The army's present authority...where does it come from?

Islamabad diary
Asif Zardari gets hysterical about the army and the prime minister calls up the army chief who is on a visit to Moscow and virtually reports to him to say that we are with you. Of the real state of play in the country today, there can be no more striking image than this.
And the army chief returns from Moscow and the very next day instead of a photo-op at the PM’s house, which I can almost bet the sidekicks there would have desperately wanted, he goes straight to the Khyber Agency to be with the troops engaged in the ongoing operation. Not for nothing is he so popular among all ranks. Ask any soldier or officer and you will soon come to know.
This is the same prime minister who was trying to fly solo last year, on opposite sides of the army, on the question of Gen Musharraf’s trial and the media wars which erupted at about the same time.
Contrast the speeches and attitude of leading PML-N ministers then and their very ‘responsible’ behaviour now. This is not to rub salt in anyone’s wounds but only to point out that we have come a long way since then. What to talk of anything else, even Pervaiz Rashid has lost half his volubility and Khawaja Asif gives the impression as if he graduated from Kakul, and Nisar Ali Khan has been transformed from Taliban apologist and chief mourner for Hakeemullah Mehsud to leading army defender. Who says the age of miracles is over?
How has this change occurred? Not because of any threatening manoeuvre on the part of the 111 Brigade, or because the army has put a gun to anyone’s head, but solely due to one factor and that alone: the army’s decision to cast aside all fears and reservations and declare all-out war against terrorism. In this it went over the wishes of the politicians, over the fears and nightmares of the ruling party.
Go over the proceedings of the all parties’ conference in Sep 2013 to get an idea of the mood prevailing then: defeatism and the spirit of appeasement in all their glory. Gen Raheel and his commanders endured that waffling for another six months, during which time the drama of talks with the Taliban was played out. And then, their patience tipping over, they said enough was enough.
That’s when the decision was taken to go into North Waziristan. Government and politicians were left to catch up as best as they could. This was much before the Peshawar school attack, which was the Taliban’s response to Operation Zarb-e-Azb.
Far from doing the Taliban any good that attack solidified the national mood behind the army and PAF. And the politicians realised that the season of excuses was over. Before, they were perforce tolerating the operation. After Peshawar they had no choice but to clamber aboard the wagon of Zarb-e-Azb and become, when the occasion demanded, its cheerleaders.
This is the same army that there always was, the same regiments, battalions and divisions that Zia, Musharraf and Kayani commanded. But this same army while it had the guns had no moral authority. Today it has that authority. Not only that, it has something more: an air of legitimacy for whatever it is doing. Only because with its sweat and blood – yes, blood – it is defending the country…officers and men laying down their lives, and parents grieving, yes, but at the same time proud of the sacrifices of their children.
In some of the toughest terrain on earth, in scorching heat and bitter cold, officers and men are battling a tough enemy. Whatever else we may say of the Taliban, they are not chickenfeed. But the army, with crucial help from the PAF, has pushed them back, reoccupying space they once lorded over. The odd terrorist incident still takes place but it will be a churlish soul who will say that terrorism as a whole has not been beaten back.
The army always had brute force at its command. But in all martial laws it lacked moral authority. And this lack of legitimacy undermined its physical power. Remember, in Musharraf’s time a stage had come when army men were reluctant to appear in public places in uniform. The situation today is radically, dramatically, different in that to the army’s tanks and guns, to the PAF’s fighter jets, has been added that intangible but all too real quality called moral force.
This is what is enabling the army to do what it is doing in Karachi. It takes on, through the Rangers, Lyari gangsters, the criminal elements in the MQM, the leaders of the Sunni Tehreek, religious extremists, and now criminal elements whose trail leads to the PPP leadership, and there is no strike in Karachi, no challenge to military authority, no gauntlet thrown down of any kind.
The MQM supremo, livid though he may be, is letting discretion be the better part of valour. Asif Zardari by his ill-judged outburst has only exposed his own sense of insecurity. Do the strong or the secure hurl empty threats?
Bhutto’s party Gen Zia could not destroy. Zardari has already reduced the once mighty PPP to a provincial, rural-based party. With his outburst against the army he has taken the PPP’s demolition further ahead. Let Euripides come to our aid once more: “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.”
Every military operation in Karachi ended in failure, without achieving anything. But what the Rangers are currently doing, including getting to the bottom of things, was never attempted before. And it has everyone on the ropes – the MQM, Lyari’s cowboys, holy warriors, and now the stewards and caretakers of Bilawal House.
One of the strengths of this army command is that it says little and speaks less but does what it has to. Gen Raheel is all over the place. Whether Peshawar or a terrorist outrage in Karachi, or the ongoing fighting in Fata, he is the first to be on the scene. In a country bereft of anything approaching leadership, he has come to be seen as a source of strength and inspiration. This is not what I am saying but what the general feeling is. Go out and ask people. Put the question to them: whom do you trust, whom do you look up to? You’ll get your answer.
And our politicians are still not getting it. A former prime minister gets caught with a Turkish necklace in his cupboard. Can you beat this? This is beyond laughter. As for the present prime minister, at such a time when the army is spread all over and dealing with a multitude of tasks, what’s the brainwave he gets? That the National Agricultural Research Council’s 1200 acres in the heart of Islamabad should be given to some private party (we can guess who) to be turned into – hold your breaths – another housing estate.
On instructions from above, the Capital Development Authority has forwarded such a summary. There’s something called a sense of shame. Have they lost this completely in the higher reaches of the Pakistani government?
Politicians and a section of the commentariat are forgetting another thing: democracy is becoming a stale argument in Pakistan. It worked fine and was a catchall phrase in periods of martial law. But when it’s been some time since democracy was restored, merely prattling about democracy while stuffing your pockets with loot and plunder cuts no ice with most people. If there is no electricity in this damned heat, will people’s nerves be soothed by lectures on democracy?
Tailpiece: Look at Karachi: the day over a hundred of the sick, the homeless and the lost got roasted by the heat and their souls went skywards, all that could be seen was the Edhi Foundation storing the bodies in its morgue and arranging for the burial of the dead. Where was the government? Where was anybody else?
Email: winlust@yahoo.com