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A instigating mutiny in the Pakistani army
By M K Bhadrakumar
The unthinkable is happening. The United States is confronting the
Pakistani military leadership of General Parvez Kayani. An extremely
dangerous course to destabilise Pakistan is commencing. Can the
outcome be any different than in Iran in 1979? But then, the Americans
are like Bourbons; they never learn from their mistakes.
The NYT report today is unprecedented. The report quotes US officials
not less than 7 times, which is extraordinary, including "an American
military official involved with Pakistan for many years"; "a senior
American official", etc. The dispatch is cleverly drafted to convey
the impression that a number of Pakistanis have been spoken to, but
reading between the lines, conceivably, these could also probably have
been indirect attribution by the American sources. A careful reading,
in fact, suggests that the dispatch is almost entirely based on deep
briefing by some top US intelligence official with great access to
records relating to the most highly sensitive US interactions with the
Pak army leadership and who was briefing on the basis of instructions
from the highest level of the US intelligence apparatus.
The report no doubt underscores that the US intelligence penetration
of the Pak defence forces goes very deep. It is no joke to get a
Pakistani officer taking part in an exclusive briefing by Kayani at
the National Defence University to share his notes with the US
interlocutors – unless he is their "mole". This is like a morality
play for we Indians, too, where the US intelligence penetration is
ever broadening and deepening.
Quite obviously, the birds are coming to roost. Pakistani military is
paying the price for the big access it provided to the US to interact
with its officer corps within the framework of their so-called
partnership". The Americans are now literally holding the
Pakistani army by its jugular veins. This should serve as a big
warning for all militaries of developing countries like India (which
is also developing intensive "mil-to-mil" ties with the US). In our
country at least, it is even terribly unfashionable to speak anymore
of CIA activities. The NYT story flags in no uncertain terms that
although Cold War is over, history has not ended.
What are the objectives behind the NYT story? In sum, any whichever
way we look at it, they all are highly diabolic. One, US is rubbishing
army chief Parvez Kayani and ISI head Shuja Pasha who at one time were
its own blue-eyed boys and whose successful careers and
post-retirement extensions in service the Americans carefully
choreographed fostered with a pliant civilian leadership in Islamabad,
but now when the crunch time comes, the folks are not "delivering". In
American culture, as they say, there is nothing like free lunch. The
Americans are livid that their hefty "investment" has turned out to be
a waste in every sense. And. it was a very painstakingly arranged
investment, too. In short, the Americans finally realise that they
might have made a miscalculation about Kayani when they promoted his
career.
Two, US intelligence estimation is that things can only go from bad to
worse in US-Pakistan relations from now onward. All that is possible
to slavage the relationship has been attempted. John Kerry, Hillary
Clinton, Mike Mullen – the so-called "friends of Pakistan" in the
Barack Obama administration – have all come to Islamabad and turned on
the charm offensive. But nothing worked. Then came CIA boss Leon
Panetta with a deal that like Marlon Brando said in the movie
Godfather, Americans thought the Pakistanis cannot afford to say 'No'
to, but to their utter dismay, Kayani showed him the door.
The Americans realise that Kayani is fighting for his own survival –
and so is Pasha – and that makes him jettison his "pro-American"
mindset and harmonise quickly with the overwhelming opinion within the
army, which is that the Americans pose a danger to Pakistan's
national security and it is about time that the military leadership
draws a red
line. Put simply, Pakistan fears that the Americans are out to grab
their nuclear stockpile. Pakistani people and the military expect
Kayani to disengage from the US-led Afghan war and instead pursue an
independent course in terms of the country's perceived legitimate
interests.
Three, there is a US attempt to exploit the growing indiscipline
within the Pak army and, if possible, to trigger a mutiny, which will
bog down the army leadership in a serious "domestic" crisis that
leaves no time for them for the foreseeable future to play any
forceful role in Afghanistan. In turn, it leaves the Americans a free
hand to pursue their own agenda. Time is of the essence of the matter
and the US desperately wants direct access to the Taliban leadership
so as to strike a deal with them without the ISI or Hamid Karzai
coming in between.
The prime US objective is that Taliban should somehow come to a
compromise with them on the single most crucial issue of permanent US
military bases in Afghanistan. The negotiations over the strategic
partnership agreement with Karzai's government are at a critical
point. The Taliban leadership of Mullah Omar robustly opposes the US
proposal to set up American and NATO bases on their country. The
Americans are willing to take the Taliban off the UN's sanctions list
and allow them to be part of mainstream Afghan political life,
including in the top echelons of leadership, provided Mullah Omar and
the Quetta Shura agree to play ball.
The US tried its damnest to get Kayani to bring the Taliban to the
reconciliation path. When these attempts failed, they tried to
establish direct contact with the Taliban leadership. But ISI has been
constantly frustrating the US intelligence activities in this
direction and reminding the US to stick to earlier pledges that
Pakistan would have a key role in the negotiations with the Taliban.
The CIA and Pentagon have concluded that so long as the Pakistani
military leadership remains stubborn, they cannot advance their agenda
in Afghanistan.
Now, how do you get Kayani and the ISI to back off? The US knows the
style of functioning of the Pakistani military. The army chief
essentially works within a collegium of the 9 corps commanders. Thus,
US has concluded that it also has to tackle the collegium. The only
way is to set the army's house on fire so that the generals get
distracted by the fire-dousing and the massive repair work and
housecleaning that they will be called upon to undertake as top
priority for months if not years to come. To rebuild a national
institution like the armed forces takes years and decades.
Four, the US won't mind if Kayani is forced to step aside from his
position and the Pakistani military leadership breaks up in disarray,
as it opens up windows of opportunities to have Kayani and Pasha
replaced by more "dependable" people – Uncle Sam's own men. There is
every possibility that the US has been grooming its favourites within
the Pak army corps for all contingencies. Pakistan is too important as
a "key non-NATO ally". The CIA is greatly experienced in masterminding
coup d-etat, including "in-house" coup d'etat.
Almost all the best and the brightest Pak army officers have passed
through the US military academies at one time or another. Given the
sub-continent's middle class mindset and post-modern cultural ethos,
elites in civil or military life take it for granted that US backing
is a useful asset for furthering career. The officers easily succumb
to US intelligence entrapment. Many such "sleepers" should be existing
there within the Pak army officer corps.
The big question remains: has someone in Washington thought through
the game plan to tame the Pakistani military? The heart of the matter
is that there is virulent "anti-Americanism" within the Pak armed
forces. Very often it overlaps with Islamist sympathies. Old-style
left wing "anti-Americanism" is almost non-existent in the Pakistani
armed forces – as in Ayaz Amir's time. These tendencies in the
military are almost completely in sync with the overwhelming public
opinion in the country as well.
Over the past 3 decades at least, Pakistani army officers have come to
be recruited almost entirely from the lower middle class – as in our
country – and not from the landed aristocracy as in the earlier
decades up to the 1970s. These social strata are quintessentially
right wing in their ideology, nationalistic, and steeped in
religiosity that often becomes indistinguishable from militant religious faith.
Given the overall economic crisis in Pakistan and the utterly
discredited Pakistani political class (as a whole) and countless other
social inequities and tensions building up in an overall climate of
cascading violence and great uncertainties about the future gnawing
the mind of the average Pakistani today, a lurch toward extreme right
wing Islamist path is quite possible. The ingredients in Pakistan are
almost nearing those prevailing in Iran in the Shah's era.
The major difference so far has been that Pakistan has an armed forces
"rooted in the soil" as a national institution, which the public
respected to the point of revering it, which on its part, sincerely or
not, also claimed to be the Praetorian Guards of the Pakistani state.
Now, in life, destroying comes very easy. Unless the Americans have
some very bright ideas about how to go about nation-building in
Pakistan, going by their track record in neighbouring Afghanistan,
their present course to discredit the military and incite its
disintegration or weakening at the present crisis point, is fraught
with immense dangers.
The instability in the region may suit the US' geo-strategy for
consolidating its (and NATO's) military presence in the region but it
will be a highly self-centred, almost cynical, perspective to take on
the problem, which has dangerous, almost explosive, potential for
regional security. Also, who it is that is in charge of the Pakistan
policy in Washington today, we do not know. To my mind, Obama
administration doesn't have a clue since Richard Holbrooke passed away
as to how to handle Pakistan.
The disturbing news in recent weeks has been that all the old
"Pakistan hands" in the USG have left the Obama administration. It
seems there has been a steady exodus of officials who knew and
understood how Pakistan works, and the depletion is almost one hundred
percent. That leaves an open field for the CIA to set the policies.
The CIA boss Leon Panetta (who is tipped as defence secretary) is an
experienced and ambitious politico who knows how to pull the wires in
the Washington jungle – and, to boot it, he has an Italian name. He is
unlikely to forgive and forget the humiliation he suffered in
Rawalpindi last Friday. The NYT story suggests that it is not in his
blood if he doesn't settle scores with the Rawalpindi crowd. If Marlon
Brando were around, he would agree.
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign
Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri
Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
Tariq Khattak, Islamabad, Pakistan.
GSM = 0300-9599007 and 0333-9599007
Email: Tariqgulkhattak@gmail.com
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