Ejaz is just too good!
Lets give Mr Mukhtar an easier ministry
Ejaz Haider
Forgive my lack of politeness but sometimes it serves to get right to the point. The government should immediately relieve Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar of his current portfolio.
Mr Mukhtar is a senior PPP leader and has done much for the party. Given that and given our system of patronage, he should be rewarded. So thats not the point of contention. He should be a minister; only, the ministry of defence can do without him and be none the worse for it. Heres why.
It is a matter of consternation that despite the rhetoric about civil-military imbalance and the presumed need for civilians to develop the capacity to effectively monitor the military, the defence ministry has never really been given the importance it should have been accorded. Surprising, because one would have thought that civilian governments would attempt, through various measures, to reclaim the powers of the ministry.
That has not happened. If anything, either the MoD has not had a full-time minister or it has been treated as a peripheral ministry. Mr Mukhtar as defence minister is about as useful as Huckleberry Finn would be at the head of a fighting corps.
Mr Mukhtar is a decent man, no doubt about that. But he is inarticulate, knows nothing about his current job, says things that are either patently wrong or undiplomatic or both, and, just notice his expression the next time he talks to the press, looks visibly and completely distraught by his current calling.
The bloody Americans wont stop drone attacks and he is in the unenviable position of having to explain the strikes to a media bristling with sovereignty. What does he say: Hum iss qabil nahin keh Amreeki fauj say larr sakain. Excuse me? Thats not what the parliament said. The parliament, of which Mr Mukhtar is a part, said it would defend the sovereignty of this country come what may.
Heres the problem. Because Mr Mukhtar doesnt know the nuances, he can say one of two things. We will defend our sovereignty, in which case people will ask why the drone attacks continue. Or he can say We cant fight the Americans, in which case while people will understand why drone attacks will continue, the reality is not going to do much for the reputation of either the army or the civilian government.
Of course he could have, if only he had known how to, explained the drone attacks as strikes that may not be entirely unilateral. He could have talked about how targets and target areas are identified, surveilled, reconnoitred and then engaged. He could have explained the cooperative framework in which troops on both sides are trying to counter the threat and the political compulsions that continue to create tensions. He could have spoken of the difference between a unilateral ground incursion and a drone attack.
And if he wants to use the capability framework, then he could have perhaps detailed the difference between a ground incursion, which can be fought off, and aerial attacks that are more difficult to counter because that is where the technology differential comes in.
Capability is not something one either has or doesnt. It is multilayered. Insurgencies prove that a weaker adversary can take on a stronger one by pulling the latter into a contested zone. There are multiple ways in which the advantage of a stronger adversary can be blunted on the ground. But fighting such a war has its own costs because it will generally be fought on the defenders terrain. The attacker will always have the option of cutting his losses and getting out. His mainland, assets and infrastructure remain secure.
The question is: Are we ready to fight such a war? Even more importantly, do we consider the United States an adversary?
What Mr Mukhtar has said implies that. Except that he has basically thrown in the towel by saying that we cant fight the Americans. His statement is not only wrong but shows a degree of pusillanimity which the nation would automatically contrast with the supposed courage of those who are not only fighting the Americans but who the Americans now want to dialogue with.
Essentially this means the following: we cant fight the Americans so we have to accept what comes our way; worse, we are fighting those who are fighting the Americans because we have been coerced into doing so. There goes the shibboleth about this being our war.
So, Mr Mukhtar not only knows next to nothing about military affairs, he also needs to get a lesson or two in logic and understand the implications of what he says.
Lets be clear: we can fight the Americans. But it will be very costly. Any armed struggle must weigh the costs with any perceived benefits. On the other hand, should we fight the Americans? Are the Chinese fighting the Americans, or the Indians rolling up their sleeves?
No. They understand that it is much more sensible to raise ones stock within the current global architecture than opting out and bearing the costs of that decision. As Sun Tzu said: Preserving the enemys army is best, destroying it second-best. Let it be said that this statement needs to be read figuratively rather than literally.
Pakistan and the US are in a cooperative mode in Afghanistan. This is not a tension-free relationship. But neither is it one that calls for overt hostilities. The paradigm used by Islamabad so far has been flawed. Ditto for Washington.
Most drone attacks, if not all, are strikes called by us. Is it wrong if we dont have the capability and ask an ally to help us with such a platform? No. But if there are political costs then Islamabad should have fought hard to acquire UCAV (unmanned combat aerial vehicle) capability because that would have put to rest the issue of these strikes.
Politically too, it is more untenable over the longer run to abdicate all responsibility for such strikes. Even if we werent calling for them, if the strikes do end up taking out targets, the cost of owning them would have been much less than creating an impression that the Americans are doing this unilaterally and there is damn-all we can do about them.
Time to rethink what we say. Meanwhile, how about giving some other ministry to Mr Mukhtar to reward him for his services to the PPP.
Ejaz Haider is Consulting Editor of The Friday Times and Op-Ed Editor of Daily Times. He can be reached at
sapper@dailytimes.com.pk