Army, America & Allah

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Pakistan is less and less likely to listen to the US on the ‘war on terror’.

More tranquil times: General Kayani on a flight over Pakistan with Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint

Chiefs of Staff, July 2010

Image: US government

In and out of Pakistan today, many people are asking how it could be that such a powerful military structure could have been unable to detect Osama bin Laden, living in the country for at least a half-decade. More importantly, how was it possible that bin Laden could survive for so long in Pakistan without the knowledge of someone in the powerful military intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)? Inevitably, questions are also being asked as to whether the top ISI bosses could have known of bin Laden’s presence, or whether he was helped merely by rogue elements. Finally, what of the future of US-Pakistan relations? As yet, full answers are not possible for any one of these questions.

Abbottabad, where bin Laden was killed, is home to the primary army training academy, the Pakistan Military Academy. As recently as 23 April, the army chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, had come to address the passing-out ceremony of the 123rd ‘long course’ at the PMA, at which point the intelligence agencies had sufficient reason to sniff around the neighbourhood. In fact, it should not surprise anyone that the al-Qaeda chief was found in Abbottabad, as this town is located in Hazaea. This district has long been known as critical in terms of militant-training camps, some of which shifted from Afghanistan to bordering Mansehra division and Azad Kashmir, particularly after Afghanistan came under the US microscope following the attacks of 11 September 2001. Many a jihadi, working with Pakistan-based militant outfits such as Sipha-e-Sahaba Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Jhangavi, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Toiba, have reported receiving training in camps situated in the hills above Abbottabad. Common to such suggestions has been reference to the presence of Arab nationals at these camps. Some of those with whom I spoke in Abbottabad following the bin Laden operation talked about Afghan jihadis frequently coming into town for shopping. Therefore, the likelihood of Abbottabad as a transit route for various militant groups and their members was very high.

As to whether or what the military knew about bin Laden’s whereabouts – even if we consider this as a case of intelligence failure – one of the most benign answers is that officials simply were not looking. The probability of any high-value militant slipping through the cracks of surveillance becomes higher if the overall policy framework subtly encourages militancy, even offering active support to some groups. A more plausible explanation, on the other hand, is that the higher military command knew exactly what was happening, who was searching, and who was hiding in the area. Although people tend not to speak openly about their views on this issue, many have serious doubts that such a powerful military would not know about such an important resident in a major garrison town such as Abbottabad. The military is not just a key political player in Pakistan, but also a major economic actor, which takes over an eighth of the central government’s expenditure and has an economic empire estimated at some USD 20 billion. In addition, its intelligence agencies pry everywhere, including listening in on the conversations of ordinary Pakistanis. It is therefore impossible to conclude that the army brass did not know that bin Laden was hiding out in Abbottabad.

Owning the discourse

The military-friendly commentators of Pakistan and the military itself have dismissed any suggestion regarding its complicity in this regard, providing as proof the fact that the armed forces have sacrificed 5000 soldiers (as claimed) in the ongoing fight against militancy. There is also the argument that the army cannot possibly support Islamist militancy, being the only ‘secular’ institution in the country. In his recently published book Pakistan: A hard country, Anatol Lieven of the UK, seen as a military-friendly academic, presents the armed forces as the only secular, liberal state entity – juxtaposed against the otherwise fast-radicalising state and society. Beyond the difficulty of categorising the army of a religious-ideological state as secular, it is also important to note that Lieven represents a phalanx of academics and journalists that the Pakistan Army carefully cultivates to produce a military-friendly narrative.

The fact of the matter is that Pakistan’s military is neither secular nor religious, but it does use religion for strategic advantage. The suggestion that the institution is secular helps to impress the liberal-secular element of Pakistani society, while the pro-religious identity narrative sells the institution well to those with a radical mindset. Playing both sides of the ideological divide is beneficial in several ways. A secular image helps in maintaining the patron-client relationship with the West, especially the US. This linkage is strategic not just from the militaristic point of view, but also from a financial standpoint. Historically, Islamabad-Washington relations have revolved around patronage offered by the US, particularly in terms of development and other aid, military training and weapons. These last two items translate into financial resources as well, mainly for senior officers of the defence establishment. Thus, it is not startling to hear the news that former General Pervez Musharraf had agreed that the US could unilaterally carry out strikes inside Pakistan to capture Osama bin Laden. Musharraf has denied this report, carried in the British newspaper The Guardian, but many are unsurprised at the retraction considering how keen he is to get back into the good books of his parent organisation.

However, the argument that Pakistan is America’s client would allow us to assume that the military would never contradict Washington, as seems to be happening in the aftermath of the bin Laden operation. By mid-May, the Pakistan Army was publicly expressing its anger at the US for conducting the operation on its own, without taking Rawalpindi on board. This contradiction leads to the second explanation regarding the ideological division within the military. The Pakistani armed forces are historically aligned with both the US and the radical rightwing in the country. The thinking within the military seems to be that an alignment with the religious right and radical elements both helps to control the society and significantly strengthens the relevance of the armed forces. Religious conservatism bordering on latent radicalism is a natural trajectory of social development in a country such as Pakistan, which was created in the name of a religious identity. Moreover, the religious-cultural discourse at the time of the country’s creation lacked any liberal intervention, which has since led the society to a point where the religious right is becoming more acceptable to the general public than the liberal left.

This is not to suggest that Pakistan’s military has a plan of projecting radicalism and hence become popular. Rather, along with the rest of the society, the military has also followed its independent trajectory towards radicalism. The current generation of military officers is very different from the immediately post-Partition generation of Sandhurst-trained officers, who typically had greater cultural affinity with the West and Western liberalism. So, the argument is that the estrangement of the West, or any closeness with the Taliban, results not just from misperception or fear of the US; it is also due to changes in the character of the Pakistan Army, as the most powerful institution of the country. A growing number of the newer generation of military officers are not as attached to the US as were their predecessors. In fact, the number of officers who are inclined towards their religious identity, set geo-political goals based on religious-identity politics, or are simply not sympathetic towards Washington, is steadily increasing. As a result, the army headquarters in Rawalpindi as a whole is no longer willing to take American orders when it comes to fighting the ‘war on terror’.

Since the 1980s, the thinking of the Islamists has had significant influence on the officers and junior cadre within the military. This happened particularly following the start of the war in Afghanistan against the Soviet forces. The radical element tended to gain strength during the 1990s and the 2000s. The post-1960s generation of Pakistan generally have not only grown up with a more radical understanding of religion, but also been fed on a constant diet of anti-US rhetoric. Much of the latter has revolved around what the political commentator Pervez Iqbal Cheema calls the ‘let-downs’ by the US. The US arms embargo of 1962 and 1965 in the middle of the Pakistan-India military conflicts, or the later embargo of 1990, are considered as examples of times when the US disappointed Islamabad.

In more recent years, the present crop of the military high command has been increasingly irked by continued American drone attacks, and today officials are stating that they do not intend to allow US forces to operate inside Pakistan, including unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones. Starting on 9 May, Gen Kayani broke off relations with the US and NATO for two days, and later encouraged the Parliament to re-define Pakistani relations with the US. This was meant as symbolic punishment, of course, as the general doubts America’s capacity to conduct and carry out a winding down of involvements in the decade-long conflict in Afghanistan without Pakistan’s help. Kayani’s predecessor, Musharraf, did not have as many options over how to deal with the US, as he was ideologically less inclined to take the US head on. In any case, Kayani has been able to operate more comfortably vis-à-vis the US due to his distance from the 9/11 crisis, while Musharraf had to weather US threats to begin a massive bombing campaign against Pakistan if he did not cooperate with Washington. Gen Kayani, for his part, has been able to be far more confident that the US can be forced to make concessions to Pakistan, given Washington’s strategic needs in Afghanistan.

The Indic factors

Meanwhile, the Pakistan Army does not seem inclined to give up its hope to retain Afghanistan as Islamabad’s sphere of influence. Gen Kayani had spoken about the significance of his country maintaining political influence rather than physical control over Kabul as being a policy driven by Islamabad’s fear of India. The army headquarters views New Delhi’s influence in Kabul as a major destabilising factor for Pakistan. The US has lately earned Pakistan’s ire due to the support Washington provides to India to remain in Afghanistan, and for being a central part of its security plan in the northwest of Southasia.

Image: Sabir Nazar/Pakistan Today

It is because of this support by the US for India in Afghanistan that the Pakistan Army has been unwilling to take action against the Siraj-ud-Din Haqqani network in North Waziristan, or against al-Qaeda’s local franchises in Pakistan, such as Lashkar-e-Toiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Sipha-e-Sahaba and other groups. These outfits are far more lethal than the Afghan Taliban, since their leaders are educated, hail from a middle-class background, and have an expansionist ideology insofar as geopolitical views and goals are concerned. The Pakistan-based groups, in particular, are seen as the Pakistan Army’s long-term security guarantee; since the 1980s, the army has had an important strategic dependency on these militants. Given the country’s constant threat from militant Islamism, the army seems to have carried out a cost calculation that favours retaining control of at least some of these outfits by the army through retaining influence over some of these groups. The major problem with this approach, of course, is that it is difficult to separate the grain from the chaff, as it were – the friendly groups are deeply connected with the unfriendly ones that target the state.

In Pakistan today, a distancing of the state security from the non-state actors does not appear likely. The powerful military has successfully silenced voices that, earlier, had been calling for the state to abandon the militants. The army has been able to foster a political and strategic discourse that, while it might be critical of the army from time to time, does not emphasise a delinking of this kind. Some believe that external pressure from the US or elsewhere could in fact help in strengthening those who would resist the delinking. However, such a suggestion is fraught with risks, as a nuclear-armed state could take any direction if its society is threatened with major poverty, hunger or general frustration.

In any case, the US now has only marginal influence over Pakistan’s attitudes and activities vis-à-vis tackling militant Islam. Those who use the term marriage to explain the bilateral relations between Islamabad and Washington are suggesting an incorrect analogy. The relationship is that of patron and client, one that is clearly running out of steam at this juncture. How far the former will let the latter drift away – and vice-versa – remains to be seen. After all, many believe that the three critical relations in Pakistan’s case are the army, America and Allah, and the state never drifts too far away from any of these.

~ Ayesha Siddiqa is an independent military analyst based in Islamabad.

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