Army General Headquarters, Rawalpindi, is not the enemy — or, let us say, the main enemy — of Pakistani democracy. The Pakistani political class is its own worst enemy. Its incompetence, its inability to learn anything from the past and its unconquerable zest for intrigue are some of the factors paving the way for military takeovers. And, if the present political landscape is any guide, the political class is simply unable to overcome past habits and step into the future by creating a new political culture.

Military ambition of course is also a factor. So powerful is the position of army chief in Pakistan that anyone occupying it can be forgiven for being afflicted with the saviour syndrome which has been the bane of our history: the feeling, often encouraged by self-seeking journalists and politicians, that he has heaven’s mandate to save the nation. Four attempts at saving the nation, from Ayub to Musharraf, have been our greatest disasters.

But, let us be clear on this point, military ambition alone is not the prime culprit. Politicians are the guinea pigs. Politicians are the testers who prepare the ground for the real action, stamping at the bit in GHQ.

But Pakistan’s political ponies never seem to learn. Through unchecked folly — folly unmitigated by any reference to the past — they go about heating up the political atmosphere. When democracy’s funeral is finally taken out on the shoulders of GHQ, even as a fresh stallion is ensconced in the stables of power, democracy’s professed votaries begin a long period of mourning which doesn’t end until the next fitful rendezvous with democracy. Which in turn leads to fresh intrigues, and so the cycle goes on.

The transition from Musharraf to the Feb 2008 elections wasn’t easy. The lawyers’ movement weakened Musharraf but it was not the lawyers’ movement which got Musharraf to take off his uniform. That was accomplished by outside pressure and murmurings of discontent within the army high command. And it was outside mediation which paved the way for Benazir Bhutto’s return to Pakistan, an event which further undermined Musharraf’s grip on power.

One thing led to another. Benazir Bhutto’s return opened the way for Nawaz Sharif’s return to Pakistan. The same Musharraf who had so easily thwarted Nawaz Sharif’s comeback on Sep 10, 2007, was helpless when the Saudis, after Benazir Bhutto’s return, insisted that there was no reason left to hold back Nawaz Sharif.

Musharraf’s days were numbered as the very fates began to conspire against him. Benazir Bhutto’s assassination was the last nail in his political coffin. The tide of public anger let loose by that tragedy was so strong that there was no way Musharraf’s anointed party, the Q League, could hold its own in the subsequent elections. Who was behind Benazir Bhutto’s death? We don’t know and, as with other tragedies of this kind in our history, perhaps never will know. But in the inchoate way in which the public mind works and arrives at its conclusions, people at large held Musharraf responsible for her death and made him pay for it when the opportunity arose on Feb 18, 2008.

But we seem to be a nation of ingrates. Or perhaps it is our political class suffering from this malady because it seems to be satisfied with nothing. It pined under Musharraf’s dictatorship but far from being happy with the return of democracy, it is busy nurturing fresh sources of discontent.

Pakistan’s real problems are real enough — from the state of the economy to the state of governance — but the political class, not content with these challenges, has honed an extraordinary talent for manufacturing spurious problems.

There is nothing real or meaningful about the storm caused by the media outbursts of a spent cartridge like Brig (r) Imtiaz Ahmed. How he has emerged at this juncture from the woodwork of things long lost and forgotten is not easy to say. But on the principle that once a spook always a spook, it is not past conjecturing that his resurrection is the work of the same elements who have been muddying the national waters by their talk of a minus-one formula and the like.

The sudden refocus on Air Marshal Asghar Khan’s petition pending in the Supreme Court for the last 14 years regarding the money doled out by the ISI to a list of anti-PPP politicians in 1990, is another attempt to wake up dead horses and use them as part of the campaign against the present democratic order.

The first target of this campaign is President Asif Zardari. The secondary target is Nawaz Sharif. The ISI list is meant to defame him. But the real target — as it takes not much genius to infer — is democracy itself. Elements thriving under authoritarianism, and therefore beholden to it, find the whole idea of democracy irksome and distasteful. That is why, as we have seen since 1988, no sooner is a democratic government in place — and it doesn’t matter whether it is the PPP in power or the PML-N — a whispering campaign starts against it.

For the army and intelligence agencies to conspire against democracy is easy to understand, their aim being to reclaim lost glory. Somewhat harder to fathom is why democratic elements choose to become willing players in the games whose aim is to run down politicians and discredit democracy. Why are they so ready to stand in the lists as their own worst enemies?

If all it takes to muddy the waters is the ranting of a Brig Imtiaz, or renewed talk of the ISI’s shenanigans way back in 1990, then not much can be said of the maturity or good sense of the political class of 2009. And if all it takes to upset the political applecart are a few verbal broadsides, then questions are bound to arise as to how secure and stable the present democratic order is.

And this has happened in the space of just the last fortnight, beginning with the quite needless scrap that we saw between the PML-N and the MQM in the National Assembly — a display of anger and vitriol on both sides that was wholly uncalled for — followed by the unleashing, from some hidden corner, of Brig Imtiaz about whose existence or non-existence most people would have been unaware of until all this happened.

Brig Imtiaz’s TV appearances — after years of deserved oblivion he is relishing the spotlight — and the renewed focus on the ISI’s 1990 payments have completely distracted attention from other things. Musharraf’s trial under Article 6 of the constitution and the question of repealing the 17th Amendment have receded into the background. If there is a department of dirty tricks behind the spectacle the nation is being treated to, its leading lights would be laughing up their sleeves, because the extent of the distraction must surpass all expectations.

This is not to deny that Pakistani democracy is facing a threat. But it comes not so much from GHQ or the mysterious underworld of the ISI and Military Intelligence as from (1) a spirited band of senior journalists and columnists, among whom I count some dear friends, who are doing all in their considerable power to spread uncertainty and confusion; and (2) trigger-happy politicians, from either side of the divide, congenitally unable to resist the temptation of shooting from their hips, especially when there is no earthly reason to indulge this passion.

Is this a perfect democracy? Only a fool will say it is. Are angels dressed up as politicians? Question scornfully dismissed. But this much should be plain: whatever we have, with all its glaring shortcomings and imperfections, is a vast improvement on the discontent the nation suffered during the Musharraf years.

So is it too much to ask the media cowboys and the trigger-happy political sages to kindly take it easy? We have enough real problems to deal with and can do without having to wrestle with invented ones.

But if, in a continued rebellion against common sense, the political leadership and media pundits insist on charging at windmills, they should not be surprised if they are hoisted aloft on the arms of those same windmills.

Email: winlust@yahoo.com