Spiegel, spiegel auf der wand…

As Pakistan descends further into an abyss of self-destructive behaviour that is all its own making--not India's, not America's and not the Tooth Fairy's--there are fewer and fewer new visitors to the country. Those that do brave the travel advisories and warnings are often asked to read Stephen Cohen's "The Idea of Pakistan". Indeed, Cohen's book is a good place to start, but why read through hundreds of pages, to understand the dysfunction of a state that is too complex to ever fully fathom? A much shorter orientation to Pakistan is Susanne Koelbl's interview of Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha (the chief of the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) for the German magazine, Der Speigel (which is German for "the mirror"). The interview was taken on December 12, 2008, and was published on January 6, 2009. At one stage, the general asks "What can we do against the drone attacks?" (Air Chief Marshal Tanvir Mahmood Ahmed is reported by this newspaper to have said, on November 25, 2008 that the Pakistan Air Force "is fully capable to stop drones' flights and missile strikes").

Later, the general provides a lawyerly defence of the Taliban, asking "Shouldn't they be allowed to think and say what they please? They believe that jihad is their obligation. Isn't that freedom of opinion?" (The easy answer is no. Not when it involves killing people.)

And finally, the general declares that he and the Army Chief report to the President. (In fact, they should be reporting to the Prime Minister).

Gen. Pasha is clearly a fine soldier trying to do a fine job in defending Pakistan from multiple threats. He knows that the international attention his organization is receiving is almost exclusively negative. Ostensibly, Gen. Pasha gave the interview to address the plummeting value of the ISI brand in the international media. In the words of former Army chief, retired General Musharraf, it is all about the "soft image", after all. But Musharraf, who's been making all kinds of noises recently (both himself, and through proxies whose intentions are more transparent than Paris Hilton's Halloween dress), didn't do such a good job on the soft image himself. The faithful proxies of Musharraf, who pine for a leader that always puts "Pakistan First," would be well advised to spend a little more time reading, and spend a little less time consuming sugar. Here's Musharraf putting Pakistan (and the ISI) first, in an interview with the late, great Tim Russert on the most watched Sunday morning television show in America, Meet the Press, from October 1, 2006:

TIM RUSSERT: So nobody in the ISI is helping the Taliban?

GEN. MUSHARRAF: Now, nobody in the ISI helps. Now, there--I have some reports that some dissidents, some people, retired people who were in the forefront, in ISI, during a period of '79 to '89 may be assisting with the leaks somewhere here and there. We are keeping a very tight watch, and we'll get all of them if at all that happens.

So, in effect, Musharraf, at the time, the actual operational, functional, official and technical head of the armed forces of this here republic, essentially admitted that rogue elements related to the ISI, indeed, not just related, but at some point in time, "at the forefront" may be leaking information to the Taliban to help them in their fight against Pakistan's ally, the United States.

Musharraf has bequeathed to Gen. Pasha, his new boss, Gen. Kiyani and an entire generation of military leaders in Pakistan, a no-win scenario. These generals are now having to play the public relations game, which as Musharraf himself so beautifully demonstrated over eight long years, generals are not trained to play. If Musharraf's bravado falsetto has not rid the Pakistani people of the delusional idea that only a uniformed general can talk to foreigners with a degree of dignity, nothing will. There is no dignity in the layers of untenable positions that military rule has put this country in. Gen. Pasha is no doubt an exceptional soldier, but his interview with Der Speigel is a testament to the intergenerational pickle that Pakistan finds itself in today.

The mistakes and egos that have preceded him in the Pakistan Army, have saddled the country with the kind of baggage that all the best intentions in the world cannot resolve. The Pakistan Army and the ISI will take as long to rehabilitate as the rest of the country will. Pakistan's gallant and brave soldiers need to understand what military rule does to a country, how it weakens their country and how it has put soldiers like Gen. Pasha in the impossible position of having to speak to the Der Speigels of this world.

The most lasting, and cancerous effect of Gen. Musharraf's era of one-man rule over this country has been the unzipping and undoing of the formal and informal rules of the game, by which this country was designed to run, as determined by the Constitution. Like any country, Pakistan was designed to be managed by three pillars of the state: the executive, the legislature and the judiciary.

In order to retain absolute power, which he tried to do at all times, Musharraf decapitated the executive by literally neutering the office of the Prime Minister. First, as long as he was the occupant, he changed its name to the office of the Chief Executive, then he installed the adorable, affable, and somewhat laughable Mr. Jamali as Prime Minister, then he allowed the somewhat affable, and quite laughable Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain as Prime Minister, and then he introduced Shaukat Aziz, about whom the less is said, the more is said.

Musharraf decapitated the legislature by forging a relationship with the worst and most useless collection of politicians this country has produced. They were all remnants and residuals of the two mainstream political parties in this country, the PPP and the PML. With both parties' leaders in trouble, the spineless peripheries--sycophants, rent-seekers, con-artists and class clowns--of these parties are what made up the core of Musharraf's parliamentary representation. In parliament this group amounted to virtually nothing, passing not a single item of organic legislation in the five years it had in office. The Cabinet was a punch line all on its own, from Wasi Zafar to Sher Afghan Niazi to Salman Shah.

Of course, Musharraf's piece de resistance, in terms of his assault on Pakistan's institutions was the decapitation of the judiciary. Despite an unprecedented movement that pushed back, and unseated him from power, the judiciary has not been restored. If the lawyers were fighting to get rid of Musharraf, they won. But if they were fighting for institutional integrity in Pakistan, they did not, Musharraf did.

The net impact of Musharraf's decapitation of Pakistan's institutions is clear. No one trusts Pakistan. Neither Pakistan's own citizens, nor Pakistan's friends, nor its foes. Pakistan's brave and gallant soldiers are falling daily in Swat, FATA and the border areas, defending increasingly shrinking spaces against an immoral and outrageously audacious enemy. The ISI is getting tagged in every major newspaper and magazine as a terror-sponsoring agency. Pakistan's elected Prime Minister is rendered helpless by an unelected and therefore tone-deaf core Cabinet. Each of these challenges is a legacy of military rule. Pakistanis need security and intelligence that abide by the rules of the game, instead of waking up every morning and asking, spiegel spiegel auf der wand (mirror, mirror, on the wall)…



The writer is an independent political economist.