https://www.scribd.com/document/91535583/Pakistan-a-Personal...
After the 1971, the establishment went into the deepest crisis, and went on a route of soul searching.
Yahya booted, Bhutto hanged, Zia crashed — basically, 20 years have gone to waste.
Taliban has not yet been called that way. Siachen misadventure made military even more unpopular. First genuine heavyweight civilian politicians came into power.
The military establishment truly fought for its survival, and a new raison d'etre. And here, conveniently, the FATA experiment lets to know of itself again.
Just like Pakistan itself, FATA started as a kind of semi-useful colonial appendage, and an experiment. Imprisoned by geography and damned by history, as the cliche says.
Just like a runaway lab experiment, Taliban really took off outside of its FATA petri dish — behind the Durand line.
For some time it looked that the future of the country was still hanging in balance. Military was big, but its influence on retreat, yet the new era civilian politicians were not yet fully in power, despite doing big strides.
It's been less than a decade since Zia died, but two newly minted civilian fractions of power were already at each others' neck. Then, 14th amendment happened, and it was that chink in the armour which the old establishment has seized on.
Musharaf period. Musharaf's putsch was truly the Swan's Song of the old regime, and the last desperate attempt at return to power after the Kargil fiasco. 9.11 been truly a blessing to both Musharaf, and then Zardari, and prolonged this interregnum by at least a decade.
This interregnum has nevertheless ended, and the military has since never been able to intervene into politics directly. Since then, there been few abducted journalists here, and there, few bribed MPs, but so far nothing really signifying a direct challenge to the civilian government. Most of officers who seen Zia's era are close to retirement now, or already died.