AP Photo

The brief but dramatic late night announcement on July 22 by Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani that the army chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, would be accorded an extension beyond November 29, 2010 when he was due to retire was not unexpected. But the length of the extension, a full three years, definitely was. However, given the power of the office and the profile of the incumbent, slim dissent in Pakistan has been muted and couched in polite platitude.

The centrality of the army, the 'fauj', in the power grid of Pakistan has never been in doubt since the bloody birth of the state in August 1947. General Ayub Khan, the first Pakistani army chief, received his four-year extension in January 1955 from the fragile civilian dispensation...