On November 28, 2007, General Pervez Musharraf stepped down as Pakistan’s chief of army staff, handing over a ceremonial baton to his successor, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. For several days now, beginning well before the change of command, Pakistani and international media have speculated about General Kayani’s personality and perceived opinions.

No such personality analysis took place when the United States swore in General George W. Casey, Jr. as the 36th chief of staff of the US army on April 10. Nor was there much speculation when on September 30, the Indian army got its new chief, General Deepak Kapoor.

The US and India’s outgoing chiefs received quiet farewells and their new commanders assumed command without commentary by political analysts and international affairs pundits. Indeed, it is quite likely that most Americans and Indians probably do not even know the names of the incoming generals, or for that matter of their predecessors. Soldiering is a noble profession and its practitioners around the world distinguish themselves on battlefields, away from controversy and the limelight usually attached to politicians.

In Pakistan, the army has been dragged into politics and that has hurt both Pakistan and its army. Field Marshal Ayub Khan first introduced the notion that the army must save Pakistan from its own people with the help of ambitious civilians who were incapable of securing popular support but were good at palace intrigue.

Initially, Ayub Khan called for saving Pakistan from its politicians. Gradually, politically ambitious generals such as Yahya Khan, Zia ul Haq and Pervez Musharraf added to the list of categories of Pakistanis from whom the army had an obligation to save the country. Soldiers have been called upon at different times to save Pakistan from “corrupt civil servants” to “secular and irreligious journalists and professors” and now “irresponsible Supreme Court judges”.

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