Chief Of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif continues to hog the headlines. He is the point man in all the significant policy decisions taken by the Nawaz Sharif government on domestic and international issues. What General Sharif says and does is critical. Without the military’s practical input, many core issues cannot be resolved satisfactorily.
There are two pressing domestic issues: the war against terrorism and the war against corruption. If it hadn’t been for General Sharif, we would still have been pussy footing with the Taliban in FATA and the urban terrorist-criminal mafias in Karachi. On both counts he has led from the front and the PMLN government has followed. Indeed, the military under his leadership has acted in an unprecedentedly mature manner to stabilize polity. His predecessor, General Ashfaq Kayani, had either been too pusillanimous in not taking on the Taliban or too aggressive in destabilizing the PPP regime. The fact of the matter also is that if it hadn’t been for General Sharif, the hawkish remnants of the ancient military regime would have succeeded in toppling the PMLN government via Imran Khan’s dharnas in 2014. Now the general has moved forward on cleaning up his own stables. NAB has been advised to investigate land scams in DHA, some of which allegedly involve the brothers of General Kayani. This too is unprecedented. Charity for the “sacred cow” is seemingly beginning at home.
There are three pressing international issues: Pakistan’s relations with Afghanistan and attempts to bring the civil war there to an end before its blowback irrevocably drowns Pakistan in a tidal wave of extremist Islam; Pakistan’s relations with India and attempts to smoke the peace pipe before proxy warring derails the main domestic agendas at hand; and Pakistan’s relations with the “Muslim” world and attempts to remain neutral before sectarian wars drag it into an orgy of bloodshed and disintegration. On each, General Sharif has acted with wisdom and courage and advised the PMLN government accordingly.
It is largely through General Sharif’s efforts that a quadrilateral commission comprising Pakistan, Afghanistan, China and the US has been established to facilitate the process of an Afghan-led Afghan-owned solution to the civil war. This will serve to reduce the bickering between the Pakistani and Afghan intelligence services and governments about the responsibility and ability of each to deliver its part of the bargain. It will also facilitate a regional approach to the problem of terrorism, replacing the failed bilateral dialogues.
General Sharif’s input is also critical to the Indo-Pak dialogue. Everyone knows, and the Indians have long argued, that all the commitments of civilian governments in Pakistan amount to naught without full military backing. But with the appointment of General (retd) Naseer Janjua as Pakistan’s national security advisor on the advice of General Sharif, the Indians will get what they see and hear. That is why the NSAs of both countries are clearing the strategic decks for the formal bureaucracies in the ministries to get cracking on the tactical details. Indeed, one reason why the recent terrorist attack on India’s Pathankot air base by allegedly Pakistan-based terrorists hasn’t derailed the proposed talks agenda is because the NSAs are in contact to anticipate and act to remove the bumps in the road. Indeed, it is as unprecedented for the Indians to say they will not allow vested interests in Pakistan to succeed by such divisive tactics as it is for the Pakistanis to say that they will take immediate action against Pakistani non-state claimants of responsibility for the attack in order to reassure the other side that they mean to pursue conflict-resolution seriously and sincerely. The arrests of Jaish-e-Mohammad activists in southern Punjab, again an unprecedented act, are aimed at signaling the resolve of the military establishment to push the peace process vigorously with India.
General Sharif has also played a pivotal role in making sure that Pakistan stays clear of the sectarian conflict in the Middle East provoked by Saudi Arabia and its Sunni state allies. Left to his own devices, for both personal and economic reasons, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif would have found it impossible to resist inducements and pressure to join the Saudi quest for forcible regime change in Syria and Iran and direct military intervention in Yemen. No military ruler in the past has had the courage to stand up to the Saudis or resist the lure of their lucre. But we have managed to retain their goodwill while extracting billions worth of export orders for munitions and internal security contingents.
General Sharif’s success lies in establishing a good working relationship with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. This civil-military balance is the key to national security. On all these issues, however, it is the military establishment that has altered some of its core assumptions and paradigms. The credit must go to General Raheel Sharif for nudging his institution to become part of the solution instead of being wedded to the past when it has frequently been part of the problem.
There are two pressing domestic issues: the war against terrorism and the war against corruption. If it hadn’t been for General Sharif, we would still have been pussy footing with the Taliban in FATA and the urban terrorist-criminal mafias in Karachi. On both counts he has led from the front and the PMLN government has followed. Indeed, the military under his leadership has acted in an unprecedentedly mature manner to stabilize polity. His predecessor, General Ashfaq Kayani, had either been too pusillanimous in not taking on the Taliban or too aggressive in destabilizing the PPP regime. The fact of the matter also is that if it hadn’t been for General Sharif, the hawkish remnants of the ancient military regime would have succeeded in toppling the PMLN government via Imran Khan’s dharnas in 2014. Now the general has moved forward on cleaning up his own stables. NAB has been advised to investigate land scams in DHA, some of which allegedly involve the brothers of General Kayani. This too is unprecedented. Charity for the “sacred cow” is seemingly beginning at home.
There are three pressing international issues: Pakistan’s relations with Afghanistan and attempts to bring the civil war there to an end before its blowback irrevocably drowns Pakistan in a tidal wave of extremist Islam; Pakistan’s relations with India and attempts to smoke the peace pipe before proxy warring derails the main domestic agendas at hand; and Pakistan’s relations with the “Muslim” world and attempts to remain neutral before sectarian wars drag it into an orgy of bloodshed and disintegration. On each, General Sharif has acted with wisdom and courage and advised the PMLN government accordingly.
It is largely through General Sharif’s efforts that a quadrilateral commission comprising Pakistan, Afghanistan, China and the US has been established to facilitate the process of an Afghan-led Afghan-owned solution to the civil war. This will serve to reduce the bickering between the Pakistani and Afghan intelligence services and governments about the responsibility and ability of each to deliver its part of the bargain. It will also facilitate a regional approach to the problem of terrorism, replacing the failed bilateral dialogues.
General Sharif’s input is also critical to the Indo-Pak dialogue. Everyone knows, and the Indians have long argued, that all the commitments of civilian governments in Pakistan amount to naught without full military backing. But with the appointment of General (retd) Naseer Janjua as Pakistan’s national security advisor on the advice of General Sharif, the Indians will get what they see and hear. That is why the NSAs of both countries are clearing the strategic decks for the formal bureaucracies in the ministries to get cracking on the tactical details. Indeed, one reason why the recent terrorist attack on India’s Pathankot air base by allegedly Pakistan-based terrorists hasn’t derailed the proposed talks agenda is because the NSAs are in contact to anticipate and act to remove the bumps in the road. Indeed, it is as unprecedented for the Indians to say they will not allow vested interests in Pakistan to succeed by such divisive tactics as it is for the Pakistanis to say that they will take immediate action against Pakistani non-state claimants of responsibility for the attack in order to reassure the other side that they mean to pursue conflict-resolution seriously and sincerely. The arrests of Jaish-e-Mohammad activists in southern Punjab, again an unprecedented act, are aimed at signaling the resolve of the military establishment to push the peace process vigorously with India.
General Sharif has also played a pivotal role in making sure that Pakistan stays clear of the sectarian conflict in the Middle East provoked by Saudi Arabia and its Sunni state allies. Left to his own devices, for both personal and economic reasons, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif would have found it impossible to resist inducements and pressure to join the Saudi quest for forcible regime change in Syria and Iran and direct military intervention in Yemen. No military ruler in the past has had the courage to stand up to the Saudis or resist the lure of their lucre. But we have managed to retain their goodwill while extracting billions worth of export orders for munitions and internal security contingents.
General Sharif’s success lies in establishing a good working relationship with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. This civil-military balance is the key to national security. On all these issues, however, it is the military establishment that has altered some of its core assumptions and paradigms. The credit must go to General Raheel Sharif for nudging his institution to become part of the solution instead of being wedded to the past when it has frequently been part of the problem.