IN his classic The Art of War written 2,500 years ago, Sun Tzu advised military commanders thus: “In war, practise dissimulation and you will succeed.”
Deception has been a key element in strategy ever since tribes waged war against each other. Generals take a great deal of trouble to conceal their true intentions from their adversaries. Basil Liddell Hart’s masterpiece of military history, Strategy:
The Indirect Approach, chronicled how great commanders have used deception to outmanoeuvre their enemies.
So using ruses to outwit a foreign foe is not just acceptable, but a job requirement for higher military command. However, what are we to make of generals who use similar techniques against their own political leadership?
Over the years, the Pakistan Army has come to adopt a posture that faces both external enemies as well as real and perceived
internal foes. By expanding its role to defend Pakistan’s ideological frontiers as well as its physical ones, it has become enmeshed in internal and regional politics to a degree very few other military forces have.
By becoming major players in domestic power politics, our generals have become sucked into a vortex of murky ploys that, apart from discrediting the forces they lead, also distracts them from their primary function. And by transforming domestic opposition into an enemy threat, they rationalise extreme, and often violent, action against members of civil society.
Thus, in the name of national security and state ideology (whatever it is currently), dissenting nationalists and extremists are made to disappear, often never to return. Journalists are threatened, allegedly kidnapped and occasionally killed, as well as bribed. Politicians are blackmailed and browbeaten.
Operation Midnight Jackal, mounted by Brig Imtiaz Ahmed (Billa) and Major Amir in 1989 to destabilise Benazir Bhutto’s government, is one example of the length the security agencies are willing to go to impose their control on the political system. The conspiracy was exposed, and its author, Brig Imtiaz, has confessed his role on TV.
Asghar Khan filed a constitutional petition before the Supreme Court, requesting it to look into the allegations that the ISI had financed many politicians in the 1990 elections to block Benazir Bhutto’s PPP from winning. In response to the petition, Gen Durrani, the ex-director the ISI, gave details of the sums he had authorised, and the leaders who had been paid.
Following these sensational disclosures, the Supreme Court has put the case on the back-burner despite continued demands that it be heard. But in their wisdom, their lordships have decided that other issues merit their attention more urgently than Asghar Khan’s explosive petition.
Over the years, the security establishment has been aided by religious parties and the higher judiciary in its efforts to subordinate the political system to its own ends. The former views the army as a lever to further its politico-religious agenda as it has very little support among the electorate, as proved by its regular defeats at the polls. The latter tagged along willy-nilly, giving legal cover to a succession of coups.
So it was refreshing to hear the chief justice emphatically reject any possibility of granting yet another constitutional indemnity to a future military adventurer.
During the ongoing tension over memogate, it has become clear that the army no longer has the stomach for an overt coup.
Musharraf’s long rule has tarnished the military’s image, and the generals know all too well that they don’t have any answers to the country’s many problems. Much better to let civilians take the flak. And the global climate is not conducive to coups: a military takeover would have severe political and economic implications.
In this context, the army’s ability to impose its will is limited: even though the generals loathe Zardari, they can’t easily get rid of him. Hence the steady build-up of pressure on the government through the mysterious memogate conspiracy.
But Mansoor Ijaz, the American businessman who first broke the story, remains a shady, discredited figure. For years, he has been vociferous in his attacks on the Pakistan Army and its intelligence agency. Indeed, he has gone to the extent of asking the United States to consider tough action against them in the wake of the Abbottabad raid last May. When he bombastically speaks of his intention to “speak truth to power”, he forgets that he is making his accusations under the protection of the real power in Pakistan: the military.
We may never discover the truth behind the whole wretched story. But this is the nature of plots planned and orchestrated by secret services around the world. The one thing we do know is that it has greatly weakened this government, and has virtually forced it to concede to early elections. Given the army’s traditional antipathy to PPP governments, it would not shock us greatly to discover its hand in the plot.
Certainly, the actions of the security establishment indicate that they have seized the opportunity offered by memogate with both hands. Whether they were complicit or not, they have chosen to ignore Mansoor Ijaz’s earlier venom in their haste to hamstring the government and force its early exit.
In this effort, they have the backing of much of Pakistan’s media and the chattering classes. An old friend, and one who normally opposes military intervention, gleefully took a bet with me that the government would be sent packing in a matter of days. But now that there seems to be a cooling off, he had better be prepared to pay up.
However, whatever the outcome of the memogate saga, the gloves are off, and the government has been fatally weakened. An insignificant foreigner with a dubious background has been allowed to destabilise an elected government. Once again, the army is in its full political mode.
One way to restore its image of impartiality would be for the Supreme Court to take up hearings of Asghar Khan’s petition. This might help stop the army from dabbling in politics. But ultimately, it will only stay in its barracks if civilians begin providing good governance.
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