan stakeholders desire China to take the lead. But the disunity within the unity government and the Taliban infighting continues to discourage the Chinese from taking an open position on the Afghan reconciliation.
On the other hand, President Obama and his Afghanistan commander John Campbell have also declared Pakistan as “integral to Afghanistan” and once again pinned hopes on Pakistan’s support for the reconciliation process. The US and Chinese administrations are, it seems, cognizant of the competing Indo-Pakistan interests in Afghanistan. The latest US Congressional Research Service report, for instance, clearly speaks of the Indian bid to “deny Pakistan strategic depth in Afghanistan.”
While Obama and co want to rely on the Pakistani shoulders, powerful section of the Afghan government remain adamant on denying Pakistan a role in the reconciliation process. Strangely, they want Islamabad to crush the Afghan Taliban, while the rest of the world wants the former to woo them into talks.
The US administration still appears fixated on the possible negative consequences of the Pakistani nuclear programme and would want a cap on it.
All this turns into a bitter cocktail of wishes. One would assume that Gen. Sharif shall have to deal with all those issues that impinge on the future presence of the US troops in Afghanistan, Indo-Pak relations and the nuclear programme – issues that the civilian government is supposed to be handling. This also places unusual burden on Gen. Sharif because, a) of military’s predominance in the foreign policy domain, and b) the internal discord and pressures too; we are facing a situation in which the image of Gen. Sharif and that of his military trumps that of Premier Sharif and his government. Three key minister’s – Khwaja Asif, Ahsan Iqbal and Ch.Nisar Ali Khan don’t see eye to eye, are not on talking terms and are publicly running down one another.
This obviously imperils function – not to talk of smooth function – of the government to the extent that on November 10 Pashtoon nationalist leader Mehmood Khan Achakzai took on the government in the National Assembly for not discussing key defense and foreign policy issues. This also leads outsiders to wonder about the real power centre and most eventually tend to turn to the General Headquarters (GHQ).
The inherent mistrust between the civilians and the military makes it impossible to have an open-hearted cooperation.
Inaction or deficient action with regards to the National Action Plan (NAP), for instance, remains a discomforting feature of the Civil-Military relations. This became public yet again after the November 10 Corps Commanders’ meeting at the GHQ. A string of leaks to the mainstream media after the meeting spoke of “the generals warning that the efficacy of its counter-terrorism efforts could be undercut by inadequate supporting actions by civilian agencies.” They also sounded critical of basic governance issues.
Quoting Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the reports said some of the areas pointed out by the army that require immediate attention are implementation of the NAP, completion of investigation of terrorism cases by joint investigation teams (JITs) and reforms within Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
“The note of caution from the corps commanders’ meeting came a day after Gen. Sharif conveyed similar concerns to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his key ministers in a closed-door meeting at the Prime Minister House”, said a national English daily. And understandably, once again, the ISPR statement became the centre of debate in the National Assembly the following day, with Achakzai questioning its legality.
This precisely constitutes the context of Gen. Sharif’s visit to Washington, where he is likely to inform his hosts about the current civil-military synergy of thought and action against crime (Karachi) and terrorism (northwest). He is also expected to convey the undeniable space the Pakistani army has created through its Waziristan operations and the country’s socio-political limitations.
The hosts obviously want more. They have repeatedly acknowledged the successes via Zarb-e-Azb but still insist Pakistan can do much more to build on the goodwill it has created through the military and police cooperation under the National Action Plan.
But the army as an institution can possibly go only this far; it is a force to fight the enemy, provide support for rescue in natural disasters. It, however, certainly cannot indulge in legislation such as improving the 1860 Criminal Procedures Code or the 1861 Police Act – both of them are core causes for huge pendency, delays in trials, abysmal conviction rates. The army obviously cannot inject efficiency in the tardy police and bureaucracy.
Hopefully the US, European and Chinese leaders understand that General Sharif will keep looming large as the first-choice interlocutor as long as the Premier Sharif and his cohorts remained involved in parochial, petty politics of personal benefit and patronage. As long as they refuse to take tough decisions and fail to draw and exercise power from the Parliament, the world will keep treating them as the second choice interlocutors. This invariably means a difficult and possibly unenviable situation for the army chief. It certainly places him at the centre of Pakistan’s political economy in critical times. But the question facing us all is whether and how can the civilians earn the same stature? Through integrity, clarity, readiness for bold actions and commitment to people? Probably.
Written by Imtiaz Gul
The writer is the Executive Director of Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS).