The good news is that Pakistan, Afghanistan and the US seem to have finally succeeded in bringing their strained relationship back on track. This is evident from the successful targeting by US drones of Tehrik-e-Taliban leader Maulana Fazlullah in his Afghanistan haven, evidently to Pakistan’s great satisfaction because the notorious Maulana was the primary source of terrorism in Pakistan. His elimination could not have been possible without detailed coordination between the intelligence agencies of all three countries, an objective that had eluded the protagonists for a long time because of lack of trust. Pakistan’s army chief was sitting with the Afghan President in Kabul when the drone attack took place, implying that both were tuned into the situation and awaiting a good signal to advance discussions. The Eid peace truce between the Taliban and the Afghan government was one consequence of the new dynamic in which Pakistan is expected to deliver its share of the deal: use its leverage with the Taliban to nudge them to the negotiating table with the aim of ending the long war that has exacted a huge toll from all three countries in lost lives and trillions spent.
This “rapprochement”, if it can be called that at this preliminary stage, was due in no small part to a diplomatic development in Pakistan that has been missed by most observers. The sudden appointment of Ali Jehangir Siddiqui as Pakistan’s ambassador to the US was initially criticized by sections of the media as another nepotistic nomination by the PMLN government on the eve of its departure. In fact, it was anything but that.
Ali Siddiqui knows Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, quite well from his university days in the US. Mr Kushner is senior policy adviser to President Trump and has proved to be a very successful back channel for advancing US foreign policy objectives in the Middle East and North Korea, largely because of his personal contacts and skillful confidence building approach. That would explain many things about Mr Siddiqui’s sudden appointment with the approval of the Miltablishment and the unprecedented speed with which the Trump administration accepted his credentials. It would also explain why the usual media touts backed off from their criticism after receiving the requisite advice to lay off. Therefore, we can safely attribute the recent US-Pak-Afghanistan “breakthrough” to some quiet diplomacy on all sides. Whether the common trust so engineered will last or not is another matter, since many promising initiatives in the past have eventually floundered on the rocks of differing strategic objectives of each of the three countries.
We can also understand why the Miltablishment has so opportunely stitched up its relations with the US. It has embarked on a massive and unprecedented political intervention at home to “set things right”, a process of engineering not without pitfalls, uncertainty and instability.With Nawaz Sharif accused of leaning on US support for his survival, it is good Miltablishment strategy to thus neutralize Washington.
But the bad news is coming in thick and fast. For starters, the top Supreme Court judges have been challenged by one of their own – Justice Qazi Fiaz Isa’s dissenting opinion in the disqualification case against Sheikh Rashid. Justice Isa has brilliantly noted how various judges have discriminately applied various constitutional provisions to knock out some politicians and spare others. He has called for a full court hearing to hammer out a consensual approach to the applicability of such laws. The silence of his peers on his urgent plea is disquieting because it further undermines the credibility of SC judgments in kicking out Nawaz Sharif and saving Imran Khan.
The confusion is unfortunately compounded by the Election Commission of Pakistan. It has legitimized a coterie of interim governments in the provinces that lack credibility as neutral instruments of transition. It is not applying electoral laws and rules evenly or indiscriminately. It has allowed the military to occupy polling booths on election day and opened the way for criticism in the event of rigging allegations. Its ROs are disqualifying and clearing candidates whimsically, thereby flooding the courts with appeals and muddying the electoral process. The SC’s own intervention to add a proforma of assets and liabilities to a candidate’s nomination papers as an appendix does not have the sanction of parliament and is an invitation to harassment and confusion. No less is the SC’s order to the NAB judge to speed up the trial of Nawaz and Mariam Sharif and deliver a verdict before election day regardless of due process. Indeed, every day brings bad tidings of what we may expect from these elections.
As a footnote in this melee, we might also comment on the sorry state of the economy. The Rupee is plummeting, the debt burden is rising and inflation is poised to rear its ugly head.
Without a national and democratic consensus on the way ahead, Pakistan will continue to attract ugly headlines and remain in the wilderness.