Dark clouds

The sunshine that resulted from the improved security situation in Pakistan in the wake of the civil-military concord of the past couple of years has been replaced by dark clouds of doubt and gloom. This is due to the military’s insistence — and the civilian leadership’s consequent shirking — running the country in an ordered manner. The military is not satisfied with the waning civilian resolve over the finer aspects of the National Action Plan (NAP). Resultantly, civil-military relations in Pakistan are coming under strain once more and all this has a strange déjà vu feeling to it. If things do not start looking up soon, we could all see the fragile democratic setup coming undone, and that too soon.
The increasing divide between the civilians and the military is becoming far too pronounced in lately. The demands from the security forces to increase civilian action under the NAP are growing more frequent and more insistent over time. The armed forces have been active on the ground and in the urban areas in Pakistan, eliminating militants as well as other criminal elements. However, another crucial aspect of the NAP, namely the regularisation of madrassas (seminaries), whereby such institutions are brought under the state’s supervision, has been woefully neglected.
For this reason, the military leadership is at odds with the civilians, whom they deem responsible for causing lags in this aspect of the NAP’s implementation. Religious seminaries are tricky institutions under ordinary circumstances but they are especially complicated to manage when seen in the context of Pakistan’s security considerations. Registering the seminaries and their students, along with changes in the curriculum, are proving to be the bane of the incumbent government’s existence. The madrassas, unsurprisingly, are having none of the state’s rhetoric in response, and the re-emergence of Maulana Abdul Aziz, the cleric of Islamabad’s Lal Mosque, has done precious little to improve the government’s reputation.
Another way in which the rift has been exacerbated is through the army chief’s recent visit to the US, mere days after Prime Minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif had made an appearance in the same neighbourhood. Washington is no stranger to entertaining Pakistani military leaders. As per some observers in the US, President Obama — already in his last year in office and atrociously tangled up in the Middle East — is in no mood to open alternate channels of communication with Islamabad and wants to give democracy a chance, at least for now.
However, all this can change awfully quickly and the civil-military rift could prove to be crucial in undermining the counter-terror efforts both in Pakistan as well as on the international level. The reason being that in the presence of a divided governance system that lags in crucial aspects regarding security, militant extremists can make a comeback and wreak havoc, as has been the case in the past. While most of the domestic militant groups in Pakistan have been forced to leave the tribal areas or face extinction, there remains one threat that looms large over not just Pakistan but the entire South Asian region. That threat, of course, is Islamic State (IS).
IS, after its swift rise in Iraq and Syria, has made its presence known on a global stage of horror now. As Robert Fisk — a journalistic authority on all things Middle Eastern — has noted, the colonial borders in Syria and Iraq have been deemed null and void by IS, and the increased mobility enables the militants to move with impunity along several other borders in the Middle East. Resultantly, European and American intelligence agencies are worried over the possibility of further infiltration by IS within their own corresponding territories, which has unfortunately made western nations curb the inflow of refugees and the disadvantaged.
IS may be showing its presence in the Middle East and Europe these days but we must keep in mind that it has already made public its plans of conquering the South Asian region via its Khorasan chapter. Because of the increased threat in the wake of the attacks in Beirut and Paris, the entire planet is on high alert, and Pakistan should be no different. But at a time when the civilians and the military leaders are reluctant to address the core issues of the day, any weaknesses in our security apparatus could be exploited quite easily.
Pakistan’s military has, for better or for worse, considerable experience in counter-terrorism measures over the past decade or so but such experience could prove to be insufficient and destabilise the country’s domestic setup if the civilians are not willing to either provide necessary support or, worse yet, to cede control to the military. Even now, the government is bent on rejecting all evidence supporting a noticeable IS presence within the country, and this attitude of ignorance is not going to make things any better.
In such a scenario then, the country’s civil-military nexus needs to be in accord over matters big and small. However, the possibility of such bonhomie in the immediate future remains distant. Because of this, the onus of keeping Pakistan’s democracy intact remains with the civilian leaders. In this regard, the elected government will have to step up to the task at hand and start implementing the agreed upon strategies to counter the extremist threat. The ones holding the reins of power — civilian or otherwise — would be well-advised at this point to keep all contingencies in mind and make an effort to resolve their differences, since not doing so could very well throw the country into further disarray.

The author is a freelance columnist with degrees in political science and international relations