Can Pakistan’s new Army chief change thingsIJ
lieutenant General Raheel Sharif takes charge as the new chief of the Pakistani Army at a crucial transitional time for his institution, his country and the region. He succeeds General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who in his unusually long six-year tenure, somewhat redefined the civil-military relations in Pakistan. As the country struggled to remain on the democratic track, he kept himself at an arm's length from political processes while the civilian Government in Islamabad completed a full term for the first time ever and peacefully handed over power to another popularly elected regime. The general consensus is that Gen Sharif, a Western-educated, moderate military man known to be apolitical, will continue with his predecessor's policy. While this may be the case, one must still exercise caution with the ‘moderate' tag — after all, General Zia-ul-Haq and later General Pervez Musharraf were considered moderates too. Yet, both overthrew civilian Governments and encouraged large-scale measures to bleed India.
Also, the Pakistani Army staying in the political background must not be mistaken for its surrendering of traditional control over the country's defence and foreign policies. Indeed, at the top of Gen Sharif's agenda will be the drawdown of Nato forces in Afghanistan and heightened activity along the line of Control in Kashmir (where a decade-long ceasefire agreement has been repeatedly breached in recent months). But his biggest challenge will lie not outside, but within the country, where militant organisations, initially patronised by state elements, continue to wreak havoc. The Pakistani Taliban and the Haqqani network remain safely ensconced in the remote tribal areas, particularly North Waziristan, where the writ of Islamabad runs thin. The military has already clashed with the civilian Government on how best to deal with the militants, and all eyes will be on Gen Sharif to see if he can quell the insurgency even as Islamabad engages in talks with the Taliban. It is pertinent to mention here that, in his previous position as Inspector General of Training and Evaluation, Gen Sharif had redone the Army's training manual to shift its traditional focus away from India as the primary enemy to internal insurgency as the real threat to national security.
Interestingly, it was Gen Kayani who had placed Gen Sharif in the training department, instead of the Military Operations Directorate, the nerve centre of the Army where potential chiefs are groomed. That Gen Sharif has been moved to the helm, despite being outside of operational activities, is interesting; just as is the fact that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif overlooked two more-senior persons in the Army to appoint him as chief. General Haroon Aslam, supposedly Gen Kayani's favourite and in contention for the top job, was sidelined; he has since quit in protest. Whether the gamble will pay off for the Prime Minister, who has had a chequered relationship with the military, only time will tell. Mr Sharif had appointed two Army chiefs before and both ‘stabbed’ him in the back. In 1993, General Waheed Kakar pressured him to resign, while in 1999, Gen Musharraf engineered a coup against the Prime Minister, leading to the latter’s flight from Pakistan, and nine years of military rule in the country.