Mosul recapture

EditorialJuly 12, 2017

AFTER a gruelling (exhausting) military campaign,

Iraqs second largest city of Mosul has been
retaken by the government. On Monday, Iraqi
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared that the
liberation of Mosul was complete three years
after this historic city had been overrun by the
hordes (gangs) of the militant Islamic State group.
However, the pictures emerging from Mosul are
ones of devastation, showing a grey landscape
filled with rubble and debris. The human toll has
been even greater, with hundreds of thousands of
Mosuls people displaced, while hundreds have
been killed either by IS militants or in the
crossfire. Of course, Mosuls recapture is highly
symbolic as it is a major urban centre, while it was
in the citys Nuri mosque now reduced to rubble
that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared his
caliphate. However, while the caliphate may be
falling apart, ISs ability to cause havoc remains
considerable. Observers are of the view that the
terrorist outfit may increase its guerrilla tactics
after losing Mosul, while it also retains territory
elsewhere in Iraq.
Apart from consolidating its gains against IS, the
government in Baghdad should work towards
ensuring that Mosul is rehabilitated at the earliest.
Part of this rehabilitation must, of course,
encompass the rebuilding of infrastructure and
institutions. However, the Iraqi state must also
ensure that communal relations are handled
carefully. Mosul is a Sunni-majority city, while
much of the Iraqi army consists of Shia troops. The
militias that supported the army in recapturing
Mosul are also almost entirely Shia. The
government must ensure that there are no
revenge attacks and that steps are taken to
promote harmony among Mosuls different
communities. The militants of IS had in the past
exploited communal differences to pit various
groups against each other. They must not be given
this chance again, which is why the state must
work to build bridges between communities as part
of the rehabilitation of Mosul.
Published in Dawn, July 12th, 2017

Lal Masjid siege

EditorialJuly 12, 2017

TEN years ago today, militancy in Pakistan took a

darker and more ominous turn. On July 12, 2007,
the armys siege of the Lal Masjid religious
complex in Islamabad exploded into a pitched
battle that lasted several hours. The encounter,
which saw commandos storming the complex and
fighting heavily armed militants from room to
room, left at least 100 insurgents dead, including
Lal Masjids charismatic deputy imam Abdul
Rashid Ghazi, and claimed the lives of 11 armed
forces personnel. Aided by a huge stockpile of
weapons inside, the long stand-off and the bloody
denouement illustrated the tenacity of anti-state
elements determined to fight to the death. The
conclusion of the assault also brought to an end
the moral vigilantism unleashed by Lal Masjids
vice squads across the capital.
On the face of it, Operation Sunrise was a triumph
for the state, a demonstration of its fearsome
power. Soon enough though, it became clear that it
was more of a pyrrhic victory for the state, but an
enduring one for the militants. A mishandled
operation that resulted in a large number of
fatalities, the siege proved to be a propaganda coup
for the militants. Instead of being a deterrent, it
catalysed violent extremists already in revolt
against the state following what they saw as a
betrayal of the jihadist cause after 9/11 to unite
under the umbrella of the Tehreek-i-Taliban
Pakistan. Terrorist attacks, particularly suicide
bombings, saw a marked escalation. Now that a
decade has passed, and kinetic operations have
dismantled much of the militant infrastructure, it
is time to reflect upon what lessons have been
learnt. After all, the siege was not inevitable: it
need not have come to pass had the state not
winked at radical elements establishing a
stronghold in the very heart of Pakistans capital. It
acted belatedly after the situation had spiralled out
of control. However, even today, many madressahs
are run by religious organisations whose allegiance
to extremist ideologies should be cause for concern
some of them are even on the interior ministrys
watch list. Resisting government oversight, they
cultivate in their students the same radical
mindset that has already proven so costly for the
nation. And even though Lal Masjids Shuhada
Foundation was rightly denied permission to hold
a remembrance ceremony for the martyrs of the
siege, it illustrates how the ultra right continues to
push the boundaries. The question is: are we
pushing back hard enough?
Published in Dawn, July 12th, 2017

Mr Prime Minister, step aside

EditorialJuly 12, 2017
WHATEVER the law may permit, Prime Minister
Nawaz Sharif must do the right thing by
democracy and step aside, at least temporarily.
The JIT report submitted to the Supreme Court
has now been pored over by experts, politicians
and citizens alike. It is not a perfect report and the
PML-N has already raised some important
objections that will eventually have to be
addressed by the court. But the JIT report has laid
out a number of very serious and specific
allegations against Prime Minister Sharif and his
children. Simply, no democratic order ought to
have a prime minister operating under such a dark
cloud of suspicion. The PML-N may urge Mr Sharif
to stay in office and Mr Sharif may be tempted to
hunker down and fight, but the toll on democracy
would be too great. The prime minister has a clear
alternative: step aside, fight whatever charges are
brought against him or his children in court and, if
he is eventually cleared of the charges, he can seek
a return to office as the law permits.
To be sure, stepping aside now would not be an
admission of guilt. It would, in fact, be a necessary
sacrifice for the protection and strengthening of
the democratic order. The country does not need
and cannot afford the distraction of an incumbent
prime minister fighting corruption charges in the
courts. Moreover, with the JIT report now public,
the principal PML-N allegation that the Panama
Papers investigation is nothing more than a witch-
hunt stands significantly diminished. Anti-
democratic forces may exist in the country and
they may wish Mr Sharif ill, but none of that
prevented Mr Sharif and his family from providing
evidence to the JIT that would corroborate the
familys claims. The JIT conducted its entire
investigation while the political stakes were crystal
clear to the country and to the Sharifs themselves.
Surely, the Sharif family should have gone the
extra mile to provide evidence and explanations to
the satisfaction of a reasonable investigation. As
the JIT report makes clear, the Sharifs have not
done so.
The other option would be for Mr Sharif to call a
snap election. If Mr Sharifs case is sent to the
National Accountability Bureau, the presence of a
caretaker government would dispel concerns of a
manipulated process, NAB being prone to intense
interference by the executive. A fair but expedited
accountability process would allow Mr Sharif to
contest the next election without a cloud of
suspicion hanging over him and his family,
assuming a NAB process clears the family.
Whichever option Mr Sharif chooses, it should be
clear that the status quo is not an option. A prime
minister preoccupied with fighting corruption
charges is a prime minister no democratic polity
deserves. Mr Sharif may have his doubts about the
fairness of the system, but the system has doubts
about him. The system must prevail over the
personal.
Published in Dawn, July 12th, 2017

End of the Sharif era?

Zahid HussainJuly 12, 2017
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The writer is an author and journalist.
FOR a sitting prime minister, there could not have
been a more damning indictment. The report of
the joint investigation team (JIT) has charged the
Sharif family on several counts from perjury and
faking documents to hiding their sources of wealth
and living beyond their means. Predictably, Nawaz
Sharif has refused to bow out and has vowed to
take the battle to the end. Now it is left to the
Supreme Court to decide his fate.
One is not quite sure how long it will take to wind
up the case. But it is certainly going to be a messy
endgame with the possibility of the third-term
prime minister having to stand trial on criminal
charges and being ousted by the court. The
ensuing legal battle may drag on for long thus
further deepening the political polarisation in the
country. The outcome of this historical judicial
action is bound to completely change the political
dynamics and may well be the beginning of the end
of the Sharif era.
Another shock for Sharif is that the JIT report has
also alleged that his daughter Maryam Nawaz, who
has long been groomed as his heir apparent, has
falsified documents. This may have doomed the
familys plan for the transition of power to the
second generation to failure. It was evident that
such a detailed investigation into the familys
foreign assets had caught the prime minister by
surprise.
Although the government had sensed the
seriousness of the investigation at the end, it still
appeared confident that at least the prime minister
would scrape through with only some burn marks.
A story published in a national daily on July 10,
hours before the submission of the JIT report to
the Supreme Court, and headlined to the effect
that the investigation didnt find the prime
minister guilty, in fact reflected the governments
miscalculation. The government had certainly not
expected such a sweeping indictment that has left
the countrys most powerful political leader
politically and morally damaged.
 Although he appears defiant, the options for the
prime minister are now limited.
Such a comprehensive probe into intricate
financial deals spanning over almost three decades
by a small team cobbled together from various
departments, many of the members believed to
have little experience of investigating white-collar
crime, in just 60 days is astonishing. The gathering
and verification of information from government-
controlled financial institutions against a sitting
prime minister of a country where the rich and
powerful appear to enjoy immunity from the law is
by no means an easy task.
Surely the backing of the countrys apex court may
have been one of the factors. But this kind of probe
could not have been possible without the clout of
the members of the military intelligence agencies
represented in the JIT. Understandably, their
inclusion had raised many eyebrows and fuelled
conspiracy theories about the military
establishment being actively behind the
investigation into the Panama scandal. Even the
FIA developed some spine to nab the chairman of
the Securities and Exchange Commission of
Pakistan for alleged tampering with the records of
companies owned by the Sharif family.
Considering the low level of competence and
expertise of our investigation agencies it is indeed
remarkable that a major part of the JIT probe
involved intricate foreign financial transactions
that had taken place over the years through the
offshore companies owned by the Sharif family.
Surely, the earlier investigations conducted by the
FIA some two decades ago may have provided
some important links, but the JIT probe was able
to gather some substantive evidence to connect the
dots.
It was made possible by the effective collaboration
of some other countries including Britain and the
UAE under a mutual legal cooperation agreement.
That helped the investigators get access to some
critical information establishing Maryams
ownership of the offshore companies that the
family had long denied.
Indeed, the record of communications between the
offshore companies, foreign banks and the Sharif
family helped fill the gaps. The detail of the
cooperation is apparently in the 10th volume of the
JIT report that has not been made public. Some
foreign private investigative agencies hired by the
JIT also helped to collect forensic evidence of
alleged forgery of the documents. Such expertise
was not available at home.
With such substantive evidence produced by the
JIT, it seems difficult for the prime minister and
his family to extricate themselves from the mess.
They had perhaps hoped that a prolonged legal
and political battle could salvage the situation.
There is no indication of the prime minister
stepping down voluntarily which has increased
political uncertainty in the country.
That has stalled any hope of an early end to the
crisis triggered by the leaked Panama Papers more
than one year ago. The issue could have been
resolved much earlier had the government agreed
to an investigation into the matter in parliament. It
was hubris that finally led to the intervention of
the apex court.
Sharifs fate has hung in the balance since the
ruling of the five-member bench in May this year.
Although he narrowly escaped disqualification, the
formation of the JIT indicated that he was not out
of the woods. Interestingly, the mandate given to
the JIT went far beyond the original petitions of
several political leaders.
Although he appears defiant, the options for Sharif
are now limited. He may still stay prime minister
until the court ruling, but he has already lost
political and moral authority. Any confrontation
would not only be disastrous for the government
but also for the democratic political process.
Confronted with serious domestic and external
challenges, the country cannot afford worsening
political uncertainty and instability.
The PML-N can still survive in power and
complete its five-year term by electing a new
leader and prepare for the next elections that are
only months away. That is the only way that the
political uncertainty can end.
Democracy is not about personal power. More
important is for the democratic political process to
continue. A tainted leader can neither provide
stability to the country nor lead his party into the
next elections successfully. The delay in decision
can only doom chances of a return to power. The
prime minister must realise that it is the end of the
road for him.
The writer is an author and journalist.
zhussain100@yahoo.com
Published in Dawn, July 12th, 2017

Women qazis in India

Rafia ZakariaJuly 12, 2017
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The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional law and
political philosophy.
SHE is one of the very first. This summer Jehanara
Begum, a woman from Rajasthan, and 15 other
Muslim women will become some of the first
female qazis or Islamic judges in India. They
will have taken part in a two-year programme at
the Darul Uloom Niswan, an institution in
Mumbai that has begun to train Muslim women
from all around the country. Following graduation,
the women will return to various areas and begin
to fulfil their duties as qazis.
It has not, of course, been an easy road. Muslim
women in India have been advocating for female
qazis for a while. The issue came into the spotlight
in 2008, when a Muslim woman activist named
Naish Hasan got a well-known Indian Muslim
female scholar named Syeda Hameed to solemnise
her marriage.
Expectedly, controversy ensued, splitting Indias
already beleaguered Muslim community into two.
The All India Muslim Personal Law Board did not
approve, declaring that female qazis were not
permitted in Islam and could not be appointed.
Not everyone agreed; Tahir Mahmood, a former
member of the Law Commission of India, which
oversees adjudication over Muslim personal law,
disagreed, as did the Darul Uloom Deoband. He,
along with many women activists, insisted that
there was nothing in the sacred texts that
prevented women from becoming qazis.
And so it was that in 2016 the All India Muslim
Womens Personal Law Board appointed two
women, Hena Zaheer and Maria Fazal, as city qazis
(shahar qazis) for Kanpur. There was a catch,
however: their roles would, for the time being, be
limited to arbitration and counselling, for fear of
upsetting the conservative (and male) qazis
already working in the city.
Trained not only to arbitrate and counsel but also
to perform marriages, these women are likely to
 change the landscape of Muslim womens
encounter with personal laws.
That was last year and this year a whole slew of
new qazis, like Jehanara Begum, will return to
Indian cities, trained not only to arbitrate and
counsel community members but also to perform
marriages. It is likely to change the entire
landscape of Muslim womens encounter with
Muslim personal laws.
Some of the answers can be found in Jehanara
Begums own story. Her husband regularly beat
her, threatening her mother and asking whether
she wanted her daughter back alive or as a corpse.
When Jehanara turned to the qazi in her
community, a man, he refused to help her get her
rights and told her to bear it.
Unable to endure the brutality of her married life,
Jehanara left and never went back. Without the
support of the qazi, she was unable to get any of
her rights, such as the 15 grams of gold promised
to her in her nikahnama. Even though they live in
the same city, Jehanara Begum has been unable to
see her children.
The idea that the nikahnama can be a document
that ensures that women get equal rights and just
treatment during the marriage, and the right to
divorce and to various marital assets if it dissolves,
is not a new one. But as Jehanara Begums case
and scores of others highlight, this is easier said
than done.
The new batch of female qazis insists that they will
follow the requirements of Muslim personal law
that are often overlooked by male qazis, demand
documents to show the grooms qualifications,
proof of his income, and ask for divorce certificates
if they say they are divorced and death certificates
if they say their wife has died. Moreover, given that
there are women like Jehanara Begum among
them, they will make sure that they never tell an
abused woman to bear it when she comes to them
for help.
At the same time, the issue of female qazis imputes
issues that are larger than the internal squabbles of
the Indian Muslim community. While the larger
rhetoric of training and appointing Muslim women
qazis is being presented by the Indian state and
non-Muslim proponents of the move as a
testament to its commitment to minority rights,
this is not exactly true.
Even as these Muslim women get trained and
appointed qazis in their communities, others are
suffering from the scourge of violence against
Muslims that has become endemic in Modis India.
Recently, after a 100-man-strong mob lynched a
Muslim man named Alimuddin in Jharkhand, a
large group of Muslim women gathered and
threatened to take up arms to defend their men.
Mob violence, one speaker declared into the mic,
should be answered by mob violence.
The statement points to why a great initiative, the
empowerment of Indian Muslim women, could be
robbed of some of its positive impact because of
the rest of the Indian institutions failure to protect
Indian Muslims. In a besieged community where
all Indian Muslims, men and women, are being
lynched and persecuted, treated as lesser Indians
and unqualified citizens, a siege mentality is
increasingly more likely to prevail. The
consequence of this sort of thinking, the recourse
of many small persecuted groups, creates more
challenges to Muslim women qazis being accepted
and supported by Indian Muslims.
The problems of Indian Muslim women are all too
familiar to Pakistani women. It is notable,
however, that despite the fact that Islam is the
dominant religion of Pakistan, no organised effort
to train and appoint female qazis is in evidence.
Without the pressure of being a minority faith,
female qazis in Pakistan could transform the way
women see their rights and options within the
marital relationship. In not having to turn to male
qazis, always eager to tell women to bear it,
Pakistani women many of them suffering under
the same cruelties that plagued Jehanara Begum
could see the gender revolution they have been
waiting for.
The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional
law and political philosophy.
rafia.zakaria@gmail.com
Published in Dawn, July 12th, 2017

Photo ops
S. Akbar ZaidiJuly 12, 2017
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The writer is a Karachi-based political economist.
IT is quite clear that Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa,
chief of the army staff, is a great fan of football and
of Ronaldinho, as well as of many other retired
football players from around the world. Their
photographs with him have been printed in every
newspaper often on the front page otherwise
why would he have met these so-called
international stars and hosted a reception in their
honour?
Gen Bajwa, is also, clearly, a cricket aficionado, for
why else would he have met Pakistans winning
cricket team whose photograph with the COAS was
also plastered across newspapers in Pakistan,
again boldly on the front page in many. In his
meeting with the footballers, he stated that
Pakistan was a peace- and sports-loving nation,
and who better than the COAS to bridge both ends
of the peace and sports divide.
There are many detractors who would argue that
such photo ops are building a negative image of
Pakistan now that it is a democracy. Yet, one ought
to accept the huge contribution the military makes
to Pakistans sports. The famous Misbah salute at
Lords last year was public recognition of how
much the army helped Pakistan win that Lords
test. Neither Misbah nor Yasir Shah would have
played as well as they did had the military not
helped them with their training and their game.
Just a few days before he retired, photographs
published in many newspapers showed former
army chief Gen Raheel Sharif inaugurating a
cricket stadium in Khyber Agency along with
Shahid Afridi, where the latter tweeted: It is an
honour and a privilege to inaugurate a stadium in
Khyber Agency with COAS Raheel Sharif. You are
Pakistans hero and my hero too. Such images
only show how central Pakistans army is to
developing sport in the country, and the results,
after the victory in the Champions Trophy, confirm
that they have clearly been stellar. Photographs
with the COAS promoting cricket (or football) are
clearly good for the future of sport in Pakistan.
We can even sometimes have a civilian opinion on
a pressing issue.
It is not just the love of sports and peace, cricket or
football, which makes front-page photo news in
Pakistan, but numerous newspapers carry an
ISPR-released photograph of the corps
commanders meetings whenever they are held.
Not infrequently, there is extensive news coverage
about promotions and appointments regarding
senior military personnel, not just in the army, but
also in the navy and air force. Many Pakistanis
must surely follow such events very closely,
wanting to know who all have been promoted to
air vice-marshal, or are to be one of the many new
generals. Such information is important to many,
even though some Pakistanis might insist that
Pakistan is now a democracy.
While civilian politicians are left with mundane
tasks such as inaugurating motorways or power
plants, the real business of the state has been left
to the military, that of building peace, sometimes
with the help of sports. There is extensive coverage
in the electronic and print media in Pakistan about
the numerous official visits made by whoever the
COAS is in Pakistan, to different capitals around
the world to meet their counterparts.
Similarly, foreign delegations are shown meeting
senior military men who brief our guests about
Pakistans security situation. With ISPRs
aggressive use of social media, no one can avoid
the numerous important pronouncements made by
Pakistans best military minds. In this day of
information technology, it is essential to be
constantly informed lest we miss something of
particular significance.
It is possible that in many countries which have a
large military, the lay public, or even analysts and
newspaper contributors, are often not even aware
of who their commander-in-chief or chief of the
army is, leave alone what the military
establishments thinking about a national issue
really is. Not so in Pakistan. We are fortunate to be
well informed about most critical issues, and we
can even sometimes have a civilian opinion on a
pressing political or security issue, such as
Pakistans foreign or peaceful nuclear policies.
Those of us who follow the media closely in order
to understand what is really going on in Pakistan,
know that military opinions matter much more for
us to understand the Pakistani states policy
regarding a particular matter. Where would we be
without ISPRs active use of social media?
Given the importance and influence of such photo
ops with the COAS or the pronouncements of the
ISPR, one hopes that the military and its
institutions will begin to play a far more active role
in forming public opinion and in policy
formulation in Pakistan, for they can only do good.
After the successful transformation of our cricket
team, perhaps we are on the verge of seeing
Pakistan seriously compete for a place in footballs
next World Cup.
The writer is a Karachi-based political economist.
Published in Dawn, July 12th, 2017

Playground bullies
Mahir AliJuly 12, 2017
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mahir.dawn@gmail.com
NORTH Koreas deliberately provocative firing of
an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) last
week has been billed as the most dangerous
juncture in international relations since the Cuban
Missile Crisis 55 years ago.
Thats largely hyperbole, but to the extent that
there is some veracity in the claim, it may have less
to do with the troubling mindset in Pyongyang
than with the policy incoherence that has
accompanied Donald Trump into the White
House.
Back in 1962, John F. Kennedy held back his
belligerent generals from attacking Cuba, which in
all likelihood would have sparked a nuclear
exchange with the Soviet Union, while he pursued
back-channel contacts with Nikita Khrushchev.
The strategy worked. Although Kennedy
subsequently lost his life and Khrushchev his job
in what were, in all probability, related
developments, they succeeded in averting what
might have turned into the third world war.
This time, hopes hang on the prospect of US
generals holding back their president from
potentially disastrous misadventures, rather than
the other way around. One can only hope there are
roughly equivalent grown-ups in North Korea
keeping an eye on how far their nation can go
without becoming a party to unleashing
Armageddon.
One would hesitate to place Kim and Trump in
the same room.
The image of Trump and his North Korean
counterpart, Kim Jong-un, as recalcitrant toddlers
with eccentric hairstyles, twiddling with lethal
knobs while competing for title of chief playground
bully, is hard to dismiss. One of them has more
playthings than he could possibly handle. The
other considers his toys crucial to his survival.
During his sojourn in Warsaw last week, where
Trump talked about existential threats to Western
civilisation (without outing himself as the most
potent of them), he also talked up the possibility of
doing some pretty severe things in response to
North Koreas very bad behaviour, but then
added: That doesnt mean we are going to do
them.
On the sidelines of the subsequent G20 summit in
Hamburg, he appears to have broached the issue
with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, whose
country is widely seen in the West as the key to
keeping Kim in check. Just a few days earlier, Xi
and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, had
agreed to pressurise Pyongyang into freezing its
nuclear programme, provided the US abandoned
its military exercises with South Korea and pulled
out from setting up its THAAD anti-missile system
on the Souths border with the North.
Although China ostensibly sustains North Korea as
a vaguely viable state, and there appears to be little
love lost between Xi and Kim, choking off the
lifeline could trigger a collapse with dire
consequences not just for the so-called hermit
kingdom but also its neighbours, China and South
Korea. The latter recently elected a president,
Moon Jae-in, who favours dialogue over
belligerence as a means of resolving differences. In
the present circumstances, though, its hard to
imagine his relatively conciliatory tendencies
bearing fruit in the short term.
A key component of any crisis that emerges in the
region is, of course, the continued US military
presence in a region far from its shores, with large,
seemingly permanent, bases in South Korea and
Japan, among other countries. The 1951-53 Korean
war, which cost millions of Korean lives, ended in a
truce that has never been upgraded to a peace
agreement. Over the decades, there have been
plenty of indications that direct dialogue between
Pyongyang and Washington could conceivably lead
to some kind of closure.
Sure, one would hesitate to place Kim and Trump
in the same room without strict supervision. On
the whole, however, this option should not be
written off until it has been tested. In the
meanwhile, let us hope the US presidents short
memory span and plethora of other distractions
will prevent any precipitate action on Americas
part that could trigger a firestorm on the Korean
Peninsula.
Kim Jong-un evidently sees his nations nuclear
programme as key to his appalling regimes
survival: he could, if push comes to shove, be
persuaded to freeze it, but is unlikely to abandon
it. The fate of leaders who gave up the nuclear
option notably Saddam Hussein and Muammar
Qadhafi remains front of mind in Pyongyang.
And the attitude of the other nuclear powers
towards disarmament, as manifested at the UN
recently, makes it hard to single North Korea out
as a rogue state. Doubts surround its capabilities,
but whatever their potential, Pakistan can lay
claim to some of the blame. North Koreans may or
may not have been familiar with Zulfiqar Ali
Bhuttos declaration that his nation would be
willing to eat grass as long as it went nuclear,
although they appeared to follow its illogic. Their
annals might, however, contain evidence of the
nuclear designs Bhuttos daughter apparently
conveyed to Pyongyang in exchange for missile
technology.
mahir.dawn@gmail.com
Published in Dawn, July 12th, 2017