The jihadi elements, who had always advocated the end of the liberal democracy on the ground that it gives greater importance to the will of the people than to the will of Allah, are hoping that the present civil war of the institutions, might pave the way for the replacement of a liberal democratic state by a jihadi state. If this happens, the implications will be serious not only for the people of Pakistan, but for the international community as a whole.
There is a real danger of Pakistan becoming a failed state not as a result of a collapse of its economy and/or system of governance, but as a result of the civil war being waged by the institutions of the state.
The Army has united behind Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, the Chief of the Army Staff (COAS). According to reliable sources, the Corps Commanders and the Principal Staff Officers, who held a strategy session at the GHQ in Rawalpindi on January 12, 2012, threw their weight behind Kayani and Lt General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the Director-General of the Inter-Services Intelligence, and decided that the ISI should provide security to Mansoor Ijaz, the US citizen of Pakistani origin, who unwittingly or deliberately triggered off the present confrontation, to enable him to testify before the Judicial Enquiry Commission appointed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhury to enquire into the allegations made by Ijaz against Hussain Haqqani, former Pakistani Ambassador to US, in connection with the so-called Memogate.
The same sources say that the Army is firm that Hussain Haqqani must be punished for what it looks upon as an act of treason in complaining to the US Government against the Pakistan Army and seeking Washington’s intervention in the matter. Punishment of Haqqani is the minimum that the Army demands as a price for relenting in its fight against the elected executive.
The seeming support of President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani to Haqqani even before the serious allegations made by Ijaz against him had been formally enquired into and their action in providing security to Haqqani while dragging their feet on the question of security to Ijaz have added to the anger of the Army.
The judiciary’s determination to go ahead with its enquiry into the allegations of Ijaz despite the non-cooperation of the executive has encouraged the inflexible stand of the Army.
Despite whatever one might say about the domination of the Army in the Pakistani state, the anger of the military class against the political class in general and Haqqani in particular for allegedly seeking the intervention of the US against the Pakistan Army has to be understood instead of being ridiculed. The credibility of Kayani as the leader of the military class—in the eyes of his senior officers as well as the rank and file— could suffer if he is seen as taking a soft line on this issue.
To save Pakistan from a looming institutional collapse, three steps are necessary: