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Three men, three questions
[DAWN] YOU gotta hand it to Raheel. He really does do things his way. A general quitting two-thirds of the way in, a full 10 months before retirement? Now that's Naya Pakistain.And yet, it makes a certain kind of sense. He may not like it and it may not be deliberate, but the edifice of Raheel's term has been built on being the anti-Kayani ... four star general, current Chief of Army Staff of the Mighty Pak Army. Kayani is the former Director General of ISI... And everything Kayani did was defined by the extension. The extension washed away Kayani's first three years, the first two of which are comparable to Raheel's, and it made everything he did or didn't do after irrelevant. It's easy to forget now, but before Zarb-e-Azb ..the Pak offensive against Qaeda in Pakistain and the Pak Taliban in North Wazoo. The name refers to the sword of the Prophet (PTUI!)... there was Rah-e-Rast. And Swat ...a valley and an administrative district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistain, located 99 mi from Islamabad. It is inhabited mostly by Pashto speakers. The place has gone steadily downhill since the days when Babe Ruth was the Sultan of Swat... was quickly followed by Rah-e-Nijaat, up in South  Wazoo.It's easy to forget now, but before the dharna there was the Kayani moment. When the PML-N was converging on Islamabad and Iftikhar Chaudhry was still a household name. Like Raheel at the height of the dharna, Kayani chose not to take over during the long march. It's easy to forget now, but Kayani followed semi-depoliticisation with a return to core interests -- the army itself, national security and key foreign policies. But the extension --that's what defined him. And it also constrained him. Raheel has to know that. Right now, he's got nowhere to go but down. He could win some more victories against terror, but what's more against the same? Unless he did something big on India, there's not much new he could bring to the game. And there is the internal dimension. It's easy to believe that Kayani was sunk by public opinion over the extension. But it really was his own who did him in. The rank and file didn't like the extension and the generals resented it. Had Raheel stayed on, it would have been a step worse than Kayani. Back then, a short three years ago, the boys were just beginning to digest their counter-insurgency prowess and starting to think about counterterrorism. Posted by: Fred 2016-02-01 |
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