The signs are unmistakable.
A weak civilian government. Impending civil strife. Political opponent(s)threatened or muzzled. The military chief laying down an ultimatum. Past President Musharaff making overtures and hinting at a repeated Kargill-type war with India. Indian elections due April/May, and the Indian press sounding agitated.
Will General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani back off his assurance that he will remove the Pakistani Army from its politics?
Follow me after the jump.... (I have deliberately quoted lengthy portions of various articles to give Kos readers a better feel for the current situation in Pakistan)
The Pakistani Army's involvement in politics goes back 50 years
Fighting Power - With 6,20,000 men on active duty, it's the seventh largest army in the world. Divided into 11 corps, it's armed mostly with weapons and ammo made in China
Political Role - The generals want to calls the shots here. Gen Ayub Khan, who grabbed power in a coup in 1958, ruled till 1969. Then came Gen Yayha Khan, who lasted till 1971. Six years later, Gen Zia-ul Haq ousted Z A Bhutto and ruled till his death in 1988. And the last coup happened in 1999, when Gen Musharraf assumed power. He ruled till 2008
Covert Wars - Following the Chinese model, the army runs the intelligence wings. Known for links with criminals and radicals, the ISI is a state within the state
Money Power - It owns 11.58 million acres of land; owns assets in excess of $20bn; and runs business conglomerates
Nuclear Trigger - The country has a control-and-command structure, but everybody knows it's the generals who control the N-button
The attack on the Sri Lankan Cricket team was probably the catalyst. A week later, the master-mind of that dastardly crime has been identified as "A little-known militant Muhammad Aqil" but not captured. His links to militancy have not yet been clarified. Aquil, from Kahuta (the location of the Pakistani nuclear reactor) is being hunted - a poor reflection on the strength of the civilian police and intelligence services.
In the meanwhile the leader of the opposition to the current Prime Minister Asif Ali Zardari (of the ruling PPP), Nawaz Sharif of the PML-N, has called on his party and its supporters to march to Islamabad and lawyers have called a strike to try and reinstate the ousted Chief Justice of the Pakistani Supreme Court. AP reports
The seeds of the political crisis date back to March 2007 when then-military ruler Gen. Pervez Musharraf fell out with Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry and fired him, triggering nationwide protests by lawyers that helped oust Musharraf.
Zardari was elected president six months ago after his party won elections in the wake of the assassination of his wife, Benazir Bhutto. Before his election, he publicly promised to reinstate Chaudhry and other independent-minded judges fired along with him.
He now refuses to do that, saying Chaudhry has become a political figure, though many analysts say his real reason is that he fears legal challenges to his rule, particularly concerning a deal he and his wife entered into with Musharraf that saw corruption cases against them dropped.
Sharif and his brother, Shahbaz, say Zardari orchestrated the Supreme Court ruling to neutralize them.
And to discourage the planned protest scheduled to commence March 12th
Interior ministry chief Rehman Malik, Pakistan's top security official, warned opposition leader Nawaz Sharif on Monday that his recent anti-government speeches amount to treason.
Obviously Nawaz Sharif's upcoming long march to Islamabad does not bode well for a country facing a major terrorist threat from within. Malik said the government would respond with force if protesters damaged property during the so-called long march, which lawyers and opposition political parties are planning from Karachi to Islamabad on March 12-16.
"If any death occurred or public property is damaged then the government will invoke sedition law against him (Nawaz Sharif)," Malik said.
With this situation getting out of hand, it is reported that Gen Kayani, the Pakistan Armed Forces chief presided over the corps commanders' conference to review the situation in the country.
In a sharp essay published in the The Times of India political observer Ayesha Siddiqa, an Islamabad-based defense analyst and author of 'Military Inc: Inside Pakistan's Military Economy', opines (bold emphasis mine)
There is much to criticize about the PPP government's functioning but the biggest concern must be the army's perception of the situation. Does it plan to continue with the so-called 'war on terror'? So far, the armed forces give the impression they are silent spectators, quietly playing along with the decisions of the civilian government. Army chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani keenly marketed the Swat peace agreement - essentially brokered by the federal PPP and provincial ANP governments - during his recent visit to the US. Many believe the agreement, according to which the NWFP government agreed to implement sharia law in Swat in exchange for peace, will only strengthen the Taliban.
Moreover, it sets a dangerous precedent of the state giving in to brute force.
It's no secret that security forces were finding the going tough in Swat until they agreed to sign the peace agreement. While the authorities justified the deal as a move that benefits the locals, it served to expose the military's inability to fight the war against terrorists. In fact, the army recently abandoned its plans to jam Taliban leader Maulana Fazlullah's radio due to alleged lack of equipment; instead, it proposes counter-programming. But not many buy this argument. Technical experts say jamming a radio station is not a difficult task for the army.
More...
If taking on the militants is held up because of so simple a matter as lack of technical capability, why does the Pakistan army not allow American drone attacks on its western borders? In the past, the army chief vociferously condemned US drone attacks, making people wonder about the real reason for such confrontational statements, especially when Pakistan has allowed its air force bases in NWFP and Balochistan to be used by American drones and other purposes. But senior commanders have never admitted to having such intense military links with Washington.
Ayesha concludes
The bottomline is that both the government and the military have been sending confusing signals about their stand on the war on terror.
While the army is fighting the Taliban in Bajur (in the northwest) and seems to have made some headway against militant groups including the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TSNM), the government has signed a peace deal with the same group in Swat.
Then there is Waziristan. There the army is pitted against Baitullah Mehsud who recently formed a partnership with Maulana Nazeer, earlier supported by the army. One of Baitullah Mehsud's partners is Maulana Masood Azhar of Punjab's Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM). Interestingly, little is being done to uproot Punjab-based militant outfits. The editor of the Daily Times, Najam Sethi believes this inaction stems from the army's fear that any adverse action against these outfits will have severe repercussions. If true, it is tantamount to an admission that the writ of the state does not run even in mainland Pakistan.
Clearly, the military does not have a clear strategy for fighting terrorism in its backyard.
Today the Indian Press is extensively reporting that the presence and utterances of Pakistani ex-President Pervez Musharraf in India are a pre-cursor to political upheaval in the neighborhood. Addressing a news conference in Karachi on his return from a four-day visit to India,
former military ruler Pervez Musharraf said he would consider becoming President again if he could play a useful role in the post even as he ruled out joining any political party.
Times Now reports that
The Supreme Court last month effectively barred former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his younger brother Shahbaz Sharif, who are opposition leaders, from contesting elections.
The Sharifs and the PML-N, Pakistan's second-largest party, have accused Zardari of being behind the court decision. Their supporters have taken to the streets and more strife is expected.
Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and the Sharifs' party were bitter rivals in the 1990s, a turbulent decade in which Bhutto and Sharif both served as prime minister twice without completing a term. A military coup in late 1999 ousted Sharif and brought Musharraf to power.
Analysts fear a return of the politics of confrontation between the country's two biggest parties.
And more on the role of the Pakistani Army
The army has little reason to back Sharif, even if Zardari is widely unpopular and disliked by hawkish elements who distrust his pro-West stance and dovishness towards India.
Sharif had bad relations with at least three army chiefs during the 1990s. Morever, the West is wary of Sharif, believing he panders to the religious/nationalist constituency that opposes the war on terrorism.
Observers in India believe
that the army in Pakistan has begun to flex its muscle. Pakistan's army chief general Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, who has so far kept a low profile, has asked President Asif Ali Zardari to 'clean up the mess'
Well-placed military sources in Islamabad say that Kayani has been asked by the United States to bring some order in the region.
General Kayani, former head of ISI, is learnt to have told President Zardari
to set things right before the March 16 protest called by lawyers and supporters of Sharif
to demand reinstatement of Supreme Court judges sacked by former president Pervez Musharraf.
The deadline is interesting. With neighbor India going to the polls in 5 phases beginning 16 April to 13 May, this may be an opportune time for the Pakistani Army Chief to "stablize" the political situation in his country.
The L A Times reports (bold mine)
Late last month, the chief of Pakistan's army, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, made an unpublicized visit to the White House to meet President Obama's new national security advisor, retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones Jr.
The meeting did not go well.
Speaking as one general to another, Jones pressed Kayani for a more aggressive war against Islamic militants in western Pakistan, beginning with the Swat Valley, where jihadists seized power this year. To Jones' frustration, Kayani responded only with vague assurances that he was working on the problem.
And the warning:
The Obama administration is only halfway through its 60-day review of U.S. policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan, but top officials already have come to an important conclusion: Pakistan, not Afghanistan, is now the central front of the war against Islamic extremism.
And nuclear-armed Pakistan is in trouble. Islamist extremism is on the rise, and the government and army appear incapable of reversing the tide.
Remember the Pakistani Army's "business interests.....? The money quote (literally):
The Bush administration sent more than $10 billion in military aid to Pakistan in the wake of 9/11, but most of it went to strengthen the Pakistani army's conventional forces aimed at its traditional enemy, India, rather than to counterinsurgency forces on the western frontier. Kayani and his colleagues have renewed their requests for more, including helicopters and drone aircraft. Hard bargaining lies ahead.
With Obama's measured approach to increasing economic aid for infrastructure development and education in the tribal regions, the poor condition of the US economy seems to be a limiting factor:
In a year when Obama is already asking for a tax increase, another bank bailout and healthcare reform, it will be tough to sell Congress on sending billions more in aid to a country with shaky civilian leaders, balky military leaders and a population largely opposed to cooperating with the United States. But the alternatives look worse.
With civil strife, lack of defense aid (money, money, money....) from the US and a feuding civilian body politic, will a Pakistani General step into the void again?
Just as predecessors before him did, I think Gen Kayani might have sufficient motivation to do just that.