Open Magazine has an interview with Ayesha Jalal which claims that ' Pakistan army’s supremacy can be traced to how early rulers sought to overcome disadvantages with India.
This is nonsense. Pakistan and Myanmar both came under military rule for the same reason;- shitty civilians inviting in the army in a short-sighted manner. In Pakistan, a stupid Chief Justice said the Constituent Assembly had no power. The Governor General, as the representative of the Queen, could do what he liked. This 'doctrine of necessity' meant that it is necessary to do whatever the guys with guns want you to do. (Pakistan's Iskandar Mirza had been a soldier but after that he was in the Political Service. It is said that he got Liaquat to appoint Ayub thus passing over more senior candidates. However, Liaquat mut take responsibility for this act of stupidity. Mirza, an aristocratic Bengali, made a terrible Head of State. He used the army to get rid of Feroz Khan Noon before himself being sent packing by Ayub Khan. )
Bangladesh too came under military rule but only after the elected leader decided to impose one-party Dictatorship. Sri Lanka and India held regular elections because the Army was never invited in.
A Pakistani patriot may believe there was some Indian threat just as a Burman patriot may say military rule was needed to get rid of a large proportion of the Indians settled there. But there was no Indian threat to either country. It is easy to get Indians to flee, just kill a few and grab their property and the rest will run away. The Army isn't needed to do ethnic cleansing when the people are physically fit and know how to slit throats.
What of the notion that Cold War politics caused the Americans to impose military rule here and there? Again, this is nonsense because the civilians were getting on great with the Americans. Indeed, back in the Fifties when miscegenation was banned in many American States, the daughter of the American ambassador married the son of the Pakistani president. That didn't stop Ayub kicking out Mirza who had been fool enough to appoint him Chief Martial Law Administrator.
I have written elsewhere of Ayesha's 'Pakistani logic' which is again on full display in what follows-
You have noted in a recent essay that between 2008 and 2017, military-bureaucratic rule apparently took a back seat in Pakistan.
The army did not have a C-in-C willing or able to take charge of the country. The question was whether Musharaff could return after being burned as part of Pakistan's nuclear proliferation network. In the event, it was the Court which barred him in 2013 from standing for elections.
Could you please elaborate? How did things change in 2017?
The Panama Papers was certainly a factor. It was entirely possible that Western governments would take suo moto action against prominent leaders making Pakistan look foolish and weak. The other issue was Tariq Fatemi, Sharif's advisor on foreign policy, and the danger that Sharif would do an economic deal with Modi. This had previously been a concern during the Vajpayee era. The fact is cross- border trade could take off exponentially with a more than proportionate benefit being received by the Punjab area. This would weaken the agricultural classes from which the Army recruits relative to the 'bazaari' middle class.
The operative word here is “apparently” since the military-bureaucratic nexus never quite takes a back seat when it comes to governing Pakistan. The military has ruled the country directly for the better part of its history and indirectly for the rest of the time.
This only happened because the civilians were foolish enough to try to use the army for their own purposes. But, the military felt, why be the monkey when you can be the organ grinder? It must also be said that civilian governments have not looked after the economic interests of any significant class of people while the Army from decade to decade, generation to generation, looks after its own. Furthermore, the Army has proven cohesive with high esprit de corps and (speaking generally) observance of the chain of command. It is a mistake to cherry pick Army Chiefs because they may decide to take over the country rather than become a lame duck threatened at every moment with compulsory retirement and some upstart being promoted over the heads of deserving officers.
As a result, Pakistan has not enjoyed uninterrupted political processes for extended periods of time, allowing voters to throw out unpopular and non-performing governments and elect one of their choice.
Still Pakistan- till narco-terror raised its ugly head- was doing well compared to Ne Win's Myanmar.
There has however been a difference in the degree of direct involvement by the army high command, which is the final arbiter in the destiny of Pakistan. What made the period from 2008 to 2017 different from other interludes of elected governments following military rule was that the main political parties in parliament were able to introduce legislation aimed at strengthening parliament and potentially limiting the role of the military establishment in politics.
Clearly that didn't work at all.
This included the 18th amendment to the constitution
But the Judiciary, once Musharaff was out of the picture, showed no animosity against the Army.
as well as the changes to the National Finance Commission Award of 2009, setting new rules for the distribution of financial resources between the federal centre and the provinces.
This is quite a complicated mathematical formula. Zardari deserves credit for getting the required consensus, but it was by no means a game changer.
With Pakistan’s first-ever transfer of power from an elected government to a newly elected government in 2013, there were high hopes for more robust democratic political processes.
But Punjab's entrepreneurial class stands most to gain from peace with India and a booming cross-border trade. This endangers the Army's own ability to recruit and maintain loyalty.
The dismissal in 2017 of Mian Nawaz Sharif, an elected prime minister enjoying majority support in parliament, was the result of interference by the military establishment that entailed disrupting the political process and putting a so-called “hybrid” government in its place.
But the Panama Papers could have unleashed an 'Arab Spring' like popular revolt which would have endangered all property owners or established institutions. Some action had to be taken to pre-empt unilateral action by Western countries who have their own compliance laws re. money laundering etc.
The significance of 2017 lies in yet another interruption of the political process for the sake of narrowly construed interests, whether institutional or personal.
But the significance was reduced by the fact that other members of the Clan could take over.
There has always been a slippage between America’s stated commitment to the promotion of democracy worldwide and actual realities on the ground.
America was hypocritical. So what? Everybody is.
Pakistan is a good example of this problem
Not really. America wanted Pakistan to stop training crazy terrorists and to just fucking hand over Osama already. Sadly, Pakistan figured out long ago how to pump and dump the Americans.
The jailed Prime Minister Imran Khan and the army were on the same page for some time in 2018, shortly after he won the polls and became prime minister.
Because Trump thought Afghanistan was a shithole. He became very angry when he discovered the Indians were building libraries there. Trump did the deal which got America out of that sand-trap. He was perfectly happy to praise the handsome Imran Khan because this might get wealthy Pakistani-Americans to give him money.
Later, ties became strained.
What was good for Imran in his own ancestral province could be bad for the Army- indeed, was bad for the Army- because it involved buying off potential insurgents. But where was the money to come from?
Where do the roots of the supremacy of the army and the chief of the army staff being the final arbiter in Pakistan lie?
They lie in Liaquat and Mirza's decision to disregard seniority and appoint the chap they thought would be obedient to them. This meant the Army top brass has a class interest in unseating any civilian who interferes in their internal matters such that their esprit de corps would be undermined.
Yes, Imran Khan’s elevation to the prime ministerial slot represented the culmination of a long journey in which he outdid other political parties with the help of advantages conferred upon him as the favoured candidate of the military establishment.
This is unfair. Imran is charismatic and popular. He spoke against Western drone strikes against his own people. He had acquired wealth by merit and by marriage, not through political patronage.
The roots of the supremacy of the army lie in the first decade of independence when Pakistan sought to overcome its disadvantages vis-à-vis India by soliciting the assistance of the United States of America and joining security alliances established during the Cold War for the containment of communism.
All this was done and dusted under civilian regimes. The Iraq of the Baghdad pact was a monarchy with a civilian in charge. Then came military coups and Ba'thist coups and counter coups and the creation of a 'Republic of Fear'. But America had no problem with Saddam when he was fighting the Ayatollahs.
Since the first military regime of General Ayub Khan, the balance of power has been decisively in favour of the army high command, making its chief the natural leader of the institution seen by everyone as the last word in Pakistan.
Civilians put in Ayub as Army Chief for their own purposes. This was resented in the Army. Ayub could get rid of a crazy President who kept dismissing Prime Ministers and who had put him in as Chief Martial Law Administrator. Mirza wanted to change Ayub's designation- effectively ending his Army career- and so Ayub put him on a plane to London. Soldiers don't mind dying for their country. They don't want to have to brown-nose civilians just to avoid the humiliation of being passed over for promotions their colleagues think are fully merited and in accordance with seniority.
You have dwelt on the “platitudes about the United States’ commitment to promoting democratic values” globally. What are your thoughts on this so-called duplicity on the part of the US?
There has always been a slippage between America’s stated commitment to the promotion of democracy worldwide and actual realities on the ground.
America had a stated commitment to containing Communism. It did not have a definition of 'democracy', which, in any case, Kennedy said was imperfect, but did believe it knew which countries were part of the 'free world' even if they were military dictatorships.
Pakistan is a good example of this problem. The United States has done a great deal to bolster the role of the military establishment in Pakistan
The US gave economic and military aid to both civilian and military governments. In 1965 it stopped military aid for a time because of use of US weapons against India. It was also supposed to halt such assistance in 1971 over genocide claims in the East but Nixon made sure Pakistan got weapons. The 1977 sanctions were in respect of nuclear proliferation as were subsequent measures of the same type.
In 1999 there was a sanction against the military coup (the nuclear related sanctions had been waived) which had little effect. However there are claims that Trump's sanctions did add to Pakistan's fiscal woes. Still, to summarize, Pakistan received aid pretty consistently whether under military or other rule. Clinton seemed to be changing American policy such that democracy became the issue but whether this was actually the case is debatable.
All we can say is that Pakistan, from the time of Liaquat, had been very good at winning friends and influencing Americans and thus benefitted from military and economic largesse.
– a policy deemed to be consistent with American national security interests – despite periodic concerns about a commitment to democratic values.
Nuclear proliferation was a concern. Did it play a part in Musharraf's self-exile? Perhaps. But it would be foolish to picture America as either pro-military or pro-democracy. Sometimes, Pakistani diplomats and generals sweet- talked America into being very very generous but that is a reflection of the Pakistani talent for diplomacy.
What you refer to as American “hypocrisy” is also not something limited to Imran Khan. When it comes to Pakistan, the United States has a long history of not practising what it preaches.
Very true. Uncle Sam should have sent in troops to ensure a hard-line Stalinist was installed as Dictator in 1952 itself.
It is important to place US-Pakistan relations into a historical context to make sense of the so-called ‘cypher conspiracy’.
The context is America not really caring a fart about faraway shithole countries. Still Pakistan was important for the U2 program and, later on, helped broker Nixon's rapprochement with China. Also, Pakistan maintained good ties with both Iran and the Gulf and other Islamic countries. We have to admit they had smart diplomats and statesmen whereas India had crazy people like Krishna Menon.
There is nothing remarkable about American officials expressing their dislike of policies being pursued by a Pakistani government, but these do not amount to “conspiracy” to overthrow an incumbent government.
We don't know whether the CIA is still in the 'Great Game'. It is certainly possible but, obviously, the Pakistanis are not a stupid or cowardly people. They can easily pump and dump rich Americans who underestimate their intelligence. What was odd was Biden refusing to call Imran on the phone. If Trump thought it worthwhile to cultivate the handsome Pakistani leader, why not show him a little respect? Afterall, Pakistan had got its invite to the Democracy Summit from which Bangladesh and Singapore were excluded. Why not call and say 'Hi, Imran, I'm looking forward to seeing you. Could you bring me some samosas? Obama keeps badgering me to make them for him. Between you and me the guy is totes a curry chaser.'
Put differently, there was nothing out of the ordinary about the comment by the assistant secretary of state, Donald Lu. But given the long history of Washington’s involvement in Pakistan,
a long history of Pakistan pumping and dumping the credulous American
any comment attributable to an American official is interpreted as a feature of US foreign policy, if not a nefarious conspiracy to force a regime change.
To be fair, there is only one way to interpret any foreign policy statement by the Biden Administration. The thing is the stupidest thing- the thing most damaging to America's interest- which could be said at the time.
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