Reports emanating from Pakistan over the rift between the government of Nawaz Sharif and the army top brass have set people wondering if the Pakistan prime minister’s days are numbered and whether that country is slipping into military rule again after a period of make-believe democracy in which real power rested with the generals.
The army top brass has found it convenient to rule by remote control and not be held accountable for the sins of omission and commission by the people but if Nawaz Sharif oversteps his limit they know what they have to do. That the Nawaz Sharif government has told the military not to “interfere” in action against militant groups reflects the growing realisation that Islamabad’s credibility abroad has hit rock-bottom when it complains of being a victim of terror.
The terror strikes in Pathankot and Uri which India convincingly showed to the world were the handiwork of terrorists trained and armed in Pakistan with the connivance of the military there have blunted Pakistan’s propaganda comprehensively. How the military under General Raheel Sharif responds to Nawaz Sharif’s new ways remains to be seen but what is clear is that the two bigwigs are increasingly drifting apart.
Virtually isolated in the comity of nations as a pariah, Pakistan now feels it needs to show some action on the ground against inciters and perpetrators of terror in India, to regain some lost ground. The eyewash manner in which the cases related to the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai have been handled by the Pakistan government and its agencies has left serious doubts about Islamabad’s real intentions and about the sincerity of its claims to punish those who were guilty of the heinous terror attack in Mumbai in which citizens of several nationalities died.
The failure on Pakistan’s part to act against the Jaish-e-Mohammed and against the Haqqani Network —both involved in heinous terror attacks — is testimony to the cavalier attitude of the Pakistani establishment so far towards terror outfits which have been propped up by the army and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). That the Chinese have been blocking all efforts to bring to book the mastermind of the Pathankot attack, Masood Azhar, who openly goes about delivering incendiary speeches while the armed forces and the police give him protection is also being seen through by the international community. There are reports that even the Chinese, who are virtually the sole supporters of the Pakistan establishment, are tiring of propping up a terrorist who is the leader of Jaish-e-Mohammed which has been designated as a terror outfit by even the United Nations.
As G.Parthasarathy, a veteran diplomat and former India High Commissioner to Pakistan pointed out prophetically in a newspaper article an year ago, General Sharif has been seriously undermining Nawaz Sharif’s image, credibility and power, both in domestic affairs, and in foreign and security policies. Said he: “He started by sending word that the army would not tolerate any arrest, or detention of Musharraf.
A terrified Supreme Court and a chastened Nawaz duly complied. This was followed by clear messages to Nawaz that he should not seek closer trade relations with India, or meet Pakistan’s desperate energy needs by getting electricity from India. General Sharif also took charge of Afghanistan policy and even got the ever-obliging President Ashraf Ghani to call on him at the headquarters in Rawalpindi, during a state visit to Pakistan.” Mr Parthasarathy went on to say that Raheel Sharif deals with the Afghan president and others as though he is a parallel head of government.
He says that General Sharif has totally marginalised the Nawaz Sharif government within Pakistan is clear from the fact that the army launched the Zarb-e-Azb operations against the Tehrik-i-Taliban, without formal government and parliamentary approval. These operations rendered more than one million Pashtuns homeless and led to cross-border shootouts, across the Durand Line.
It was Raheel Sharif who also turned down Saudi requests for assistance in Yemen and got the Pakistan parliament to rubber stamp what he wanted. Adds Mr Parthasarathy: “The army is now acting like a state within a state in Baluchistan, where it ignores the orders of the Supreme Court to produce the ‘missing’ persons it had detained. In Karachi, it has become a law unto itself by getting the paramilitary Rangers to clamp down on the MQM. It has even launched an anti-corruption drive against the PPP by arresting a close Zardari confidante and aide, Asim Hussain.”
With General Sharif due to retire shortly, he is in a tearing hurry to force his extension or have a showdown with the government to try and usurp power. The latter course he would ideally like to defer because the image of the armed forces is far from good and there would be Herculean challenges to face for a new administration. Indeed, Nawaz Sharif is a fighter and would like to cling on, but his options are running out.
