Prime Time for Pakistan's Military

Pakistan’s army chief, General Ashraf Kayani, is in the US this week leading the delegation that will reopen ministerial-level talks with the Obama administration.

For all the talk of ensuring that the civilian government in Islamabad is strengthened vis-a-vis the military - which the US Congress has even mandated certification from the secretary of state - the Obama administration has completely shifted the balance of power in favor of the army in Pakistan.

Kayani has emerged as the most important player, and indeed he is relishing his role. He has sidelined President Asif Ali Zardari; he has reneged on the understating reached between India and Pakistan under former president Pervez Musharraf; he has made it amply clear that the Pakistani government cannot be allowed to settle the Kashmir dispute by making the Line of Control irrelevant; more damagingly, he has stirred up the non-issue of water to justify the Pakistan Army’s India-centric defense posture.

This is undoubtedly the army’s moment. It is feeling that after years of marginalization, the US needs it more than ever. More significantly, a perception is gaining ground that it is winning in shaping the strategic map of the region for the furtherance of its own interests.

By making its desperation to leave Afghanistan apparent, the Obama administration has provided a sense of indispensability to the Pakistani military. The West can only leave early and save face if it is able to bring the so-called moderate Taliban to the negotiating table. The Pakistani security establishment, which has been somewhat of a patron of the Taliban for the last two decades, therefore becomes a crucial conduit for the West to come to an understanding with the Taliban.

Of course, the Pakistani military would not be playing this role without getting something substantial in return. And the demands are growing louder and will be underlined during Kayani’s visit to Washington this week. It is he who has organized the agenda of these talks and given instructions to Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi.

Pakistan has made it clear time and again that only Islamabad and Rawalpindi can bring the Afghan Taliban into the political mainstream. It captured Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a senior Taliban leader, to sabotage the UN’s direct back-channel negotiations with Baradar’s faction of the Taliban. The Pakistani military wants to retain its central role in mediation efforts at all costs. It has tried to showcase its efficacy by fighting the Pakistani Taliban for the past nine months in Swat and South Waziristan. Now it would like to be compensated.

India’s role in Afghanistan will be under scrutiny in Washington. The Pakistani military will not allow India’s increasing role in the training of Afghan forces, and indeed has made a counteroffer to do the job itself. Getting India out of Afghanistan will be the top priority for Rawalpindi.

Ever since the US-India civilian nuclear energy cooperation agreement, the Pakistani establishment has been demanding a similar deal from the US. After explicitly rejecting such demands for long, the Obama administration might also be changing its position on this critical issue. US Ambassador to Pakistan Anne Patterson has been reported to have suggested that the US was “beginning to have a discussion with the Pakistan government” on the country’s desire to tap nuclear energy.

Though it is unlikely that there will be any movement on this issue soon, the Obama administration clearly is not in a position to ignore the demands of the Pakistani security establishment at this critical juncture in its Afghanistan endeavour.

The biggest challenge comes from the rapid ascendancy of the Pakistani military in the nation’s power structure and as a corollary in shaping Pakistan’s strategic agenda in recent months. Instead of helping the civilian government to get traction, Washington itself has pulled the rug from under its doddering feet.

By relying on the Pakistani military to secure its short-term ends in Afghanistan, the US has made sure that the fundamental malaise afflicting Pakistan – the militarisation of the state – will continue to afflict Pakistan and will grave implications for sustainable long-term peace in South Asia.



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paesh