SO endemically controversial has become the ISI director general’s post in recent years that if incoming DG Gen Rizwan Akhtar were to simply leave office at the end of his term with his reputation neither bolstered nor harmed, it would count as a success at this stage.

Consider the deep controversy that Gen Shuja Pasha had generated by the time he retired in 2012: a one-year extension the year before, the Osama bin Laden raid and ‘memogate’ are just some of the stunning lowlights, with persistent rumours of meddling in the political process dogging the latter part of his tenure.

Know more: Lt-Gen Rizwan Akhtar named new ISI chief

Now Gen Zaheerul Islam is set to leave office as an ongoing national political crisis he has been accused of engineering by some quarters rumbles on. So perhaps if the new director general were simply to keep a distance from politics and avoid national security crises, it would be an improvement over his predecessors.

Yet, while politics and the ISI are no strangers, the politicisation of the ISI in recent years has obscured a more fundamental challenge: getting the strategy against militancy right and helping restore internal security.

In that regard, Gen Akhtar’s counterterrorism experience in Karachi as DG Rangers and counter-insurgency experience in South Waziristan as a commander will give him the kind of skill that can be invaluable in tackling the problem operationally.

The bigger challenge though may be less to develop a comprehensive strategy to fight militancy and more to wean the military leadership off its old habits of security policies rooted in fear and ambition. There is also a sense — all but confirmed in recent years — that the ISI has in some ways grown almost independent when it comes to its parent organisation, the armed forces.

When reasonable and rational observers of the military and the political process begin to speculate whether an army chief has full control over the ISI or whether even a DG ISI has full control over his sprawling organisation, there is surely cause for concern. Gen Akhtar has many challenges ahead of him, but none may be as important as signalling that the armed forces are not a house divided.

Finally, there is the inevitable question of civil-military relations. Even in the very announcement of Gen Akhtar’s appointment can be detected a further sidelining of the civilian government with the ISPR choosing to announce the ‘posting’ instead of the Prime Minister’s Office issuing an official statement.

If form is so completely ignored, then what does that say about the substance of ties between the PML-N government and the military leadership at the moment? If Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif did not attempt to install a favourite of his own, did the military reciprocate by at least offering the prime minister a choice of three names? Or has the military simply indicated that the military decides and Mr Sharif complies?

Published in Dawn, September 23rd, 2014