By Inder Malhotra 

IN the three-year extension to the Pakistan Army Chief, General Ashfaq Parvaiz Kayani, the two most pertinent and pithy comments have come from the Pakistani media itself.

A columnist wrote that though the Prime Minister, Mr Yusaf Raza Gilani’s address to the nation, announcing the extension after praising General Kayani profusely, "lasted only three minutes, it spoke volumes about where power lies in Pakistan". And there was exquisite irony in Dawn’s observation: "The last time a civilian government gave an extension to the head of the Army was to General Ayub Khan". No wonder, a number of thoughtful Pakistanis have said that what has happened did not augur well for the country but seemed unavoidable.

After all, an extension was entirely expected. There had indeed been extensive speculation on the subject though initial reports had suggested that his services would be extended for two years, with a proviso for a further year, if the situation so warranted at that time. Whatever the reasons for the three-year extension in one go, it coincides with the remaining tenure of the ineffectual civilian government of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). Many have concluded therefore that there has been a "deal" between the Army Chief and the leadership of the party in power to ensure that the present set-up would continue undisturbed until 2013 when fresh elections are due.

This evidently cannot be to the liking of Mr Nawaz Sharif, the Leader of the Opposition and of the Muslim League (Nawaz) that rules Punjab, Pakistan’s heart in every sense of the word. As someone hugely hounded and nearly killed by the Army in the time of General Pervez Musharraf, ironically Mr Sharif’s own choice as his Chief of the Army Staff, he could not be happy with the Gen Kayani’s extension. Authoritative reports from Lahore and Islamabad suggest, however, that his younger brother, Mr Shahbaz Sharif, who is Punjab’s Chief Minister, persuaded him not to oppose Gen Kayani’s apotheosis. Yet, the elder Mr Sharif has refrained from either opposing or endorsing publicly what the PPP government has done. To the well-entrenched and rather popular COAS this makes little difference. The wide world knows that he has been calling the shots all the time, especially on policies towards the United States, Afghanistan and India, and he would continue to do so though asserting himself quietly rather than flamboyantly.

Highly Rated General

The timing of the official announcement of something that could have been made public at any time before November when Gen Kayani’s present term ends also seems intriguing. Mr Gilani suddenly appeared on TV immediately after the fiasco of the India-Pakistan talks at foreign ministers’ level and just after the US Secretary of State, Ms Hillary Clinton, left for Kabul in the wake of her consultations with Pakistani leaders and the COAS. Official sources in Islamabad were quick to assert that neither Mr Krishna’s nor Ms Clinton’s visit had anything to do with the extension to Gen Kayani.

However, there is no point hiding that the United States is very trustful of Gen Kayani and looks up to him to deliver on Pakistan’s commitments in relation to Afghanistan. Washington’s keenness on the continuity of Gen Kayani’s stewardship of the all-powerful Pakistan army is therefore understandable. It is no accident that American military leaders are constantly commuting to Islamabad to parley with him. Even Ms Clinton, on her fairly frequent visits, spends more time talking to the General than to President, Mr Asif Ali Zardari or the Prime Minister, Mr Gilani. Yet it is noteworthy that while justifying continuity in the leadership of the Pakistan Army, Mr Gilani made not the slightest mention of either the Afghan War or tensions with India that the Punjabi-dominated officer corps regards as existential threat to Pakistan. He concentrated only on the "war on terror". He justified the extension "in the interest of continuity at a time when the war on terror was successfully continuing … the successes of military operations could only have been achieved under General Ashfaque Kayani’s leadership". What followed was more interesting: "General Kayani is highly esteemed at the international level due to his excellent military leadership qualities and pro-democracy views".

Dictatorship in Pak

Military leadership qualities may be undisputed but it is different matter to talk of Pakistani Generals as upholders of democracy in view of that country’s history since the Ayub takeover in 1958. Since then the man with the gun has either sat on the throne or stood behind the throne while a civilian occupied it uneasily. After the swashbuckling army’s humiliation in Bangladesh in 1971, no one had thought it would be able to stage a coup ever again. During an extended visit to Pakistan in December 1973, every news source or commentator I interviewed told me that any General thinking of overthrowing an elected prime minister of the stature of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto would need to "get his head examined". Less than four years later, Zia-ul-Haq had overthrown him and executed him another two years afterwards. Musharraf’s coup came at the turn of the century and his shelf life ended early in 2008.

To be sure, and to his credit, General Kayani has not interfered with the post-Musharraf political structure in Pakistan. But why should he when he can dictate policy from behind the throne? Let no one forget that when Mr Zardari wanted to shift the control of the Inter-State Intelligence (ISI) from the Army to the Ministry of Interior, headed by Mr Rehman Malik, General Kayani made short work of this move, the Kerry-Lugar Act of the US or no Kerry-Lugar Act. It needs to be added that the General intensely dislikes Mr Malik, a former police officer and a close associate of Mr Zardari. At one time, the Army Chief denied the Interior Minister entry into the GHQ.

Concerns for India

In August last year when the state of affairs in Pakistan hadn’t yet become so bleak as it is now, I had the occasion to spend a week in Islamabad and Lahore. Everyone of any consequence there said that the "fractious and incompetent" PPP government had "discredited" itself, thanks largely to the President Mr Zardari’s "shenanigans and that the people were fed up, but no one wanted to upset the applecart and the military leadership also did not want to take over "at this stage". I duly reported all this then. What I did not ask at that time is no longer irrelevant: Is there a guarantee that this situation cannot change in the
foreseeable future?

Who heads the Pakistan army and for how long, is entirely for the government and the people of Pakistan to decide. But the question is what should India make of the extension to General Kayani? Mr B Raman, a former additional chief of the Indian foreign intelligence agency, RAW, and now an astute analyst, argues cogently that this country should be concerned. In General Kayani’s time there is unlikely to be any diminution in the use of Pakistani terrorist outfits against India. The consequences of his close connections with the leadership of both the US military and China’s People’s Liberation Army should be obvious.