L'affaire Mansoor Ijaz Courtesy to The Friday Times: Najam Sethi’s Editorial
An article in a British paper last month by Mansoor Ijaz, a
Pakistani-American businessman with political connections in Washington,
has taken a toll of the civilian government of President Asif Zardari
in Islamabad. The irony is that it was written to strengthen Mr Zardari
against encroachments by General Ashfaq Kayani.
Mr Ijaz claims
that shortly after the US Navy Seal raid to extract OBL from Abbottabad
on May 2, the Zardari government felt threatened by General Kayani and
sought out Mr Ijaz to convey its insecurity to Admiral Mike Mullen, the
then Chairman of US Joint Chiefs of Staff and avowed "friend" of General
Kayani, to fend off a possible coup. Accordingly, with the help of a
top Pakistani diplomat close to President Zardari, Mr Ijaz drafted and
dispatched a secret "memo" portraying the Pakistani military as being
part of the problem rather than the solution to America's dilemma in
Afghanistan. Interestingly, the "article" also paints the Pakistani
military in negative light and exhorts the Obama administration to start
wielding the stick instead of offering carrots to it.
One
might have expected the Pakistani media to focus on several critical
questions raised by the memo. First, what was the nature of the threat
faced by President Zardari from his army chief that compelled his
diplomatic envoy to seek American help in warding it off? Second, what
was the Pakistani government's need to specifically seek out Mr Ijaz to
do the needful when direct and confidential contact already exists
between the two governments? Third, why is the Pakistani military such a
"problem" for the strategic interests of both governments?
But
these issues have largely gone begging. Instead, such is the poverty of
philosophy, the Pakistani media has trained its gun sights on the
Pakistani diplomat and elected government who are both charged with
"conspiring against the state". This is an extraordinary statement that
reverses the established order of the Pakistani constitution. The
civilian government is duly elected and all organs of the state are
constitutionally subservient to it. But in this formulation "one" organ
of the state, the military, has been substituted for the "whole" of the
state and an elected and legitimate civilian government has been made
subservient to it! Instead of the military conspiring against the
elected government, it is the government that is charged with conspiring
against its own military.
In the event, it isn't surprising that
the military has turned the tables on the civilians once again. Mr
Ijaz has been compelled to reveal all in order to prove his credibility
but the irony is that he will never again be taken as a credible and
confidential interlocutor by anyone. The finger is pointed at Hussain
Haqqani, Pakistan's ambassador to Washington, as the diplomat in
question and the military has demanded his head. But the irony is that
President Zardari will only weaken himself further by cutting his most
articulate and friendly link with Washington.
The military has
been gunning for Hussain Haqqani for over a decade. He ran afoul of
General Musharraf in 2002 for his critical newspaper columns in Urdu and
English. So he decamped to the US where he wrote his seminal book on
the unholy historical nexus between the Mosque and Military in Pakistan.
After he was appointed Ambassador to Washington in 2008, the military
embarked upon a campaign to defame him. He was accused of acting against
the "national interest" by manipulating the insertion of
"pro-democracy" clauses in the Kerry-Lugar-Berman legislation that
committed $7.5 billion to Pakistan over five years as a "strategic
ally." He was blasted for enabling CIA operatives to get visas despite
the fact that authorization for over 90 per cent duly came from the
Pakistan Foreign Office/ISI or the Prime Minister's secretariat. He was
criticized for pledging an impartial and public investigation into how
OBL came to be lodged in Abbottabad when the military was insisting
there would be no more than an internal secret inquiry at best. And he
was painted as an "American agent" for recommending a pragmatic and
responsible Af-Pak and US-Pak foreign policy.
The writing on the
wall was clear when Imran Khan thundered against Mr Haqqani in Lahore
last month and Shah Mahmood Qureshi demanded an inquiry against him for
"conspiring against the state". Both are inclined to do the military's
bidding.
The core questions remain. Was the military complicit
or incompetent in "L'affaire OBL"? What was the nature of its
disagreement with, and threat to, the Zardari government following
"Operation Geronimo"? How was Mansoor Ijaz manipulated by various
Pakistani protagonists? A third series of questions has risen for the
umpteenth time. Is the constitution subservient to the military? Is an
elected government answerable to the "state"? Should an unaccountable
military or elected civilians define the "national interest"?
The
fate of Asif Zardari's PPP and also that of Nawaz Sharif's PMLN, the
two mainstream parties that majorly represent the Pakistani voter,
hinges on answers to these questions.
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