Daily Times

Truth is the victim when it is claimed that the civilians and the military in Pakistan are on the same page. They are not, and perhaps they cannot be in the near future. Since 9/11, there have been certain developments, which keep on pulling the civilian half of Pakistan to join the page constructed by the military section of Pakistan. Hitherto, this pull has produced insignificant results.

What Pakistan’s new Foreign Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif could not say domestically he said internationally, and that unequivocally. On September 27, at the platform of the Asia Society in New York, Asif verbalized two points. Firstly, former Prime Minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif was condemned for making peace overtures to India. Secondly, Pakistan had yet to deliver on the liabilities called non-state actors. This piece will discuss both points.

Regarding Pak-India relations, Asif was justified in saying that former PM Sharif wanted to calm down Pakistan’s relations with India, but Sharif was criticized bitterly. In fact, the personal rapport developed between former PM Sharif and incumbent Indian PM Narendra Modi became a bone of contention. . An imprecation got added to the reviled theme when, in December 2015, on his way back from Afghanistan, Modi’s entourage made a surprise stopover in Lahore and met Sharif. In the media , the attack boys of the army – even if they were self-proclaimed – sneered at Sharif-Modi relations and depicted the event as an unpardonable offence in which the GHQ was bypassed. The attack boys overlooked the fact that Sharif’s party, PML-N, had garnered votes in the 2013 elections on the electoral manifesto of improving relations with India. Bracketing Sharif’s name with Modi was enough to justify Sharif’s pro-India stance. The July 28 judgement of the Supreme Court to oust Sharif judicially on feeble, flimsy and fragile grounds offered the attack boys sufficient latitude to condemn Sharif’s association with Modi more than before. Both politically and socially, Sharif was condemned for having a soft spot for Modi so much so that whenever Modi was condemned in Pakistan, Sharif was also condemned, and whenever Sharif was condemned, Modi was also condemned. The condemnation became essentially concomitant.

What Khawaja Asif said at the platform of Asia Society in New York comes as no surprise. One of the predicaments with the election-based democratic countries is that elected governments listen to voters (to win elections again) more than listening to any kind of establishment

Even during the electoral campaign for the NA-120 by-elections, , a smart anti-Sharif campaign was launched through two newly found right-wing parties. One of the parties, Labbaik Ya Rasulallah (LyR), tried to woo voters in the name of religion (and begged 6% votes), whereas the other party, Milli Muslim League (MML), a political extension of Hafiz Saeed’s Jamaatud Dawa (JuD) visited every house of the constituency and derided Sharif-Modi relations (and bagged 5% votes). The campaigns by both parties were less to secure votes and more to soil Sharif’s reputation on the grounds that Sharif’s ideological and patriotic credentials were dubious. The shared objective was to pave the way for the PTI to win the seat. However, this could not happen.

Condemning Sharif for being pro-India is not a new occurrence. Almost the same was the allegation on Sharif when he invited former Indian PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee in February 1999 to Lahore to sign the Lahore Declaration. However, in May 1999, the Kargil war ensued, embarrassing Vajpayee and strengthening the political stance of the BJP in India. Interestingly, after staging the military coup in October 1999, the then COAS and coup-maker General Pervez Musharraf also made peace overtures with India and visited Agra in July 2001 to meet the same Indian PM Vajpayee to resolve issues including the Kashmir issue through negotiations.

General Musharraf has so far failed to accentuate the difference between the kind of negotiations Sharif was undertaking and the one he tried afterward. Neither did General Musharraf allow Sharif to succeed nor did he himself prosper by solving any issue with India. Kashmir is still burning. The insidious effect fathered by General Musharraf is still writ large upon Pakistan’s face.

When in command, an army general has no spine to say “no” to the US, but when civilians are in charge, the army generals push civilians to say what they themselves could not say (or do). The point is simple, when Pakistan opted for the “with us” part of the choice, “with us or against us,” to join the war on terror, the ruling military regime laid no pre-conditions. As Pakistan joining the war on terror remains unconditional, it is difficult for Pakistan to come out of it without violating the choice, as the compulsion of choice is still valid and is fraught with all kind of consequences for the civilian elected government. That is why, in no case can the incumbent civilian government be ready to violate the choice on the dictation of the army. The speeches made by the COAS General Qamar Javed Bajwa can serve the purpose of vitiating the atmosphere in the civil-military working domain more than strengthening it. Interestingly, as the army has adopted a strategy to speak to its target audience through ISPR’s tweets, the US officials have also adopted a strategy to issue statements publicly on their visit to Kabul. This trend creates a vicious cycle. News coming from Kabul through the media causes embarrassment for the GHQ which, in turn, pressurizes the civilian government to respond to the US, or alternatively the GHQ takes upon itself the task of issuing an ISPR release, and so on.

What Khawaja Asif said at the platform of Asia Society in New York comes as no surprise. One of the predicaments with the election-based democratic countries is that elected governments listen to its voters (to win elections again) more than listening to any kind of establishment. The army is overlooking the fact that prompting their attack boys in the media to take on the incumbent civilian government cannot yield desired dividends. Instead, the strategy is counter-productive, as the lack of confidence existing between the civilians and the army may exacerbate.

If General Bajwa had been in charge of the country, he could have decided as per his wishes, but this is not the case. Neither General Ahmed nor General Musharraf are answerable to the people of Pakistan any more for conceding unconditionally to Pakistan’s role in the US war on terror. This privilege is not available to Sharif and his cohort. Perceptibly, no decisive change in the foreign policy of Pakistan is expected.

The writer is a freelance columnist and can be reached at qaisarrashid@yahoo.com

Published in Daily Times, September 30^th 2017.