HOW will history judge Gen Kayani? Will he be remembered as a great army chief who was the soldiers’ soldier and improved the terms of service of the lower ranks? Will he be remembered as a great general who prevented Pakistan from going over the precipice while caught in the eye of the storm? Will he be remembered as a leader who resisted the temptation to launch a coup while confronted with sickly democracy and patiently steered civil-military relations in the right direction?

Gen Kayani comes across as an affable man. He seems to be someone who understands nuance and the grey in life. He reads and is thus better than those who don’t. He comprehends what he reads and this qualifies him as a thoughtful man. He understands that silence is mostly golden and that timing is almost everything in life. These two traits have served his personal career faithfully. But is it a curse of our times that thoughtfulness, self-serving expediency and a record of inflicting less harm than possible now define leadership?

Being lucky is often explained as being at the right place at the right time. By that definition Gen Kayani is one lucky man. He came to power when the rot created by Musharraf had begun to nauseate even the khakis. He was a breath of fresh air merely by virtue of being the one who pushed Musharraf into the wilderness. And he stayed in power at a time when the measure of his leadership was whether he was better or worse than Asif Zardari. So will Gen Kayani be remembered kindly by history because he was the lesser evil of his time?

Gen Kayani was appointed DG ISI in October 2004 and after three years he succeeded Musharraf as army chief in November 2007. In other words, Gen Kayani has been at the helm in our country at least since 2004 (even if not before as Corps Commander X Corps and DGMO) and a major actor in all that has transpired since. Let us take stock of his contribution to making Pakistan a more secure place, the institutional values that he cultivated within the army as its head, and his role in strengthening the rule of law and democracy.

Let us start with the bottom line. Are we better placed to confront threats to our national security — whether external or internal — today as opposed to when Gen Kayani first arrived on the horizon nearly a decade ago? There is general agreement that TTP-led terrorism poses an existential threat to our state and society now more than ever. This threat has steadily grown over the years. Is it good enough for Gen Kayani, who has effectively presided over our national security apparatus for years, to lay all blame for the lack of an anti-terrorism policy on blundering civilians?

The army did a great job in Swat. But if the idea was to deny militants their own emirates within Pakistan and clean out sanctuaries, why was North Waziristan not reclaimed after South? If non-state actors have become the bane of our security, why has the possibility of their use in future still not been banished from our national security mindset? In other words, if a flawed national security policy nurtured the monster of terrorism within Pakistan over the last three decades, how has such policy been reviewed and revised under Gen Kayani’s leadership?

And what about security and intelligence failures under Gen Kayani? The most ignominious catastrophes that come to mind include the GHQ attack in 2009, the US operation against Osama bin Laden in 2011, and the US-Nato Salala attack that claimed 24 Pakistani soldiers’ lives also in 2011. What are the two things common to all three? One, no one was ever held accountable for the colossal failures that shook public faith in the ability of the state to protect itself. And two, the most benevolent explanation for each was that we are incompetent not complicit.

Our armed forces appear more disciplined and efficient in a comparison between civil and military institutions. The reason for this relative efficiency is explained as being twofold: military promotions are on merit; and individuals are held to account for their acts and omissions. The latter rule might produce unjust results at times: the fate of an officer is sealed if he loses men under his command or presides over a failure even when not personally at fault. The message is simple: the commander is responsible for whatever transpires under his watch.

Has accountability as an institutional value been strengthened by Gen Kayani? Did he not promote the officer in charge of GHQ’s security when it was attacked in 2009? Did he not defend Gen Pasha when the country was aghast at the failure of our intelligence and security apparatus to either spot Bin Laden in the country or a foreign country carrying out a military operation across from the Pakistan Military Academy? Gen Kayani might have cultivated a new khaki tradition for the high command: whenever you falter or fail, it is someone else’s fault.

Gen Kayani mastered the art of projecting how he might have been in power but not responsible for any of the bad. Was he not DG ISI when Lal Masjid erupted a stone’s throw away from his Abpara office? Was he not in play as interlocutor in the NRO deal between Benazir Bhutto and Musharraf? If the judges were eventually restored in 2009 on his order, why did he stay mum on March 9, 2007, when the chief justice was first ousted, on Nov 3, 2007 when emergency-plus was imposed and judges arrested, or thereafter for almost two years?

Gen Kayani accepted a three-year extension against army tradition, losing respect of many he led, supposedly to rescue Pakistan from its national security nightmare. Three years later he has little to show for himself. If history deems Gen Kayani worth remembering at all, it should be as the status quo general who had a tremendous sense of timing and effectively transformed the monumental crises confronting his country into an opportunity for personal advancement for himself.

The writer is a lawyer.

sattar@post.harvard.edu

Twitter:@babar_sattar