SPEAKING
FREELY The
real tragedy of Memogate By
David J Karl
Speaking Freely is an Asia
Times Online feature that allows guest writers to
have their say.Please
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The key lesson of the
Memogate controversy is the readiness of the
Pakistani political class to exploit the
civil-military imbalance for a tactical advantage.
The bizarre Memogate conspiracy drama that
has flared anew in Pakistan is yet another example
of the endemic dysfunctions between the powerful
security establishment and their nominal civilian
masters that have lead the country throughout its
history to the brink of ruin.
But the
affair also demonstrates the long-running failure
of the
political class to
understand that, even in the throes of competitive
politics, it has a common interest - indeed a
fiduciary obligation - in upholding the principle
of civilian supremacy over the military. For
evidence of this proposition look no farther than
Nawaz Sharif, the leader of Pakistan's main
opposition party.
The unfolding saga
centers on an unsigned back channel note delivered
to US military authorities following the raid that
killed al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden. The
document, whose authenticity is disputed, requests
US help in preempting a feared military coup
against Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari. In
exchange, a host of enticing, albeit incredible,
concessions is offered, including installing a new
national security team in Islamabad filled with
pro-American officials as well as giving US forces
"carte blanche" to conduct operations on Pakistani
territory.
Suspicions over the note's
provenance have come to rest with Zardari, who is
seen by many in Pakistan as an American stooge,
and with Husain Haqqani, who Zardari selected as
his envoy in Washington even though he is
thoroughly distrusted by the military. Both men
deny involvement. But the ensuing controversy cost
Haqqani his job late last year. And now a Supreme
Court inquiry has concluded that he was indeed
behind the note, a finding that opens him up to
formal charges of high treason.
Throughout
all of this, Sharif has cynically stoked the
controversy in order to diminish his political
rival. It was he who petitioned the judicial
investigation in the first place. And he has now
been handed new ammunition to use against Zardari
in the run-up to general elections that may take
place as early as this fall.
At a time
when unilateral US drone attacks in the tribal
areas are viewed by many Pakistanis as an outrage
against the nation's honor, Nawaz and his younger
brother Shahbaz have charged Zardari with selling
out the country's sovereignty. Nawaz also has not
been above pandering to the generals in
Rawalpindi, announcing that his antagonisms with
them were a thing of the past and that they would
find in him a most suitable partner in the event
they grow tired of Zardari.
But the
brothers Sharif are trafficking in rank hypocrisy
given how they not so long ago committed the very
same acts for which they are now bludgeoning
Zardari. In 1999, during Nawaz's second stint as
prime minister, he was the target of considerable
criticism, including accusations of undermining
the army's honor and betraying the Kashmiri cause,
for cutting a desperate deal with president Bill
Clinton to end the Kargil War with India. Fearing
that the Pakistani army, under the leadership of
General Pervez Musharraf, was about to take its
revenge by overthrowing him, Nawaz urgently
dispatched Shahbaz to Washington to seek the
Clinton administration's intercession.
As
British journalist Owen Bennett-Jones relates in
his acclaimed book, Pakistan: Eye of the
Storm, Shahbaz pleaded that Washington had a
moral obligation to protect his brother given the
political risks he ran on Kargil. But Shahbaz also
padded his case by passing along Nawaz's offer to
take a harder line with the Taliban regime in
Afghanistan and help hunt down Bin Laden. The trip
had the desired effect, at least in the short
term, when US officials signaled their opposition
to "extra-constitutional actions" being taken
against Nawaz.
In the end, however, the
warning shot failed to avert a military take-over
and Nawaz was arrested, convicted on trumped-up
charges of hijacking, kidnapping and corruption,
and subsequently forced into eight years of exile
in Saudi Arabia. Given his vexatious history with
the army chieftains, one might expect him to have
a greater sense of solidarity regarding Zardari's
own travails with the military.
To be
sure, Nawaz is only following a well-worn script.
Pakistani history is replete with examples of
opportunistic politicians who view the imbalance
in civil-military relations as something to be
exploited for tactical gain rather than rectified
for the nation's good. In an irony that ultimately
cost him his life, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the
founder of Zardari's political party, built up the
security establishment in order to suppress his
political opponents. As the military constantly
rotated them in and out of the prime minister's
office in 1990s, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz took
turns celebrating the other's demise rather than
condemning the debasement of the Constitution. And
instead of uniting following last year's
Abbottabad raid to claw back decision-making
authority from a chastened military, many civilian
leaders instead equated patriotism with fealty to
the army.
The men in khaki deserve a good
measure of the blame for the deep morass that
Pakistan has fallen into. But as the Memogate
controversy illustrates, the political class is
all too willing to come along for the ride.
David J Karl is president of the Asia
Strategy Initiative, an analysis and advisory firm
located in Los Angeles. He previously served as
director of studies at the Pacific Council on
International Policy. He blogs on South Asia at Chanakya's
Notebook and can be followed on Twitter
@davidjkarl.
Speaking Freely is an Asia
Times Online feature that allows guest writers to
have their say.Please
click hereif you are interested in
contributing. Articles submitted for this section
allow our readers to express their opinions and do
not necessarily meet the same editorial standards
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