Daily Times

The tweet retreat and a notification on the Dawn leaks on Wednesday were both mind-boggling as well as frustrating for the simple reason that both the General Headquarters and the Prime Minister’s Office had ominously taken the issue to brink before backing down.

While this “settlement” augurs well for an already embattled and crisis-ridden Pakistan as a whole, it also has kicked up many questions and left many of us baffled.

What changed with the notification from the Ministry of Interior? What was the quid pro quo for something that the military high command had equated to treason and gone to the extent of defying the prime minister by saying “notification is rejected”?

If it was a national security breach, why did the COAS step back? How will he explain this retreat to his furious corps commanders, most of whom, we had been told, had unanimously backed the April 29 tweet by the ISPR DG. This conveyed a grave sense of urgency within the GHQ, caused upheaval in the country and triggered a wave of endless speculation on the fate of the government and the civil-military relations.

Scores of military officials had raised hell after the notification from the Prime Minister’s Office. They even claimed to know the real culprit of the Dawn leaks, primarily based on the “wealth of telecommunication” data that intelligence agencies had reportedly secured immediately after the Dawn story.

They were also categorical in their demand for making the JIT report public.

Was that a lie or is the “settlement and the retreat of the tweet” a dubious deal born out of expedience?

And hence the stream of critical tweets from politicians:

“The Pakistan Army spokesperson should have resigned rather than take back his tweet,” said Aitzaz Ahsan, a senior PPP leader, while speaking to a private TV channel. He apparently stopped short of demanding the COAS to resign because the rejection of notification resonated the GHQ’s disapproval of the prime ministerial notification on April 29.

Imran Khan, too, took to Twitter to say, “DawnLeaks issue was never about army & government. It was about national security.” The whole nation now needs to know what was “settled” and demanded that the joint inquiry commission report be made public.

His colleague Asad Umar, too, asked, “If story was true and Pakistan Army is destabilising the region by harbouring terrorists, I want the government to take a clear unequivocal position.” And “If the story was false,” he asked, in the following tweet, “then departmental enquiry and change of portfolio is not just a joke but a cover up of a national crime.”

Ruling party’s Senator General Abdul Qayum, on the other hand, hailed the “tweet retreat” as a “superb move” by “the visionary military leadership” which dashed all negative hopes of forces bent upon spoiling civil-mil ties. He also described the ISPR DG as a “thorough bread professional” who had carefully worded the statement and addressed the right issues, such as the tense borders and Radd-ul-Fasaad.

Lost in the process is the credibility of claims by both sides.

Hence the “truth” turns out to be the real victim of the entire affair, with media and analysts caught between two traditional antagonists ie the GHQ and the Sharif-led PML-N. Both have been feeding to the media their versions of the Dawn leaks as well as the Panama Papers to the total disregard for the consideration that by churning out motivated stories they were indirectly denting their respective credibility.

But the real question remains unanswered; who “leaked the story” to Dawn and when, if at all, the enquiry report will be published to clear the mist surrounding this affair. Only then will we find out the real truth and possibly the extent of the claims that army officials had made about the “real culprits”.

No doubt though, that however dubious, the “settlement” does create space for both the military and the civilian government to focus on much more urgent political and economic challenges facing the country.

The writer is Editor, Strategic Affairs