Extension not a good idea

By now we have heard all the reasons why the tenure of the present Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani had to be extended for three years. The government and dozens of unofficial spokespersons have clearly laid them out. The summary of this goes something like this: the war against terror; the precarious regional environment; the project of stabilising the border areas; his support for the fledgling democratic order and finally his personality, which is the anti-thesis of his predecessor, General Pervez Musharraf, who was ambitious and gung-ho.

This repetition on the airwaves and in newspaper columns have made them the dominant topic of discussion. This is then reinforced by the foreign media where General Kayani’s closeness to the Americans and his cooperation in the war against terror seems to have earned him unusually fulsome compliments and all-round approval.

But even though the reasons for extending General Kayani’s tenure by another term are good ones, there are better reasons why he should have retired on time, paving the way for his successor to take charge. Here are some of them.

The first relates to the ambiguous nature of the war against terror as it unfolds in Afghanistan. There is no cut-off point that has been marked on the calendar by which time this war would end. That is because no one party has enough faith in the other to mark a date, and also because none of the actors in the war have the same agenda. Washington and Islamabad, despite official public statements to the contrary, are locked in a tight embrace of distrust. The US has not built four large military bases monitoring Iran and Pakistan as evidence of its intent to depart. After all, it has not positioned its military wherewithal in these areas for nothing. Which means that Washington could well be here to stay much longer than most would want to imagine.

The conflict in Afghanistan and its possible solution too has no single agreed paradigm. Even a regional solution has layers of disagreement. Hammering them all into one practical proposal is likely to be a lengthy process.

All of this is not going to happen according to General Kayani’s new retirement date, now end of 2013. The assumption that this region would stabilise just because a general in Pakistan has got three more years to keep his post makes Pakistan weak — a state whose contribution to the larger goals of world peace seem to hinge almost entirely on one man. The examples of such countries are normally found in Africa, where a single individual can make the difference between conflict and stability, but which are also regarded as failed states. Surely, Pakistan does not want to be placed in such unenviable company. But regrettably, General Kayani’s extension does make us look like a dysfunctional state.

The domestic war on terror, too, will not wind up just because of one man with three more years on the job. The spiral of domestic violence has peaked in the past 24 months despite the fact that General Kayani has been in power, and with a much stronger mandate than he would have in the next three years. There have been attacked on key posts of high significance such as on the offices of intelligence agencies, on the families of military personal and the General Headquarters. General Kayani’s presence —or absence —has got nothing to do with how well the war against terror at home will be fought. His extension has only extended this illusion that he is crucial to winning against domestic terrorists. Worse, it has given an incompetent civilian set-up three more years to pass the buck onto the army in doing the job which they should be doing themselves.

Also, personally for General Kayani, this extension is more an albatross round his neck rather than a crown on his head. He is endorsed by a set-up that President Asif Ali Zardari heads, and is backed by Washington. That is a fairly dubious distinction to have at the start of a tenure that is mired in controversy even before it has started.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 26^th, 2010.