Reduced to brass tacks the fate of Pakistan was to be decided by two people and where these two people stood vis a vis the highest national interest i.e. to defeat the terrorists, and to bring stability and good governance to the country.
These two people are Nawaz Sharif, and Raheel Sharif.
From their statements they would have us believe that they were united in their aims. Gen Raheel has oft repeated that the operation against the terrorists will be taken to its logical conclusion and that any entity standing in the way of its successful conclusion will be bulldozed. And Nawaz Sharif keeps confirming that in this the Army and the Government are on the same page i.e. that the Government too is dedicated to fully supporting the Army in this objective.
But if the position of the Army and the Government are subjected to a reality check, it seems that the Government is quite happy with the Army blasting out the terrorist foot soldiers, but will not allow the Army a free hand into taking out the logistic echelons of terrorist command. i.e those who fund or assist the terrorists in any other manner.
Taking out the terrorist foot soldiers and destroying their sources of funding are essential parts of the same operation. Sources of funding cannot to eliminated until the men responsible for this can be knocked out, and the chain broken. And if this is not done, the terrorists cannot be defeated.
This much should be clear to anyone. This is not rocket science.
Why the Government will impede operations against the funders of terrorism should also be quite clear to anyone, because this too is not rocket science.
The reason for obstructing operations against this element is that among such funders, are politicians, or front men linked to politicians. If these people are picked up and rigorously interrogated, they would start singing. And the song they’d sing would not restrict itself merely to sharing evidence of money trails of looted national wealth, but also of how much of it came back to fund or assist terrorism. It would uncover and provide evidence of corruption against EVERY bigshot politician, and against MOST for furthering terrorism.
So this cannot be allowed to happen, and thus the cookie crumbles. And as it crumbles, not only can the Army and the Government not remain on the same page, but they also cannot remain on the same chapter of unholy book either. If the war against the terrorists is to be allowed to proceed unimpeded, sooner or later such effort is bound to clash with the central and most sacred provision of the Charter of Democracy, wherein each crook is bound to protect the right of every other crook, to plunder the country and protect such plunder from any intrusion.
The case of Dr Asim Hussain is most illustrative in this regard. He was hauled up, and he sang. He told the interrogators how he facilitated the treatment of some terrorists in his hospitals, and therefore aided them. And for this he can and ought to be tried for aiding and abetting terrorism.
But here comes the problem. The good doctor did not restrict his disclosures to this one point alone. He also spilled the beans on how much loot he gathered on behalf of Asif Zardari, whose most well-advertised front man he was. Now, these “extra” beans he spilled, became a part of the Joint Investigation Report, which is a legal document.
So, what has happened is that while the Rangers were pursuing Dr Asim’s links with terrorism, in course of the interrogation what has also come on record is the massive corruption of his boss, Asif Ali Zardari. The dilemma of the Government at this point is, what does it do with this additional information. Does the government hush this up and treat it as non-existent, or is it obliged to proceed against Asif Ali Zardari as the criminal that he is.
If the Government proceeds against Zardari, it has a problem. And the problem is that Zardari has enough material on those in the Government who are have to prosecute him. And this becomes very inconvenient for the Government whose two choices are, either to proceed against the biggest thug of Pakistan and continue to eliminate Pakistan’s greatest existential threat i.e. terrorism: OR to bow to the Charter of Democracy, let Pakistan go to hell, and save itself from the Zardari counter charge, while both Zardari and the Government can conveniently hide behind a constitution which was suitably amended and bastardized for this very day. Being the patriots that Mian Sahib and his coterie are, there are no prizes for guessing where they have decided to stand.
But there is no prize for deciphering the reaction of the Army on which every national hope rested. And the Army blinked. And in blinking it has put itself on the same page as Nawaz Sharif, which is far from the noblest page of Pakistan’s sorry history.
Peshawar 16 December 2014 seems to be such a long time ago.