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| General Sharif's US Visit | | | Nilesh Kunwar
There is nothing unusual about army chiefs visiting foreign countries but news of Pakistan army chief General Raheel Sharif's Washington visit later this month comes as a big surprise for more than one reason. Firstly, not even a month has passed since Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif visited the US and met President Obama and this wasn't just a goodwill visit. During this sojourn Sharif discussed a wide array of issues including defence related matters and Pakistan's war on terror in great detail. Therefore, when Pakistan's PM has already had a comprehensive dialogue with Washington, the reason for his army chief to visit America so soon makes little sense!
There is no denying that during his Washington visit it Nawaz Sharif remained on the back foot due to Pakistan army's selective approach in its war on terror. However, if General Sharif's visit was in the offing then PM Sharif could have easily taken a high moral ground by announcing that his army chief would be visiting America soon for further coordinating Islamabad's war on terror efforts with that of Washington. By not doing so PM Sharif failed to make out a far stronger case for Pakistan's 'war on terror' and instead ended up acknowledging Islamabad's complicity in harbouring terror outfits by promising "effective action" against the Lashkar-e-Toiba and its affiliates. So, could Nawaz Sharif's silence regarding the imminent US visit by his army chief be because there were no plans of General Sharif visiting the US at that time? Customarily an army chief visits a friendly foreign country when he is specifically invited by his counterpart in that country. Since such visits are also symbolise the deep friendship between two nations, the decision to either invite an army chief or for an army chief to accept such an invitation is the sole and undisputed prerogative of the concerned governments. But newspaper reports have quoted a US Defence Department official saying that "(General) Sharif is travelling to Washington of his own volition and Department of Defence (DoD) officials are meeting with General Raheel at his request. It is because of this major departure from protocol that Pakistan army chief General Raheel Sharif's upcoming trip to Washington becomes unusual. If the request for this visit coming from the army and not the government is something unprecedented then the DoD official's statement that Pakistan's army chief has sought an audience with Defence Secretary Ashton Carter, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford and US army chief General Mark A Milley, is even more confounding. All this raises questions as to what could be so urgent that a person like General Raheel Sharif who is a stickler when it comes too protocol could not even wait for the Pakistan's Foreign Office to approach Washington with the request to extend an invitation and facilitate his visit? So it seems most unlikely that General Raheel Sharif is going to Washington on his own accord as he has suddenly felt the urge to meet and confer with important defence department dignitaries and high ranking military officials. A possibility exists that General Sharif may have actually been 'summoned' by Washington. Though there is nothing to prove this supposition but circumstances do point in this direction. The first indicator is the unusual efforts made by Washington in trying to give General Sharif's US trip the appearance of a 'normal' visit and not a 'summon'. The next giveaway is Washington's expression of its unhappiness with Pakistan's inaction against terror outfits like the Haqqani network, the LeT and its affiliates. Then the Pakistan army's Inter Services Public Relation has itself given a comical reasoning that during his US visit, the Pakistan army chief will clearly highlight Pakistan's perspective of new emerging regional realities. Didn't PM Sharif do this just less than a month ago?
It is a well known fact that Pakistan has a unique power sharing equation under which the army formulates foreign policy while the legislature implements it. This makes army chief General Raheel the uncrowned 'King' of Pakistan and Washington knows that it has no other choice but to deal with him. Right since US took Islamabad's help in waging a proxy war against the Soviets in Afghanistan it has been putting up with Pakistan army's unsavoury role in using terrorist outfits to wage proxy wars against its neighbours. As long as this was happening in Kashmir it didn't matter much to Washington so it overlooked these transgressions as keeping Pakistan army Generals in good humour then was in American interests. But things started changing when Pakistan army's proxies started attacking NATO forces in Afghanistan.
Today when America is in the process of withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan, unabated attacks by Pakistan army backed terrorist groups is something that Washington cannot ignore longer. Yet General Raheel Sharif does not seem to understand this and appears to be in no mood to abandon the Pakistan army's "strategic asset" doctrine. Pakistan army is undoubtedly doing a wonderful job in its war on terror but due to its failure to go after terror groups of "all hue and colour" its spectacular achievement has been greatly compromised. Therefore General Sharif needs to make sure that the praises Washington has heaped on the Pakistan army's war on terror shouldn't exhilarate him to the extent that he misses out the very serious accusations on his army's inaction against certain very dangerous terror outfits. There could also be some other reasons. Recently, some extremely provocative statements have emanated from Pakistan. The first is regarding Kashmir being the "unfinished agenda" of partition and though Islamabad has all the right to make this political statement, when an army chief does so it sounds all the more menacing. Next, the army chief's statement that there can be no peace in the region till the Kashmir issue is resolved contains the distinct whiff of a veiled threat that unrest in Kashmir and tension on the Line of Control would continue till then. Lastly, the unprovoked statement by Islamabad announcing that it had built up an adequate arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons and hinting of its first use in case of an Indian aggression too is something that would have added to Washington's discomfort. One wonders what will actually transpire when General Sharif meets US Defence Secretary, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff and US army chief but one hopes that good sense will finally prevail on both sides. Washington needs to realise that turning a blind eye to Pakistan army's use of terrorist groups to wage proxy war against its neighbours has taken many American lives, that of soldiers in Afghanistan and civilians in the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Washington also has to tell General Sharif that either Pakistan caps its nuclear weapons programme or it should be prepared to face sanctions like those that the US imposed on Iran. On his part General Sharif needs to realise that there is a limit to which the transgressions of his army can be accepted and that the days when General Zia ul Haq could scoff at a $ 325 million American aid package by describing it as "Peanuts" are now a thing of the past! |
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