America and our Army have a common denominator – both have exclusive rights in their chosen fields. The US is still at the pinnacle of the global heap and Pakistani military has a country to run. Power is intoxicating and makes you lose your way. Mercifully, some sane heads were always around to try and bring the lost spirits back from the brink. It was once called an exit strategy. Being too sublime a concept though and often confused with stratagem, someone in the Yankee Land invented a more mechanical term: off-ramp. Must be a coincidence that the two entities who had assumed total immunity to the generally accepted good practices have decided to get out of their respective quagmires – and almost about the same time
It's certainly not the first time that the Amis jumped into a river to salvage a blanket which turned out to be a bear, and would not let go even when the poor chaps tried desperately to break loose from its lethal embrace. From Korea to Vietnam, all the way to Afghanistan was a journey infested by crocodiles. With that experience, it should not have been too difficult to escape the Catch 22 trap the US landed in the Middle East. The problem this time around is that it it’s not merely a physical exit that would serve the purpose. A Faustian deal comes at the cost of the Devil taking over your soul. Though America had granted a veto right to Israel long time back, with Netanyahu in Tel Aviv and Trump in Washington springing this net is more than a matter of saving face or pulling out troops. Almost everything that matters in the country, a sole superpower to boot – credibility; public sentiment; interests in a resource rich region; and rivalry with China – is at stake I’m not sure if Trump’s semantic acrobatics were a bane or a boon.
In Pakistan, Army’s forays in politics invariably backfired.
Ayyub was forced out at a gun point; Yahya shown the door by the elder Bhutto; Zia made way for the daughter of the man he hanged, and Musharraf saw both his nemeses, PML (N) and PPP, bouncing back with vengeance. Successor military head-honchos were clever and ruled from behind a mufti camouflage. Wonder if anyone of them was aware of the fate of the famous doctor whose hybrid creation became a monster and devoured its creator! Our Frankensteins have not yet been and might well be thinking of dismantling the creature before it got them dig deeper in a whole. Mohsin Naqvi spoke on behalf his uniformed godfather.
Nothing is ever simple but also not as complex as the beneficiaries of the status quo make it out to be.
Assuming that the devolution of power was the poison chosen to kill our latest hybrid, one only has to remember that the last time it was delivered a body blow by the prime- minister Musharraf got elected by twisting many an arm. First day in office Zafarullah Jamali lured his boss to divert funds for the local bodies to his rent a crowd party. There is only one way to find out if it would survive another effort – by doing it.
Trump too seems to be making heavy weather of a task he once pulled off if not by design than by default. He initiated the withdrawal from Afghanistan, lost the ensuing election, and let his successor take the flak. I think if he simply called off the operation epic fury and blamed the Mullah’s in Tehran, he might win another term.
Whatever remedy the two presently suffering from their self-inflicted wounds might find, they would be well served by a golden military doctrine. When withdrawing from an unwinnable battle execute a clean break. Running battles are not for an army in retreat.
