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." According to reports now appearing in the media the decision was not taken in consultation with defence authorities, which caused "great concern among the army and other defence organs." Moreover, Director-General of Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Major General Athar Abbas said the army chief and other defence authorities had not been taken into confidence on the issue. The constitutional question clearly is not of "consultations" but of legal authority. Did the civilian government have the legal power to do what it did? The answer is plainly in the affirmative. Thus it explains ipso facto the myth of the transfer of real power to the elected government and the reality. Perhaps mindful of these difficult questions relating to the realpolitik of the Pakistani situation, the ISPR head went to some lengths to offer what are demonstrably meek explanations of this volte farce by the civilian set-up presently in control of the administration in Islamabad. "Although there is an ongoing debate that there should be close coordination between all intelligence agencies, placing ISI under the direct control of the interior division was never discussed. When we realised that the decision had been taken, we discussed the issue with the government and are thankful that there was a realisation of ground realities and our position was accepted," the ISPR chief said. General Abbas further strangely added that the ISI was a "huge organisation" and the interior ministry could not handled its financial, administrative and operational affairs. Why not? Is not the government designed to deal with such necessities of governance? Nevertheless to support his perspective about "autonomy" of the spy agency ISPR spokesman cited examples of various global intelligence systems, including the leading British agency, and said, "In Britain, MI-5 looks after domestic intelligence gathering while MI-6 looks after external affairs. Similarly, India's RAW is responsible for external intelligence while CBI looks after domestic security matters, but in both the models, the spy agencies report to the chief executives (prime ministers)." Like the "British and the Indian models, the ISI also had a mandate to provide intelligence on domestic and strategic, external and defence-oriented affairs." It is unimportant if this is factually correct; what is relevant is that now we know what the army feels about its major institution through which it conducts its premier domestic and external intelligence operations. Historically in 1990, the first PPP government had made a similar attempt to take over completely the powers of this agency from the army but when the then PM was informed about the "ground realities" she agreed that the agency should be allowed to continue to work under its previous command. This chain of command system is that though officially the working of this agency is under the Premier, by virtue of the fact that mostly it is staffed by officers from armed forces, the COAS has the ultimate say in its operation and data collection mechanism. My research conducted recently for the Carnegie Institute for International Peace in Washington indicates that the Directorate for ISI was founded in 1948 by a British army officer, Major General R Cawthome, then Deputy Chief of Staff in Pakistan Army. It was a set-up and created by the collective presence of the various segments of the armed forces of the country. Field Marshal Ayub Khan, the President of Pakistan in 1950s, expanded the role of ISI in safeguarding Pakistan's interests, monitoring opposition politicians, and sustaining military rule in Pakistan. After Ayub, Bhutto too followed the same course. During the early 70s, the ISI officially was only mandated to look after the country's external security but Prime Minister Zulfikar Bhutto continued the internal security operations of this spy agency in its mission with a focus on politicians. Coming back to the original subject reports revealed that an important PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar maintained that he did not know at what level the earlier decision had been taken. "I think a miscommunication had led to the mess," said Baber. However, he candidly admitted and warned "that the government's credibility was at stake; the government must clarify at what level the earlier decision had been taken and why it had been withdrawn." Meanwhile, General (retd) Hamid Gul, a former chief of ISI, said, "The earlier decision was merely a bid to please the superpowers without realising that it would only serve the interests of the enemies. I must give full praise to the government's move to keep the ISI under the prime minister's control." General Gul, however, stressed the need for establishing a "proper secretariat to collect information and ensure coordination among all spy agencies." The present government's abortive attempt was with view to convert ISI into a partisan political instrument under its political control; at the same time the devised strategy was to divest it from the control of the armed forces and the COAS. The government's retraction on the ISI issue clearly indicated how serious the tussle for power between co-chairman, his PM and the "extra-parliamentary forces" had turned into. The masterful strategy that I referred to was to make the army responsible for this war on the "militants but actually weakening it through the process of attrition and actual losses on the ground to be followed by the American pressures. That policy is still there, but with this sadder eruption of the attempted "coup" against the ISI, there are now reasons for the beleaguered president to act. He can certainly do so under Article 58(2)(b) by dismissing the PPP government. The matter will then go to the Supreme Court and it is not difficult to visualise what the outcome would be. But what prevents President Pervez Musharraf from so is the fear that in the election that would follow would bring in PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif. Would he risk that or is he still safe to stay on course with his NRO deal with a tainted governed that is beholden to him? I think that given our political immaturity, the incumbent president may lose his nerve and act to live beyond the present predicament at least. In this domestic scenario, the beginning of the end has perhaps started. The writer is attorney-at-law (US), barrister-at-law (UK), senior advocate Supreme Court of Pakistan, and professor Harvard University