Hail to the Chief

In what other country would a prime minister make an unscheduled appearance on the national television channels to announce the granting of a full extension of service to the army chief? Can anyone think of one? To narrow the field, would it happen in any country with a ‘democratic’ parliamentary form of government?

The strange late evening July 22 announcement came a couple of days after the US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s visit to Islamabad when it would be safe to say the decision was confirmed — it having been mooted on occasions over the past months. And two days later, Admiral Mike Mullen arrived to punch in his stamp of approval. Then, a strange coincidence as far as timing is concerned — the Wikileaks on July 26.

What are the implications of this endorsement of General Ashfaq Kayani? Well, to many it confirms that the most powerful man in the country is not its accidental president or its wobbly prime minister, and no matter what the latter may bravely say about the decision, having been taken internally, sustaining a lie, the glaring perception is that, like much else political and strategic, it is US inspired. One question that springs to mind — does the US have no other general in the promotion line who can be trusted to lead? And we also must wonder how all the lieutenant generals whose career paths will be affected by this extension feel about it?

General Kayani heads the most powerful, the richest, and the most disciplined party in the land.  He has no rivals. The incessant wailing by the politicians about parliament being supreme is eye-wash, a myth. Not only is it subservient to the army chief — it has the co-chairman of the party in power controlling it from his party headquarters in the opulent presidential residence.

Let us also recall the March 21 Reuters report: “General Kayani in Washington: Pakistan’s most powerful man,” and the opening sentence: “So much for democracy.” And in February, when the US Defence Secretary Robert Gates was due to visit Pakistan, he was asked to whom he intended to talk. Most importantly with General Kayani, was his response. And why, he was asked: “Because Kayani is the most important man out there.” No joke, he is. He masterminds the diplomatic parleys and has done ever since this dithering government was put in place. Who dictated the tenor of the recent non-talks between the Indian and Pakistani foreign ministers?

The General is not entirely apolitical, he has vast experience in dealing with politics and politicians. After all, he was Pervez Musharraf’s most trusted ISI chief, and the man who negotiated the power-sharing deal thrashed out between Musharraf, the US and the UK. He was then Musharraf’s chosen man to replace him as the COAS. That things did not pan out quite the way they should have done remains a mystery — even Kayani is mum on the non-pursuance of the investigations into the tragedy that was Benazir’s assassination.

As for the Wikileaks, well, there are an awful lot of people out there in the world who are unconvinced by Pakistan’s protestations of innocence, rightly or wrongly, because they remember the origins of the Taliban, the training, supplying of arms and ammunition and the strong bonds between not only the ISI and the ‘students’ but the fact that they were adopted as ‘children’ by Benazir’s Interior Minister, General (retd) Nasirullah Babar, in the mid-1990s.

Utterly believable, as it goes with all we know of the man and have heard from him, are the chilling accusations levelled against the former ISI chief and army general Hameed Gul, a sinister character.  Perception plays no part in his reported role.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 31^st, 2010.