Failing masterful ploy: beginning of end

In my last column I had realised that the PPP had played a masterful ploy to neutralise the army and Nawaz Sharif by deployment of extra-ordinary craft tools typical of Byzantine proportions. As that article went to the press and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani left for US the wire services reported that government had issued a notification placing the ISI an IB under the control of the interior ministry. So what?
Ordinarily, this kind of bureaucratic shuffling should not raise any eyebrows. But not in this case. Not only in Pakistan but as far as the US, it shook the entire analytical community that is interested in Pakistan. Why: Because the ISI was only nominally under the official control of the prime minister and actually manned by mostly the officers from the armed forces of Pakistan and thus generally considered being the intelligence apparatus under the overall control of the COAS; this agency, has needless, to add earned quite a reputation for its self.
It is now clear that not only my thesis was correct but that PPP had made this move to ensure that when Prime Minister Gilani met with the President Bush, he could tell that he had genuinely taken over the much dreaded spy agency from the indirect control of the army itself. But since the Islamabad ruling clique had to make a hasty and undignified retreat barely hours after this notification had been issued, everyone thought to be connected with this failed “coup” had to put up some pretence of how they were not connected with this “fiasco”.
Thus on July 30 in Washington Pakistan’s top security point man Rehman Malik said he had absolutely nothing to do with the controversial notification to take over ISI and IB and when he returns to Pakistan he would see that some heads roll immediately for this blunder. According to his explanation, the notification was issued by some bureaucrats who included the name of ISI without getting proper approvals from competent authorities and he would see to it that those responsible were held accountable. However, he refused to answer anything at all on this subject when he was heavily questioned at the Washington’s media centre. Moreover, he added meaningfully that there was absolutely no question of “President Musharraf using 58(2)(b).” How he can answer categorically for Musharraf is only for him to respond!
The retraction of this putative re-organisation came in fewer than 24 hours following reports of extreme tension between various sections of the government and establishment and as a result of intense back-channel efforts. US relevant circles in Washington are of the view that retraction decision was the result of “immense pressure from defence circles” on the civilian set-up. Just hours after placing the ISI under control of the interior ministry, the government’s issuance of another notification saying that the earlier notification had been “misunderstood” and the ISI would “continue to function under the prime minister” revealed the civilian set-up’s lack of vision and about its own authority over national or strategic affairs because the earlier decision appears to be a move to make the prime minister’s adviser on interior the “most powerful” head of the interior division ever.
The feeble explanation given by Islamabad’s bureaucracy, when all concerned were out of the country, that it was a “misunderstanding” is utter nonsense. This move was hailed immediately in Dubai by none other than the PPP supremo himself. Minutes after this “coup” against the spy agency had occurred Zardari is reported to have hailed the decision and termed it a step to save the army from controversies and accusations. According the press he said, “No one will now be able to say that this agency is not under the elected government’s control. The interior ministry will now be able to respond to allegations against the ISI.”