The civil-military balance

The writer is a retired air-vice marshal, former ambassador and a security and political analyst.
Where did we go wrong? The man was sinking slowly but surely. He was physically isolated and had run the organisation, to his credit, on the back of a cultivated myth which was now reaching the end of its lease. He was whining and bickering about people leaving him as soon as his cover was blown by a resolute operation in Karachi. The four provincial assemblies had resolved to declare him an enemy of the state and what was left was for the National Assembly to stamp its approval.
The NA instead dithered and the speaker decided to give the MQM supremo a lease of life. And on what issue? – the one that was already decided – not to de-seat the PTI. Rather than renew Altaf Hussain’s relevance to Pakistan and the MQM’s political future it would have made better sense to defeat the motion with majority vote.
Why then this irresistible urge to seek unanimity? And at what cost? Have they lost their political marbles in the hallways of parliament? – or importantly, was this a stealthy counter to reinforce the MQM’s position vis-a-vis an ascendant military that is now wrongly but strongly perceived on a mission to cleanse Karachi and the rest of the country? A covering effort to restore the civilian balance? God alone knows how the political mind works; wheels within wheels.
Consider: the Scotland Yard had found laundered money, and they were on to something bigger by way of a closing gauntlet. Time alone would have closed that loop. Similarly, reasonable progress on Dr Imran Farooq’s murder has for some time indicated that a resolution was on the anvil.
The Karachi Operation had only brought to light the shady alliance between politics, crime and terror which was being pursued with a single-minded purpose. With every passing day the MQM was found on the wrong side of rationality. In shambles, many stalwarts had left for safer shores. The party had already bifurcated, both in general perception and in daily discourse, into two – MQM-Karachi and MQM-London. To a narrative there was a counter-narrative that was only succeeding.
Till we did what we did. Why? That today remains the most intriguing question especially after a federal minister ended up goofing with an international TV channel on civil-military relations relating to haughtiness of some military players of the past. Of the past – being raked now to what end, one might ask? Only a 47 percent cumulative progress in the operation has turned Karachi around from a precipice. What befell then this leadership to pre-empt the dawn of greater promise with unnecessary meddling, inevitably emplacing again the traditional face of the MQM – tarnished by recent tales of crime and exploitation.
Imagine what else Altaf Hussain has achieved by ordering his party members to resign en bloc from the assemblies. Any in-house move to replace him with a current member of parliament by has been checked in its tracks. Chances of a parallel, newer mutation composed of the majority of the current MQM members of parliament has been effectively neutered. If the resignations go through and the party were to contest again, Altaf has re-appropriated to himself the power and the flexibility to purge those disloyal and unreliable in his recent experience. Within his party then a slipping Altaf has regained his centrality. His support base which may have found relief from a coercive embrace built on imposed passion may yet have to rekindle the flame of their ethno-nationalist rejuvenation. To the Urdu-speaking ‘Mohajir’ it is back to Bhai’s pervasive presence.
Altaf Hussain hopes to force an image of an MQM in plight through a resignation process that also serves other objectives. While it forces a political crisis on a nation desperate for stability in its struggle against the toxic mix of terror and crime, it also aims to enable the MQM to maximise its returns from a nervy state. The MQM’s pound of flesh will include: inhibiting the Rangers operation in Karachi totally or against the MQM at the least, and then seek compensation in the name of fair share of resources for urban Sindh that the MQM claims to represent.
In a political settlement that the government and the MQM will have enacted together, any give and take is likely to agree to some proscription of the Rangers operation in Karachi. If it also means that the plan to expand such scrutiny to Punjab too may be circumscribed, that will be a windfall for a government equally apprehensive of the military’s expanding reach. Mushahidullah, it seems, was just another pawn to add to the civilian space on the back of a major MQM initiative.
Forty-seven percent down the line on the mission, this is no time to give up or regulate and redirect the operation. General Raheel Sharif and his commendable team in Karachi should stand up to any effort that might impact the operation’s progress and Karachi’s survival as a decent city. The shenanigans of the political establishment are only meant to put the military back in its shoes through contrived theatrics.
I now understand why Altaf Hussain was so comfortable and confident the day his people resigned en masse. Rather than placate the political sensitivity against the military’s remarkable rise in public opinion it is time to dovetail the political initiatives complementing such success by evolving a consensus on retaining the momentum in the military’s operations and forging a common ground on a code of conduct in the political parties that will bring back the deviant into the fold of patent politics only. No militancy – period.
Karachi should be permitted to have its peace. Peace must be instituted all across Pakistan without fear or favour bringing to book those who have plundered and devastated this nation in a terror-crime nexus. On their part, the Rangers and the army must ensure that the operation is across the board and justly and uniformly applied against crime that feeds into instability and terror in the shape of extortion, land-grabbing, kidnapping and target-killing. No terrorist of any hue should be allowed to shelter under one or the other political or religious denominations.
In tennis ‘forcing an error’ is the key to winning a game. The recent political developments are meant to force the military into one such error that can restore the balance in favour of the political establishment.
The perception of a competitive civil-military relationship is misplaced but dangerously entrenched. The military must watch out for such notion to gain strength in the coming days. A more complementary interface with the civilian leadership in this combined national response is in this nation’s prime interest. Reacting disproportionately in any fashion to such offensive caricatures will fail the mission that the military has undertaken to pursue. It will take an even grander sense of balance and proportion with a single-minded objective to clean the stables in the face of these challenges.
So far, so good. As an aside, raising the chief to a demi-God is loaded with the possibilities of a catastrophic misstep that will need to be avoided for the sake of this nation. To beware will help.
Email: shhzdchdhry@yahoo.com