Khan’s Samsonesque strategy

We are in a catch-22. And then some.

Let’s first check the dictionary meaning of the term. Merriam-Webster defines a “catch 22” as “a problematic situation for which the only solution is denied by a circumstance inherent in the problem or by a rule.” For example, you can’t get work unless you have an agent but you can’t get an agent unless you have worked. Or, you lose your glasses and must find them to see well but you can’t see well unless you find them.

Let’s now get to where we are.

Former Prime Minister Imran Khan, his party leaders and their supporters have taken to attacking the army high command, including the Chief of Army Staff. In a recent episode, Shehbaz Gill, Khan’s Chief of Staff went on ARY News, a channel closely identified earlier with the army and now with Khan’s party. Gill spoke for 15 minutes, asking, essentially, the army’s mid-ranking officers, JCOs, NCOs and soldiers to use their conscience instead of blindly following orders.

Space does not allow a complete unpacking of Gill’s monologue but it’s important to highlight some aspects. While praising the army, he sought to create a distinction between some commanders and the subordinates, i.e., the bulk of the force, asking the latter to distinguish between lawful and unlawful orders because an order that weakened the institution mustn’t be obeyed. He spoke of peoples’ power and how obeying certain orders goes against the will of the people. “You are neither deaf nor blind nor an animal,” he said.

The monologue was carefully constructed to achieve a certain effect. It relied on the known fact that the army brass has often intervened in this country’s politics. It also rested on the fact that Khan’s PTI has sizeable support among army veterans, including some former two- and three-stars. The chicanery lay in the discursive technique which moved from stressing the importance of the army as an institution while calling upon officers and rank-and-file to destroy the very organisational cohesion and integrity that is central to the army’s functioning as an institution — all on the pretext of safeguarding the institution.

Gill could not have played entirely off his own bat. The technique he used has been employed by his boss a number of times. Given the support for the PTI among veterans — some of whom have been very vocal in criticising the current COAS — Khan knows that he can raise the cost for the COAS of army’s “neutrality” like no one else can. What he doesn’t seem to realise, or perhaps realises all too well, is that his disruptive narrative can raise the cost for the entire institution and by extension for this country.

Meanwhile, not to forget, when Mian Nawaz Sharif was ousted by the establishment, he too began naming names, as did his daughter and some other PMLN leaders.

But three things are different here. First, Sharif did not enjoy the kind of support among veterans that Khan does. Second, Khan’s supporters are convinced beyond debate that the Sharifs and Zardari are not only corrupt but a danger to Pakistan’s sovereignty, a view widely shared by army officers, both serving and retired, in part because the army helped Khan to establish these charges against the Sharifs and Zardari. Three, Sharif’s critical comments against certain general officers were dismissed as the diatribe of a corrupt leader in self-exile.

Both the army and the PTI, then in government, used every communication technique to discredit Sharif further. As a result, we now have millions of young voters who support Khan unconditionally and who consider certain top commanders as complicit in the conspiracy which ousted their leader.

What makes these young voters particularly relevant is Khan’s unparalleled ability to make life difficult for the army. The army helped burnish Khan’s credentials as the rightful alternative to the supposed dynastic bandits that lead the PMLN and the PPP. Having raised (and praised) him to the skies, it is now faced with a former civilian principal who is, arguably, the only politician who can draw support from within the institution against the brass.

Khan’s individual credibility and stature thus poses a dilemma for those of us who have routinely opposed army’s overt and covert interventions in politics but who also believe, for several good reasons, that the army is a vital national institution which guarantees the integrity and defence of the country. It might not always have succeeded in doing that and it certainly must be blamed for pursuing policies and investing in people — Khan being a good example — that have often been detrimental to stability. But that has more to do with bounded rationality than insincerity.

In short, the point here is this: the army must be criticised (as it often is). But to call for disobeying orders is on the wrong side of a very clear line and strikes at the very heart of the institution’s disciplined functioning and cohesiveness. Note, Khan has previously used this “follow your conscience” narrative for police forces and civil administration and called on subordinates to not follow orders. This time he has extended that strategy to challenge the army.

The other device Khan has constantly used is to present himself as the only leader who can pull this country out of its dire straits, the only one who can stand up to inimical, foreign powers, the only one who believes in self-respect. This claim, as I have noted before, denies other parties any space or legitimacy and by doing so also delegitimises those Pakistani citizens who choose to vote for those parties. It is almost as if Pakistan is made up of only PTI and its voters. Others either do not exist or have no right to exist. This is the Zaman Park version of Trump’s dogma that “I alone can fix it.”

So where do we go from here? I do not have an answer, not because one cannot come up with a rational, calibrated approach to arriving at some understanding but because the PTI’s narrative has pushed nearly everyone far down the rabbit hole. What one can say is that unless something changes, Khan is looking more and more like Samson, prepared to bring the Temple down on everyone, including himself.

The writer is a journalist with interest in foreign and security policies