The tiger headed straight for the serpent’s lair

The ‘tiger’ of Punjab roared and growled in Sindh. Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz chief Mian Nawaz Sharif has returned to his confrontational ways, which perhaps suits him better, but this time around, he is up against the very forces to which he owes his political career. His makers, one might say. So here we have a typical Frankenstein situation. The creation turns against its creator.

But the tiger is simply lashing back in self-defence. He realises that he is not the blue-eyed boy of the military establishment anymore. The spy agencies are up to its dirty old tricks again and devising a script to divide his vote bank in Punjab. Apparently, a part of this ploy is to back up Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chief Imran Khan, who appears to be the ideal man in the establishment’s scheme of things. Even though both Mr Sharif and Mr Khan are right-wing, the establishment fears that Mr Sharif might still be carrying the desire of becoming the Amir-ul-Momineen and asserting his authority over all, including military generals.

So Mr Sharif has delivered a few below the belt blows. He said that intelligence agencies need to stay away from politics and quit running a parallel government. He also demanded that the army and its top intelligence agency’s budget be brought to the parliament. Later, he urged the nation to stop treating India as the country’s biggest enemy. Now, he wants military dictators as well as the generals and judges who supported them to be brought to justice.

This is all too painful to the ears of his previous masters, especially the part about India - a major shock for the anti-India hawks perched in Pindi. The tiger is headed straight for the serpent’s lair. Mr Sharif is taking on an adversary that has never been defeated before – on a domestic level, that is. Good luck to him... he will need it.

Intolerable utterances

We are fed up with intolerable utterances. It wasn’t a rosy picture before, but after al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden’s death, it has become worse. In fact, it has become chaotic. The latest of such has come from the prime minister. Speaking to the parliament, he rejected allegations that government authorities were either hiding the al Qaeda chief or simply too incompetent to locate him and said that he has ordered a joint investigation into how bin Laden was able to live undetected in Abbottabad for such a long time. Army and civilian investigation officers will be used for this probe. Even more hurtful to the ears was Opposition Leader in the National Assembly Chaudhry Nisar’s response that the prime minister has failed to satisfy the nation and he is to blame for the failure of the intelligence agencies.
Does the probe into how bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan for so long stand any chance of success if we are to think that the our intelligence agencies, which we have come to believe have knowledge of almost everything under the sky in the country, were so incapable that they couldn’t locate him for years even though he lived right under their nose.
The investigation is nothing but a move to satisfy the US, which, by the way, has given a clean chit to the Pakistani government just a day earlier. The US national security adviser said that the Obama administration has seen no evidence that Pakistan’s leadership knew bin Laden was living in that country before his killing last week. However, the US president called upon the Pakistani government to probe the “support network” for the al Qaeda leader in the country.
So it can be imagined where the probe would be headed. As for Mr Nisar’s criticism just for the sake of criticism, it makes no sense to begin with. Why should the prime minister be blamed for the intelligence agencies’ failure? If Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz chief Nawaz Sharif can be kept in dark before the Kargil mess was started, why is it different in Mr Gilani’s case. All this nonsensical noise is maddening, but the masses still have to put up with it.