2024: General Asim Munir’s tipping point

Many of these questions will land at the General’s doorstep in 2024. This year will draw out answers. 2024 is General Asim Munir’s tipping point.

Talat Hussain

End 2023, beginning 2024, General Asim Munir is at the peak of his power. And that’s his core problem. No peak lasts forever; peaks plateau and inevitably decline. He would complete his second tenure year in 2024. There the road will fork into two— start packing or seek to extend your stay for another term. Neither is a great option.

Planning for retirement is a graceful way of ending a career; however, the moment the word gets out, jockeying for a replacement starts with a ferocity that is unparalleled for any other office in the country. While the army chief remains fully in control of his institution, the environment starts to become, say, less conducive for big moves. Let’s call it a nascent lame-duck phase in which considerations for a stable exit overtake all other agenda items. The second option is to extend the tenure. That has been used so many times that it is now assumed that every army chief will claim it as his right. The argument for this option is often “completion of the agenda” and the assertion that you don’t change command mid-war.

The issue is that since Pakistan is always fighting this war it is hard to determine where the middle is. Or even the beginning or the ending of a war. There is no guarantee that an extra three years would allow cementing of the good work (whatever that is) done in the first tenure. In fact, history tells us that the contrary happens.

All generals who extended their tenures, by hook, by crook, or by book, ended up facing personal and professional disasters. Ayub, Zia, Musharraf, Kiani, Bajwa. The first three were dictators and did for themselves by themselves. The last two feigned being politically correct and had civilian governments do it for them. All five fell flat on their faces as luck, power, and friends deserted, divorced, and dumped them. A general on extension is always an over-extended general, juggling a shrinking moral high ground and a command that is quietly questioned even if obeyed.

General Asim Munir will face this binary in 2024. That will be a fraught situation.

It would have been an easy choice if he had full control of the terrain he was battling on. That is not the case. It is not a test of competence or skill or spirits, or strength of the flesh but of compulsions generated by the circumstances. The irony in the case of General Asim Munir is that while most of his predecessors created or vitiated their operational environment and fell victim to their follies, he has inherited pretty much every nasty challenge he has to deal with.

From Imran Khan’s assaults on the state to a divided judiciary to a dilapidated economy to the rising tide of terrorism to a political domain that is broken into a million pieces. He had almost nothing to do with any of these directly, and yet all of these nerve-testing problems have landed on his plate in their most advanced stage. An even more telling irony is that as he deals with this tough terrain nobody will remember whether he inherited this or not; everyone will judge him for what happens next.

And while he has made progress in tackling many issues at hand, there is no closure on any front. Imran Khan’s shadows continue to lengthen and hold large parts of the nation hostage; his Trojan horses trample on reason and stability; the hatred for the Establishment’s messy past combined with the backlash to the 9^th May response from the state has created a lethal brew that every witch wants to keep stirring — discarded political and media assets of the state, why-don’t-you-hire-me wannabes, ethnically-charged and aggrieved groups; pseudo-liberals who have always wanted the inner core of the state to collapse; Nawaz-Zardari haters, warts and all. They have all created what the Nazis benefited the most from — Negative Cohesion.  Not as many loved Adolf Hitler as the numbers showed; it is just that they hated others more, and thus stood for Hitler. The same is happening now in Pakistan. Right next to this boiling pot of political madness is rising terrorism and an economy that refuses to come out of the doldrums.

Predictably, General Asim has a finger in every pie. He may not like it, but this ties him down. As the 9^th May of experience shows, cracking the whip has limits. Eight months after this national tragedy, perpetrators of crimes against the state are now effectively playing the injured, innocent victims. They are contesting polls and are posing as Jesus on the cross, redeeming the suffering masses. Imran’s cases continue to hang fire. Elections that are expected to resolve national problems are dented and de-shaped by countless controversies. Nawaz Sharif is still on lunar energy, his mind torn between his past and his present. And as the Establishment looks towards him to carve a way out of this morass, his party is looking towards the Establishment to ensure that it gets its way to power. This situation is unenviable. It is untenable.

Sooner or later General will face the moment when has to seek closure on all these fronts. What does he do with Imran Khan? What does he do when a new government comes to power and starts to reclaim the space that for now belongs to him and his institution? How does he deal with an assertive judiciary, politicized judges, fake-news peddlers, Baloch marchers, deluded and deranged political power brokers, terrorists, and a public that can no longer be sweet-talked into believing that dawn is nigh?

What does he do as the second-year clock starts to tick faster in reality than the days may show? How much more whip can he crack? Or charm can he pull? Or fire-fighting can he do? If he brings in billions of dollars of investment from the Kingdom and the UAE that he said he would and makes the Special Investment Facilitation Council the miracle-maker we are told it is, does he stick around longer than his 3-year tenure to see it all come to real fruition or does he plan to go home on time? Many of these questions will land at the General’s doorstep in 2024. This year will draw out answers. 2024 is General Asim Munir’s tipping point.