ZARDARI HAS FAILED TO TAME ISI

By Najam Sethi

The PPP Government’s recent attempt to club the ISI with the IB and make both “accountable” to the unelected advisor to the interior ministry, Rehman Malik, was very clumsy. But it is neither surprising nor insignificant. Consider the choice of Malik for the job.

Malik was Benazir Bhutto’s business partner and chief political advisor in negotiations with President Pervez Musharraf and the Bush administration during 2005- 07, and also after she returned to Pakistan. Since Zardari was stationed in New York for much of this time, he was out of the loop in London, Dubai and Washington. Accordingly, after Bhutto’s demise, Malik became quite indispensable to Zardari for the sake of maintaining continuity with the key players. This explains why he is currently not just Zardari’s chief of internal security and core interlocutor with the same set of players with whom he interacted during Bhutto’s time — President Pervez Musharraf, COAS General Ashfaq Kayani ( then DG- ISI) and current DGISI General Nadeem Taj ( who assumed charge of political negotiations with Bhutto after General Kayani became army chief) — but also his point man for the “ war on terror” in which he is constantly liaising with key US military and civilian officials, many of whom are also from the same pool of players during Bhutto’s time in exile.

Zardari’s ostensible reason for clubbing IB and ISI under Rehman’s control together is “better coordination” of law and order and the war on terror. But this is really a euphemism for making the IB more efficient and simultaneously “taming” the ISI and “ bringing it into line”. In the PPP’s two previous stints in power, despite handpicked men to lead it, the IB had failed to warn Bhutto of her impending sacking at the hands of two presidents, a “hostile” one in Ghulam Ishaq Khan in 1990 and a “friendly” one in Farooq Leghari in 1996. In fact, the ISI’s role on both occasions was anti- prime minister. Under DG General Hameed Gul, it actually destabilised and then tried to overthrow her in 1989 and then helped rig the general elections to make Nawaz Sharif prime minister, while under DG General Naseem Rana in 1996, it became a handmaiden of the army chief, General Jehangir Karamat, when he approved her sacking by Leghari. So, notwithstanding the ISI’s non- interference in the general elections in 2008, which returned the PPP to power, Zardari’s obsession and fear of the ISI is not unjustified. Indeed, even before her assassination, Bhutto had pointed the finger at “ rogue elements” in the ISI and said they were out to get her.

Three new factors have now reinforced Zardari’s compulsion to retool the ISI and bring it under civilian control. The first has to do with the PPP’s strategic foreign policy perceptions that are different from the national security imperative of the ISI. In short, the PPP is a civilian party that wants liberal and secular policies at home and peace with its neighbours, especially India, while the ISI is predominantly a military institution ( 70 per cent of its staff comes from the military) which takes its ideological inspiration from the military and continues to molly- coddle religious parties and groups in the military’s quest for “ containing” India and “ securing” Afghanistan. This issue dates back to 1989 when the ISI labelled Bhutto a “national security risk” for attempting to smoke the peace pipe with Rajiv Gandhi while today it is opposed to the PPP government’s policy of visa and trade liberalisation with India without acceptable trade- offs on Kashmir, Siachen and other outstanding disputes.

The second factor is related to President Musharraf’s political fate in the new civilian dispensation. The current DG, General Nadeem Taj, has served directly under President Musharraf since before the 1999 coup and was swiftly promoted and then handpicked by him for this job. Zardari obviously feels that when the civilian coalition tries to heave President Musharraf out of office, as it is now threatening to do, the ISI may be used by President Musharraf to thwart the government instead of lending a hand to it as required by law. Hence the government’s “need” to get on with the job of taking the ISI in hand and retooling it. The third factor relates to the US intervention in Afghanistan. The ISI perceives a significant role for the Afghan Taliban in any political dispensation in Afghanistan as an integral element of the military’s national security doctrine of both “securing” Afghanistan on its western border and “ containing” India on its eastern border. The Indian role in President Hamid Karzai’s Afghanistan assumes strategic significance in this context, no less than the American intervention which is aimed at eliminating the Taliban. The PPP, however, is less unsympathetic to the American goal because the blowback of “assetising the Taliban” is hugely destabilising for Pakistan’s internal stability which is of direct relevance to the government. Without controlling the ISI, no government can expect to articulate and implement its own independent foreign policy.

Such issues were apparently discussed by Zardari with a couple of key aides about three months ago when the question of the appointment of a new DG- IB cropped up. The fact that a serving Grade 20 officer was promoted to a Grade 22 job and appointed DG- IB, instead of any known senior loyalist or professional from the police or bureaucracy, suggested that real leadership in the agency would be eventually exercised by someone else outside it. Much the same sort of political experience and compulsion lies behind the recent attempt to drag the ISI into the Interior Ministry. Of course, that is easier said than done, as we have seen. In fact, it is doubtful whether even a change of ISI command at the behest of the Prime Minister can impact on the fundamental outlook of the ISI in the short term. Nawaz Sharif, it may be recalled, handpicked General Javed Nasir to head the ISI in 1991- 93 and General Ziauddin Butt in 1999, but neither could save him from being ousted on both occasions.

Despite formally “reporting” to the Prime Minister, for all intents and purposes the ISI is a military institution wedded to the military’s institutional outlook on national security and politics. All the military officers in it look to the army chief and not the Prime Minister or Defence Minister for their promotions and careers. Of course, this is very different from the position of reputed spook agencies in established democracies like the USA, UK, Israel and India where the military and all agencies are under effective civilian control.

But Pakistan is not such a democracy. Therefore, while it is absolutely correct to insist on civilian supremacy over the military in theory, in practice any attempt by our civilian leaders to change this umbilical relationship without a prior reform of the civil- military equation in the country is likely to rebound on them, as we have just seen. This imbalance is the result of 60 years of bad and irresponsible politics and can’t be undone by snapping one’s fingers. Far better, therefore, for the civilians to establish their credentials for responsible democracy and functional governance first over a period of time before embarking upon any overt anti- military adventure in the country. Certainly, such dim- witted administrative moves as the one we have just seen only serve to discredit the civilians instead of strengthening them in the eyes of the people and the media.

Najam Sethi is Editor in Chief, The Friday Times/ Daily Times/ Daily Aajkal

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