The Army of the Pure - I

It is has often been joked, that whereas other countries have armies, Pakistan's army has a country. This is probably the most accurate appraisal of Pakistan’s predicament.

Pakistan suffers from an identity crisis, one that the establishment has attempted to resolve through imposing upon Pakistan the identity of a national security state. If security was the key premise for Pakistan's existence, a security apparatus was the vital organ holding up the country, protecting it from all that dares tear it apart. The most obvious enemy in this regard lay to the east of Pakistan, the state from which these Pakistani Muslims fled for protection, the state of India. Right from the 1950s, the army and its civilian allies settled on labeling India a perpetual existential threat to Pakistan, describing Kashmir as a symbol of Indian aggression, and determining that all decisions and actions in Pakistani policy must be made based on an underlying rationale of this constant Indian threat. The logic following from this constant national security crisis is that if national security is at the core of Pakistan's well being, then the organization best suited to deal with the national security threat is best suited to be in charge of Pakistan's well being. From this, the army was able to derive its power, and, as the years went by, the army developed a sense of entitlement, that became embedded in the thinking of most army officers.

Pakistan’s first military ruler displayed his disdain towards other institutions of the country in his patronizingly titled autobiography “Friends not Masters,” in which he makes his “dislike of both politics and politicians” plain. This sense of entitlement in the army, and contempt for the political institutions that competed with the army for control, meant the army made every effort to keep the politicians away from any serious hold on power, except those politicians who depended on the army, and ruled within the framework the army set for them. There have been three moments, when the army has had to relinquish this control.

Firstly, there was the 1971 war, in which the Pakistani army was decimated and unable to take the reins of the country and reconstruct it. This burden fell upon the civilian leadership headed by Zulfiqar Bhutto. Bhutto had the opportunity at this point to relegate the army to a permanent position of subordination to the civilian government, an opportunity he squandered, while at the same time treating the army leadership with contempt. The army took time to rebuild, and shake off the skeletons of the ‘71 war, an experience that, as Stephen Cohen claims, left the army with a thirst for retribution against all those who they claimed participated in bringing about the humiliation of the army. The army retook control of the country from the civilian leadership with a vengeance, even having Zulfiqar Bhutto hanged. The civilian political leadership was swiftly dismantled.

The second moment came when the rule of General Zia ul Haq came to an end, with the population demanding a return to civilian leadership under the daughter of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto. The army understood that the immense unpopularity that Zia ul Haq had accumulated meant that the army needed to take a back seat to the civilian leadership. However, the army quickly devised a new strategy to dismantle the new leadership. The army used its weapons and money to pit a whole host of political groups, on the national and local level, against the Bhutto government. Leaders like Nawaz Sharif, emerged as unrelenting opponents of the Bhutto government on the national level, while on regional and local levels, Islamic groups as well as ethnicity-based organizations destabilized the country, rendering the Bhutto government completely ineffective. Thus, the army turned into the patron of the opposition, ensuring that no civilian government could take any meaningful control of the country. Finally, when its own creation Nawaz Sharif, began to show resistance to the army, and attempted to consolidate political control, the army assumed direct control once more.

The third moment came last year. A series of dramatic events swept the nation, turning popular opinion against military rule, as was demonstrated in national elections in which the politicians supported by the army were roundly defeated. Once more the army was compelled to cede control, this time, to the husband of Benazir Bhutto, Asif Zardari. However, unlike in 1971, in both 1988 and 2008, the circumstances surrounding the army’s departure were less dramatic, and the army’s position was not as weak, which is why the army was able to keep one hand on the reins of the country, without deeming a need to compromise much.

It seems clear that the army and the current government are at odds with each other. Firstly, the current leadership comes from a family that has always been at loggerheads with the army. Secondly, this government has shown that they are not willing to tow the army’s line on Afghanistan and India, two areas that the army considers its domain. Several incidents have made the differences between the two sides quite apparent, including the government’s unsuccessful attempt to bring the army’s intelligence agency under more direct civilian control, and the publicly evident rift between the two sides on how to handle the crisis ensuing from the Mumbai terrorist attacks. Given, the history and mindset of the army, and the current tension between the army and civilian government, there seems little doubt that the army would want to take back control. It is just a matter of choosing the right time and creating the right circumstances to give itself the necessary public justification. How India, Islam and the Taliban fit into the army’s mindset and strategy will be the subject of my next entry in this series.