COMMENT: The return of the troika —Shahzad Chaudhry - Monday, February 07, 2011

Source : www.dailytimes.com

What are Pakistan’s two most burning issues? No, not the war on terror, neither the blighted economy nor the dismal state of the state and its gradual irrelevance to its people. It is the Raymond Davis case that has the making of a game-changer in some ways. And a surreptitious fear that creeps in with the rising tide of discontent among the people

For the last about three years, every Zaid, Bakar and Hamid of this country has gone hoarse shouting for the army to restrict itself to the barracks, euphemism for leaving the country’s politics alone. And yet, despite the bickering and mudslinging that goes on unabashedly, the troika not only survives but also stands reinvigorated. The consequence is that no one has the time to ponder over the long-term health of the country.

Pakistan continues to be in the eye of a cataclysmic storm, which forces its three principals (actually there are only two; the chief of the army staff (COAS) is needed to nudge them to realise the gravity of the slippery slope that we stand on) to begin a series of actions that may delay the inevitable moment of reckoning. This moment simmers slowly in a depraved society shorn of justice and equal opportunity, beset with persistent poverty and uneven growth, mired in an unending war on terrorism with the only superpower of the world engaged in neighbourhood. Pakistan is a society fraying at the edges as its internal fissures deepen and the centrifugality of it all overpowers the bonding structures, where politics is the road to power but never the power to serve, and where kleptocracy rules the roost. The list is long and Pakistanis cannot complain of uninteresting times. Though there is, periodically, that sudden gush of an emergent event that pushes the principals, plus one, into a huddle. What goes on in there can be of extreme interest.

As a preview, wind back to the return of the chief justice in March of 2009. And despite varying accounts with sufficient authority, as the Long March approached Gujranwala, there was this urgent call made to the army to deploy and stop the march. The COAS, by then invited into the troika huddle, suggested that it will only cause bloodshed if indeed that was not the desired outcome. An alternative was sought by the principals. The COAS asked what the final position of the government on the chief justice was. The principals sought one, the COAS refused to suggest one, keeping away from the politics of it all. The COAS invited himself out of the meeting at that point asking the two principals to make their final decision which could then be shared with him. After half an hour when the COAS returned, the decision was to restore the chief justice. The COAS proposed that the government announce the decision right then to avoid further polarisation. In the meanwhile, he also spoke to the leaders of the long march, asking them to hold their position and not foist further instability. Act one, successfully accomplished. Many more would follow.

Fast forward to the present times. What are Pakistan’s two most burning issues? No, not the war on terror, neither the blighted economy nor the dismal state of the state and its gradual irrelevance to its people. It is the Raymond Davis case that has the making of a game-changer in some ways. And a surreptitious fear that creeps in with the rising tide of discontent among the people with the potential to carry in its way established structures of power and wealth al la Egypt and Tunisia. Hence, the latest huddle. Let us go deep.

The Raymond case first. Is he really Raymond? What are these Raymonds up to in our metropolises? Does he have the making of another Headley? Is he a diplomat? Does he enjoy immunity? Does he enjoy immunity from murder? Surely a legal exit will be found, even if none exists. But then where will that leave the blood of three Pakistanis that the state would fail to account for? How will that play out when the time is ripe for a trigger to replicate the Egypt experience, particularly when the broth is ready to boil? This is typical of being caught ‘between a rock and a hard place’. This also brings to life Kissinger’s famous quote, “American friendship is more dangerous than its enmity.” Ask Noriega of Panama, or Omar Torrijos of Panama who was taken out in the air; ask Ben Ali or Hosni Mubarak, and even Musharraf.

Perhaps, the COAS would have urged: “What do you guys intend to do with this Raymond? Get him off the map quickly. Resolve it if you must with the victims’ families. I am having to duel artillery barrages on the western border, but while I can hold onto any aggression from American forces in Afghanistan, Hafeez Sheikh here tells me we can’t even support you guys what to talk of the war on terror. That is unlikely to humour the Americans much. Do the judicial process if you need to appease the domestic audience, but once sentenced Mr Raymond is better handed over to the Americans. We need to uncomplicate the issue and not give a reason to the Americans to expand their war beyond Afghanistan.” Quite clearly, the discussion must have deliberated on any strategic latency and if at all there lies some benefit in it for Pakistan.

Issue two: “Mr President, the run of events in the Middle East makes for a hairy story. Our own conditions are not too good. And we too have a youth bulge in our demography which is equally suave with modern social internet sites and their coalescing power. Our population is twice that of Egypt and hence the likely size of any such people’s power movement that a socially disenfranchised citizenry just might venture into. I hope not, but were it to happen, you are only going to call upon me to contain the threat. Keep in mind our geo-political exposure, economic vulnerability and social distortions and simply do not allow us to get embroiled in a prolonged power and patience game. I will have only one of the two options: control any such movement by force which could go wrong given the dynamics of such movements, or take over from you all to bring about some sanity, against my wishes and those of the international community. I will not permit the country to sink before my eyes though it will push us into further complexities. So why don’t you initiate something that you have long promised the people, and something that may just push the inevitable away if people see some administrative actions on both governance and economy.”

Mr President asks the prime minister to dissolve the cabinet, prune it, filter it and reinstitute it with some credible names. These troikas are a headache and just do not go away.

The writer is a retired air vice marshal and a former ambassador