WELL, here we are: four months to go. Four months before he stays. Four months before he goes. Four months of frenzied gossip and imagined uncertainty.
Or so we are told.
But let’s try something else, a prediction: Raheel will go home. On time and on schedule. A clean break. No fuss, no looking back.
Come November the country will have a new chief.
There’s enough reason why and some evidence is already out there, but since uncertainty is so much more fun, few want to talk about the obvious.
And nothing is more obvious than this: Raheel would destroy Raheel if Raheel were to try and cling on as Raheel.
Let’s work through it step by step. Being chief is serious business, being double chief exponentially more so.
If Raheel were to stay, he’d need a damn good reason. But the reasons are all in the opposite direction, ie towards going home, and listing them isn’t all that difficult.
Raheel is not Kayani. If there’s one thing that defines Raheel, it’s that he isn’t Kayani.
It helps that the two don’t really get along, possibly because Kayani never saw Raheel as his heir, but that’s not really it. Raheel is defined by being the anti-Kayani. And Kayani is, much as he may hate it, defined by the extension.
Retire in November and Raheel can walk away the greatest chief in a generation. Stay on and he becomes one of us or, worse, one of them: a politician.
Take the extension and Raheel becomes Kayani: the resolute, action-oriented defender of the troops and protector of the institution turned into a selfish, fame-seeking, wealth-gathering non-soldier.
Extensions thwart more than a few rivals’ dreams. Among the boys, within the institution, a chief has two constituencies he needs to be on the right side of: the rank and file and the senior lot.
Kayani managed to lose both by the end, his dithering in the fight against militancy overshadowing all the pay increases he won for the rank and file and the extension blocking the ambitions of generals who wanted to chart a different course.
Raheel won’t lose the rank and file if he clings on: they worship him and his constant touring of the front lines has built a deep reservoir of trust.
But extensions by their very nature have an unsettling effect at the very top. In theory, it’s just one man who loses out: the other chap who could have been chief.
Reality is very different. Until the last moment, right up till the announcement of the next chief, there’s usually a few generals hoping to get the nod.
While speculation centres on one or two — this time round, it’s Zubair and Nadeem — it’s usually the top five.
It’s one thing to be in the running and hoping and vying and then losing out at the very last moment. It’s another to not get a decision at all, for the previous guy to refuse to give the next guy a chance.
There’s also the knock-on effect. Say Nadeem gets the nod in November, that’s a corps command that opens up and a lateral shuffle that must occur with some vertical movement as the next lot moves up to occupy some of the slots vacated.
So, while no overt dissent will be expressed, an extension necessarily causes friction with the very people a chief must work with.
Raheel would also have the problem of placating a generation of leadership that is steeped in counter-insurgency, counterterrorism and even the mixed political-criminal stuff in Karachi.
If Musharraf was president and Kayani had political timing on his side, what’s Raheel got to justify an extension?
There’s nothing big happening. Zarb-i-Azb is a strategic consensus. There may be operational stuff to decide, but that’s hardly tenure-defining.
Karachi will continue because the gains are too popular but constantly threatened by the PPP and MQM.
The balance of power in Afghanistan won’t swing the Taliban’s way until 2020. India isn’t about to make peace with Pakistan.
The boys have taken themselves out of the business of massaging elections, so 2018 and the general election matter little.
So, what exactly would Raheel be sticking around for until 2019?
An extension would destroy him. Fuelling a lot of the extension speculation is the PML-N itself.
Behind the scenes and on background, the party has a mischievous tale to tell: the chief is seeking an extension, apparently.
It is a silly story, but with a sly purpose. The story politicises the chief, making him out to be cut from the same cloth as everyone else.
And the story masks what the PML-N really wants — that the chief take an extension.
Retire in November and Raheel can walk away the greatest chief in a generation. Stay on and he becomes one of us or, worse, one of them: a politician.
Someone willing to cut deals and turn his back on principle and ready to do what he needs to protect and project himself.
Among his military peers, he’d be a diminished man. With the public, he’d still be popular, but would have to do more nakedly populist stuff.
For the PML-N, he’d be their guy, a grateful chief willing to look the other way.
And if he did try and push on stuff, they’d be able to push back — a chief who goes back on his word once is a chief open to political attack forever.
Raheel will go, but not because he’s already promised he will go. Raheel will go because he’ll destroy himself if he tries and clings on as chief.
Come November there will be a new chief.
The writer is a member of staff.
Twitter: @cyalm
Published in Dawn, July 31st, 2016
