A Smart Coup: Why One Last Military Intervention In Pakistan Remains A Possibility
Editorials, Local, Politics Tuesday, February 16th, 2010… But we are nowhere near that right now. Gen. Kayani certainly has no such thing in mind according to people who have met him.
“This was my first interaction with the soldier who commands the seventh largest military force on the face of the planet.”
With this catchy line, Dr. Farrukh Saleem began his brief and fascinating account of a meeting with General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.
On Feb. 10, 2010, Gen. Kayani met a group of Pakistani commentators and security analysts. The briefing was the third since the military began asserting Pakistan’s legitimate security and strategic interests in Afghanistan and the region.
On January 28 and 29, Gen. Kayani told NATO commanders in Brussels that Pakistan’s legitimate security interests will have to be respected.
Earlier, he told Adm. Mike Mullen, Gen. David Petraeus, and Gen. Stanley McChrystal that instead of worrying about appeasing India, Washington better start paying attention to Pakistan.
This is a major development in the eight-year US-led war in Afghanistan.
At one point, Mr. Saleem makes an interesting observation about Gen. Kayani’s cool demeanor.
“Yes, he has the capacity for abstract thought, cold rationality and coarse creativity – all in one,” he says. “And yet he inhales reconstituted tobacco. Yes, he uses a filter and a cigarette holder. Yes, he never takes deep puffs and, yes, he only consumes half a cigarette at a time.”
At another point, Mr. Saleem makes an interesting use of pun. Talking about the general’s smoking habits, he says the following: ‘He knows that some of the things that he is doing are wrong, but still won’t give them up.’
Probably it’s a polite reference to the conspiracy theories that fill the US and British media, or the Am-Brit media, about Pakistan, its military and its intelligence agencies. So some skepticism is natural.
But the best part of his column in TN International was this concluding paragraph:
“I can tell you that I came back both proud but with a painful realisation; proud knowing that our legions are being led by strategic minds and sad to have discovered the much too visible an intellec
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on Feb 16 2010. Filed under Editorials, Local, Politics.
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