by Shuja Nawaz
National Action Plan
Faced by this horrific tragedy in Peshawar, the prime minister hastily assembled his own team and announced on television a NAP to fight terrorism and militancy. 26 The NAP emerged after a long gestation period for a National Internal Security Policy that had been launched earlier by the Ministry of Interior and that went into a number of iterations but failed to get traction, especially from the military establishment. A key element in the NAP and the preceding National Internal Security Policy was the NACTA that had been created neither with adequate resources nor the desirable and necessary strategic base in the prime minister’s own office to allow it to operate effectively. It remained relegated as a sub-unit of the Ministry of Interior and could not take effective charge of its national remit. Soon wags began referring to the NAP as the National In-Action Plan. Even the military courts that were set up for two years to conduct faster trials were unable to fully dent the huge backlog of cases or complete the prosecution of politically connected figures whom they considered to be involved in fomenting militancy and terrorism at the behest of their political masters.
My own nine-month review of the NAP and the civil–military nexus came to the conclusion that the battle against terrorism and militancy is long-term and demands a greater cohesion among the country’s civil and military elites than has been evident so far:
If Pakistan fails to follow through on its promised war against violent extremism, it will invite pressure and interference from powerful forces in the region. This could create conditions of external conflict with a growing and extremely powerful, and also nuclear-armed, India to the east, and an Afghanistan emerging from its decades-long internal wars but now with a large army of some 350,000 that may be tempted to assert its influence in the porous border region. Iran, too, would not countenance unrest on its border with the Pakistani province of Balochistan, a traditional hotspot in Pakistan–Iran relations.
Internally, the failure of the state to assert control over its own territory will continue to spawn the growth of numerous religion-based militant organizations, supported by internal and external actors. A Lebanon-like situation could emerge in Karachi and elsewhere, with open interference in sectarian conflict from external forces, especially Saudi Arabia and Iran. The end result could well be sectarian, ethnic, and rural–urban fights that could challenge the ability of Pakistan’s 500,000–strong military to effectively control these internal wars in the absence of adequate and effective civilian structures and policing capacity.
Pakistan’s immediate enemy appears to be within the country. Its survival depends on a clear victory, changing the landscape that nurtures organized militancy, and changing its ideological narrative by removing the overwhelming influence of Islamic extremists from its education and political system. Pakistan must also build a strong and viable economy to bolster its security. The campaign will be long and arduous, and cannot rely on military might alone; it will rest importantly on the ability of Pakistani political leaders and civil society to muster support from the general population to reshape the country’s priorities and recast the socio-political compacts that have defined the country since independence in 1947. 27
My nine-month study, based on many interviews with key players and civil and military experts in Pakistan identified a number of areas where the NAP needed to be improved and supported with much greater sharing of COIN resources by the military with its civilian counterparts. Until the civilian side becomes the frontline force, the military will be unable to take the battle effectively to the militants, especially inside Pakistan’s growing cities. And the military also has no tools to tackle the socioeconomic issues that spawn radicalization. Nor does it know how to reshape the educational systems to remove decades of obscurantist Islamist dogma that seeks to divide rather than unite the population of Pakistan. By focusing attention, among other things, on Karachi, I also highlighted the importance of the urban battlefield, if this war was to be won inside Pakistan. By 2017, the NAP had effectively died down, as Nawaz Sharif ’s political battles took their toll on his famously short attention span. It continues to receive lip service.
The internal warfare continued in 2014 and 2015 with both weapons and words. The fiery cleric from Canada, Tahir-ul-Qadri, who tends to drop in on the scene at critical political junctures, continued to press the government and launched a sixty-five-day sit-in in Islamabad in August, as the country prepared for its Independence Day in 2014. A parallel demonstration by Imran Khan and his PTI was scheduled. The aim was to topple the Sharif government. But with no overt support from the military or from other political parties, those efforts failed.
Sharif came under fresh attack as the Panama Papers listing offshore companies owned by a global array of famous personalities came to light. Among the 259 Pakistanis named as owners of offshore accounts in the British Virgin Islands, the Cook Islands and Singapore, via a firm named Mossack Fonseca, were the two sons and daughter of Prime Minister Sharif. The leaks alleged that ‘while he was in Opposition, Mr Sharif ’s children raised a £7 million loan from Deutsche Bank against four flats in London’s Park Lane owned by offshore companies based in the British Virgin Islands’. 28 This gave fresh fodder for the loud and rambunctious media in Pakistan on the one hand and Sharif ’s political opponents on the other, as court cases continued to drag on in an attempt to link him with financial skulduggery. Sharif denied any direct connection with offshore firms. But failed to convince the Supreme Court that ended up disqualifying him from membership of the National Assembly. This, in turn, led to his removal as prime minister.
Changing the Military Leadership
As 2015 ended and 2016 rolled around, and the highly popular army chief Gen. Raheel Sharif entered his final year in office, a fresh issue arose: whether Sharif would give his namesake army chief an extension so he could continue the battle against militancy and terrorism that he had so vigorously prosecuted. The affable general had struck a chord with the public imagination. Though he had his critics within the military and outside, especially of the overblown publicity given to him by the military PR wing, there was no stench of corruption from him or his family. No hints of cronyism either. Placards and banners began sprouting in different cities asking Raheel Sharif to stay on, as if it was his choice alone, amid strong suspicions that the military PR outfit was behind the campaign. The prime minister continued to maintain a stony silence.
The general complicated matters somewhat by releasing a statement early in 2016 via his Tweet-happy head of the ISPR Directorate, then Maj. Gen. Asim Bajwa: ‘I don’t believe in extension and will retire on the due date.’ 29 In other words, he planned to go home on 30 November that year. The chairman of the JCS was also to retire a day before him. But this did not end the speculation, nor the efforts by interested parties to stir up the pot of rumours and back-room deals, much like the period surrounding the Kayani extension. Numerous press reports hinted at a deal in the works, including speculation by some that a one-year extension might be offered to the general to allow another ‘favourite’ of the prime minister to become eligible for the army chief ’s slot. (This one-year extension is always used as a trial balloon by Pakistani politicians. It surfaces in the final year of the army chief ’s term and then dies down after public debate.) Even diplomatic circles were awash in these rumours and speculations. A usually reliable senior foreign diplomat in Islamabad told me how the prime minister’s family and inner circle was pressing him to retain the army chief but the PM was holding out.
Raheel Sharif had by then also become a prisoner of his own propaganda machinery. The ISPR directorate had become virtually a publicity arm of the army alone and spent an inordinate amount of time and effort on projecting the role of the army chief himself. Its seemingly unfettered resources allowed it to contract with private enterprises in the Pakistani media to project not only the work of the military in its fight against terrorism and militancy but also publicize the image of its peripatetic army chief.
It also used its clout to get regulatory agencies to rein in critics of the military, according to former ISPR officers. The chief also promoted the DG-ISPR from major general to lieutenant general, a rare promotion for someone in the PR wing. This publicity wave of the army chief created pushback among younger officers. According to one report, at one session at a training institution, Raheel Sharif was asked about the extraordinary projection of the COAS and the credit given to him alone while forgetting the earlier original operations as well as sacrifices of the army as a whole. 30
Meanwhile, public discussion began about the succession order and the likely chances of different candidates.
The four senior-most officers turned out to be coursemates from the 62nd PMA Long Course at in Kakul, with their seniority based on their rank order at the time they were commissioned in 1980! In other words, they were co-equals, except for this antique and artificial differentiation of their class rank. It has always been the prerogative of the constitutional appointing authority (currently the prime minister) to select the army chief, other services chiefs and the chairman of the JCS Committee. Seniority may play a role, but their recommendations are not binding. However, a prime minister under pressure may be able to use seniority as an excuse for his or her decision.
The top ranking of the four candidates was Lt. Gen. Zubair Mahmood Hayat, who had served as personal secretary to Kayani, then commanded a division in Sialkot, a corps in Bahawalpur, and headed the SPD (responsible for Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and planning). He had then moved to the GHQ as CGS, but had never served in a battlezone on the western frontier. Next in order was Lt. Gen. Ishfaq Nadeem Ahmed, a former division commander in the Swat operation, DGMO, CGS, and then corps commander in Multan. Ahmed was seen by many military observers as the most qualified and battle-tested commander. He was followed by Lt. Gen. Javed Iqbal Ramday, who was commanding the Bahawalpur Corps and earlier had been president of the National Defence University (NDU), He had also commanded a division in Swat and had been injured by sniper fire while flying in a helicopter during that operation.
Finally, there was Lt. Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, the IGT&E at GHQ (the same post that Raheel Sharif occupied before he was elevated to army chief). Bajwa, like Raheel Sharif before him, had not served in FATA in the most recent conflict but had commanded the largest corps of the army, X Corps, based in Rawalpindi and commanding an area that encompassed all of Kashmir and the Northern Areas. He had served as a major in the Northern Light Infantry on the LOC in Kashmir, as well as the Force Commander Northern Areas in the same region as a major general. He attended the Army Command and Staff College in Canada and took a summer management course at the Naval Post-Graduate School in Monterey, California. He was a graduate of the NDU in Pakistan. As a major general, he also had been commandant of the School of Infantry and Tactics in Quetta that had been transformed by his predecessor, Maj. Gen. Agha M. Umer Farooq, and then by him, from a conventional training establishment to one that focused increasingly on irregular warfare. It now catered for all arms and not just the infantry. 31 Bajwa’s earlier education had been in Rawalpindi at the Sir Syed College and then Gordon College. 32
Unlike the pool of candidates at the time Kayani left, none of the top four candidates had served in senior positions in the ISI, a particular bugaboo of Nawaz Sharif. But the local rumour mill churned out an allegation that Bajwa was an Ahmadi, a group that had been declared non-Muslim during the elder Bhutto’s tenure. His marriage to the niece of a famous Ahmadi general and war hero, Eftekhar Khan Janjua, was cited as proof for this allegation. To his credit, the prime minister chose not to disqualify him on these grounds. He was probably also made aware that Bajwa’s father-in-law, a retired general, had declared himself to be a Sunni while he was in service. For some, this unproven allegation against Bajwa was a potential hold that the PM had over the new army chief.
Each commentator who speculated on the PM’s decision brought to the discussion of the selection of the next army chief his or her own set of biases and assumptions. Did the general have battle experience? Was he related to the prime minister’s family in some way? Did he have a strong tribal background and following? Would he speak his mind or get along with the PM by going along with him? It became clear that all the contenders were from the Punjab, a criterion that seemed close to the prime minister’s heart. Many a prediction by the ‘experts’ turned out to be wrong.
Why the prime minister delayed his announcement, given the clear choice before him from a good crop of candidates, remained a mystery. He waited till the last couple of days before the changeover, announcing on 28 November that Gen. Bajwa would take over as the sixteenth army chief of Pakistan, while the senior-most, Gen. Hayat, would become chairman of the JCS committee, his titular superior, but with little real power over the troops. Only the then prime minister knows why this choice was made. One can only speculate that he selected a professional who might be least interested in politics and had not been talked about as a strong contender. From all accounts, this created a smooth transition at the helm of the Pakistan Army at a critical juncture in its history.
But the honeymoon with the new army chief did not last long. Nawaz Sharif soon came under fire from the judiciary and found himself being disqualified from being prime minister since he was found wanting in terms of the constitutional requirements of good character. This emerged from the investigation into the so-called Panama Papers where he was alleged to have been employed by a company owned by his son in the UAE even while he served as the prime minister, and having failed to disclose that ‘employment’, though there was no proof that he had actually availed himself of the remuneration from that position. His party alleged that this was a collusive action on the part of the army and the judiciary. Even then, Sharif could not bring himself to identifying the army by name, referring to ‘Khalai Makhlooq’ or Space Aliens as the motive force behind his ouster. He was then brought to trial for having failed to satisfy the courts on the ownership of flats in London and, along with his daughter and son-in-law, convicted and sentenced to jail. Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, a technocratic political leader, was brought in to head the ersatz government that remained in power for the remainder of the government’s five-year term, while Sharif continued to pull the strings on all major issues.
Against that sorry backdrop, fresh elections were called that eventually produced victory for the ‘non-politician’ Imran Khan and his PTI in July 2018. Sharif ’s family members and favourites were trounced comprehensively at the polls, as were the other major parties. Meanwhile, the US relationship continued to slide as American assistance began to dwindle and desperation seemed to set in among the leaders in Washington DC about a failing war effort in Afghanistan. Pakistan came into the crosshairs, becoming a scapegoat and suffering the consequences of aid cutbacks.
8
US Aid: Leverage or a Trap?
Foreign aid is an excellent method for transferring money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.
—Peter Bauer 1
In the waning days of the Muslim League government of Nawaz Sharif ’s party and the early days of the new army chief, Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, the US–Pakistan relationship began heading south in a hurry. Already, the US posture on South Asia had evolved in favour of India as the principal strategic partner of the US in the region reflected in the so-called pivot to the Pacific in the waning days of the Obama administration. That tack had built on the Bush administration’s earlier civil nuclear deal that Obama would need to implement, howsoever slowly, given Indian’s recalcitrance and sclerotic bureaucracy. Moreover, India’s huge economy and a return to positive growth was making it a massive importer of arms on the global stage. This had defence firms in the US salivating uncontrollably. Effectively, the Americans had succeeded in de-hyphenating India and Pakistan, though they were forced to employ Pakistan in dealing with the Taliban in Afghanistan. They did so with a certain pent-up anger at what they saw as Pakistan’s ‘doubl
e game’, while imposing greater constraints on what could be provided to Pakistan by way of aid and reimbursements for its assistance in the failing war effort.
The arrival of a new US president in the form of Donald J. Trump, a populist of no firm political leanings prior to his campaign for the Republican Party nomination, added to the growing contumely from the White House for Pakistan and many other Muslim nations that did not appear to toe the US line. A seventy-year-old relationship that involved deep links between the two countries in the area of politics, economics and defence was suddenly being questioned in both the US and Pakistan. A blame game ensued that did not appear to serve the purpose of either side, particularly since it was cast in the context of a losing US and coalition campaign in Afghanistan. The unending war in Afghanistan was testing the stamina of the new US president and the US Congress and public in supporting the embattled and divided Afghan National Unity Government.
Trump had promised during his campaign to close out the US military campaign in Afghanistan. But he readily acceded to his military’s demand for a slight increase in the total number of US forces in Afghanistan, accompanied by a small increase in allied forces, to become more aggressive trainers and advisers of the Afghan forces against a rampant Taliban. By devolving responsibility to his new Secretary of Defense, James Mattis, Trump retained the right to change his mind at short notice if domestic politics demanded it. Or if the US suffered massive casualties at any point and provoked the ire of the population at home. The US military fervently believed that the only reason the Taliban remained undefeated was because they, and especially their leadership, had sanctuary in the borderlands in Pakistan. Each new commander promised to turn things around and proclaimed that his forces were ‘turning the corner’. So many corners had been turned that they came back to the starting point a number of times. But it seemed Washington had little sense even of recent history. And firing commanders assuaged the angry or disappointed president, whoever it was.