Imran-Qadri agitation amid Pakistan’s isolation

Failing to bring into action the proverbial umpire during the last dharna, why are Imran Khan and Tahirul Qadri in their solo flights again pinning their hopes on September to again try to dislodge an elected dispensation as the clouds of international and regional isolation are thickening?

Indeed, the Panama leaks did put Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in a tight corner. He was, however, helped by his absence from the Prime Minister’s Office on medical grounds. In the meanwhile, the government emissaries kept the combined opposition engaged on the Terms of Reference (ToR) and succeeded in keeping them – for a considerable amount of time – from taking to the streets.

And now when Imran Khan and Qadri are gearing up for a showdown with the government on the streets, for different but reinforcing reasons, the other opposition parties are not rallying behind them as much as they did last time to defend the constitutional order in opposition to their failed putsch. The PPP, ANP and other parties are not inclined to extend a helping hand in derailing the democratic dispensation, even though they will continue to drumming up the corruption charges for political gains.

Not only that, there is also no unity of purpose among disparate sections of the opposition; they also do not have any agreed strategic plan to dislodge the prime minister. The legitimacy of the anti-corruption drive is visibly overtaken by the desire to overthrow an elected government by hook or by crook. On the other hand, successive electoral victories, in AJK in particular, have raised the legitimacy stocks of the PM, which has been badly hit by the involvement of his children in allegedly unaccounted for wealth and offshore companies.

Benefiting from the managed paralysis of the available financial accountability agencies that are under firm federal control, neither did the government push its own accountability law nor did it show enough flexibility to accommodate the opposition’s concerns on ToRs. Delaying tactics allowed the government enough time to take the steam out of the public outcry on a massive corruption scandal.

And the media hype over Altaf Hussain’s diatribe against Pakistan, the MQM’s continuing theatrics and the uprising in Kashmir have further diverted the public attention from the fading story of the Panama leaks.

Regardless of the brewing storm in Imran and Qadri’s teacups, much greater security and foreign policy challenges of regional and international isolation are going to consume the attention of both the political and military establishments who need each other now more than at any other point in time.

Two factors have allowed greater space to the PM, space that he had lost to the expanding institutional role of the garrison in the spheres of foreign and security policies. First, the newly emerged US-India-Afghanistan trilateral-alliance against terrorism across Pakistan’s north-western regions and long border with Afghanistan. And second, the Washington-Delhi unanimity against the cross-border terrorism emanating allegedly from Pakistan’s soil.

US Secretary of State John Kerry has clearly endorsed India’s demands against Pakistan in New Delhi, including concrete steps against LeT or Dawa wal Irshad, Jaish-e-Mohammed and Dawood Ibrahim (D Company), and probe into Mumbai and Pathankot terrorism. At the same time, the US secretary of defence and the Indian defence minister have entered into a close defence relationship by signing an agreement to share military logistics. They have resolved to increase their trade from $100 billion to $500 billion, including nuclear reactors and defence equipment.

A grand post-cold war alliance of US-India-Japan and other countries is emerging against the emerging joint, the Peoples Republic of China. A Chinese think-tank has, however, reacted very sharply against India’s role over the South China Sea and Modi’s support for the trouble in Balochistan. But that cannot alone compensate for losing favour with the US-led coalition in Afghanistan.

A trilateral alliance between the US, India and Afghanistan seems to have emerged on the demise of the QCG – consisting Pakistan, US, China and Afghanistan – after Islamabad failed to either bring the Taliban to the negotiation table or effectively restrain it from using Pakistani soil for its offensive tirade of terrorism against Kabul.

The US concerns were, however, partly alleviated after General Raheel Sharif came out with a firm order against use of Pak territory against Afghanistan and Secretary Kerry also admitted, during his press conference with Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in New Delhi, to the fact that Pakistan has taken steps against the Haqqani Network. Despite having a crucial strategic role in stabilising the Af-Pak region, Pakistan’s isolation on a strategic issue on which rests its whole strategic importance is a great setback which needs to be addressed.

This is a question of implementing Pakistan’s stated official position in letter and spirit: not to spare any terrorists, good or bad, and not to let its territory be used against any other country. There is no option but to either evict the Afghan Taliban from Pakistan or force them to observe a ceasefire, if at all they are allowed to live in a strictly enforced quarantine.

It is also consistent with our stated policy that if any group is still engaged in cross-border terrorism it should be promptly stopped. Their militant contribution, if any, is also bringing a bad name for the indigenous struggle in Kashmir and providing leverage to the Modi government to externalise the issue while bracketing it with cross-border terrorism.

Another most important process is of either extending the tenure of General Raheel Sharif due to the unfinished business he had so valiantly undertaken or his appropriate replacement with a thinking and fighting general with no less credentials. This also brings the competent authority – PM Sharif – at the centre of the power structure.

Unnecessary speculations have been fuelling uncertainty which Imran and Qadri are misconstruing as a possible destabilising factor to exploit for their political expediency. General Raheel Sharif has proved to be a non-Bonapartist officer who stood in the way of those who were sponsoring the dharna and made history by launching an unprecedented offensive against the scourge of terrorism. He is not one to tolerate the blemishing of his unblemished military career.

During this period of changing guards, there seems to be no possibility of any extra-constitutional misadventure. Rather, the military establishment would need intelligent and effective leadership from the prime minister to take innovative and courageous diplomatic initiatives to take Pakistan out of its current isolation while overcoming the predicaments created by an extended security agenda that Pakistan can no more afford.

The choice is with the prime minister – whether he prefers to keep General Raheel Sharif in the saddles to let him finish the job he had bravely initiated or whether he chooses to bring in a new commander who is equal to the job and is ready to cut the security agendas according to the cloth of our capacities and dwindling resources.

So, the September agitation’s hope in some kind of enforcement from the powers that be seems to be unfounded and badly timed. They should wait for the next elections, rather than unsuccessfully trying to derail the system.

The writer is a senior journalist.

Email: imtiaz.safma@gmail.com

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