Pakistan News And Discussion-10

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Mullah-Military triangle </b>
FT.com 
Farrukh Saleem
The real indoctrinators of the doctrine of jihad have now convinced themselves that they are on a divine mission and can thus intrude into the state's monopoly on violence 
 
<b>First vertex:</b> Our political maulanas use Islam as a tool to achieve political objectives. Second vertex:<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'> Our uniformed decision-makers use Islam to achieve strategic objectives across the borders and political objectives within Pakistan.</span> Third vertex: Apolitical maulanas are the real indoctrinators of the doctrine of jihad at the grassroots level.

It’s the three vertices that complete and define the basic operating model in operation for the past three decades. The inverted triangle in effect donates the instable nature of the whole operating model (and the relationships within the model). In essence, there have been three interlocked Principal-Agent relationships; one between our uniformed decision-makers and political maulanas, the second between political maulanas and apolitical maulanas and the third between uniformed decision-makers and apolitical maulanas.

The Principal has been managing the relationships rather well whereby the Principal motivated the Agent to act on behalf of the Principal, the Agent undertook acts that were beneficial to the Principal, the Agent was compensated by the Principal and the Principal maintained the interests of the Principal well-aligned with the interests of the Agent. The Principal determined the nature and scope of work, set performance standards, incurred ‘transaction costs’ and the Agent undertook acts as per the wishes of the Principal (it was thus in the interest of the Principal to strengthen both political as well as apolitical maulanas).

The model had built-in rationality and a socio-cultural context; it worked well and produced results.

Victor Frankenstein’s triangular model was meant to produce a low-cost companion-creature to fight low-intensity battles across the borders and to act as political proxies within. Then came September 11, and that added a whole lot of ‘noise’ into the Principal-Agent relationship. The noise has been getting noisier ever since and some of the Agents have been undertaking acts not specifically authorised or motivated by the Principal. Consequently, some of these acts have been against the interests of the Principal.

The Agency, which the Principal-Agent relationship represents, is falling apart. Some of the Agents have developed incentives to shirk; some have developed ‘goal incongruity’ with the Principal while still other Agents feel capable enough to undertake acts on their own. The Principal is faced with a ‘control’ issue; controlling the Agent both before and after the fact. The Principal is in a state of dilemma.

Political maulanas have a rational strategy to achieve political objectives and always incorporate ‘pay and effort’ into their operating ideology. Political maulanas, while acting as Agents, also take into account the ‘fear of firing’ as well as ‘incentives and sanctions’ to act as per the wishes of the Principal. Apolitical maulanas, on the other hand, are irrational and do not incorporate ‘pay and effort’ into their operating ideology. Neither do they have any ‘fear of firing’ or pay much heed to ‘incentives and sanctions’. The real indoctrinators of the doctrine of jihad have now convinced themselves that they are on a divine mission and can thus intrude into the state’s monopoly on violence. <b>Negotiations with them involving ‘incentives and sanctions’ will never bear fruit.</b>
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