March
08, 2007
Musharraf Overtly Pressured and
Covertly Remonstrated
By Syed Arif Hussaini
Gen. Pervez Musharraf finds himself now in the
unenviable position of being openly pressured and
privately remonstrated by the US for abandoning
belligerence in favor of reconciliation with the
tribal elders of Waziristan in the tribal belt of
the Frontier Province. Following an agreement with
the elders, Pakistan army has withdrawn from the
area assigning the responsibility of maintaining
peace to the local administration and tribal chiefs.
The latter have undertaken to ensure that the Taliban
and foreign militants will not be allowed to take
refuge in the area.
President Karzai of Afghanistan and some commanders
of NATO and US forces stationed in that country
claim that the Taliban and foreign terrorists have
been taking advantage of the peace deal and using
the area as a sanctuary and the training of guerrilla
fighters. They say that this claim is based on the
intelligence gathered by their drones constantly
surveying the region from the sky and on the reports
of their own and the Afghan government’s human
transmitters.
Pakistani authorities, on the other hand, place
little credence in such reports for want of palpable
evidence. The problem of Taliban, they contend,
is indigenous to Afghanistan and the failure of
Afghan authorities, US and NATO forces to stump
it there is being diverted and diluted by pointing
an accusing finger towards Pakistan.
President Musharraf and his administration stand
firm against religious extremism. Two assassinated
attempts have been made on his life in which he
narrowly escaped. Ayman Zawahiri, deputy head of
Al Qaeda, had issued an edict calling on his followers
to kill Musharraf.
Pakistan has been terrorized by a spate of bomb
blasts since mid-January, one on the heels of another.
The latest occurred in Multan at the time of writing
(March 1) claiming several lives and injuring a
judge and many others.
Persuasion to win the hearts and minds of the people
in vulnerable areas such as Waziristan was considered
a more appropriate strategy than a shoot-out. The
latter was tried over a long period of time and
found wanting in view of the peculiar characteristics
of the concerned people and the lay of the land.
The Afghan authorities and some Western commanders
prefer the resort to force only in dealing with
the miscreants.
This divergence in approach is at the root of the
current crisis of confidence. Gen. Musharraf, who
had been showcased as an exemplary ally of the West
in the war on terror, is now viewed as a suspect
with surreptitious ties to the Islamists!
The MMA, the combine of six religious parties of
Pakistan, on the other hand, do not tire of denigrating
the Musharraf regime for being a puppet in the hands
of the United States. They make no bones of their
sympathy for the Taliban of Afghanistan. These antediluvian
clerics, in the name of Islamization of the society,
want to regress it by more than a millennium. That
is just not practicable, as convincingly shown by
the inefficacy of the retrogressive laws introduced
by Gen. Zia. They just did not work as contemplated.
Some of them affecting the family and women had
to be knocked down recently by the Parliament. In
a ‘globalized’ world, any stream running
against the general tide ceases to exist in no time.
Musharraf and his team comprise modern and progressive
persons. There just cannot be a meeting of minds
with the retrogressive clerics. It is therefore
a grave fallacy to insinuate a covert understanding
between the Mullahs and the government.
The White House, which had all along regarded Gen.
Musharraf as a key ally in the war on terror, has
now signaled its growing impatience with his failure
to crack down on Islamic extremists. Vice President,
Dick Cheney, in his four-hour visit to Islamabad
on Feb. 26 pressed President Musharraf to do more
against the resurgent Taliban. This meant the abnegation
of the peace deals with the elders of Waziristan
and demolition by force of the centers suspected
of serving as havens for the Taliban and members
of al-Qaeda.
Cheney pointed out to Musharraf that the administration
was under new pressure as the Democrats had pushed
through legislation in the House that would end
US military assistance to Islamabad unless Bush
certifies that the Pakistani government is making
all possible efforts to curtail Taliban activity
on its soil. The President has proposed $785 million
in assistance to Pakistan next year, including $300
million in military aid. While the fate of such
legislation in the Senate is uncertain, the administration
is using the possibility of Congressional intervention
as leverage to pressure Musharraf regime to crack
down on militants. He has already deployed no less
than 80 thousand troops to the border area with
Afghanistan and has hundreds of check posts. His
proposal to build a fence all along the border and
mine portions of it to stop altogether illegal crossings,
has been vehemently opposed by the Afghan authorities.
He contends that terrorism is not a problem peculiar
to any country, as it is a worldwide phenomenon.
The entire international community will have to
make concerted efforts to eliminate the menace.
The blame game makes no sense and merely creates
cracks in our ranks.
In the one-hour one-on-one meeting between Cheney
and Musharraf some understandings are likely to
have developed. Actions will show this. Musharraf
is likely to increase, to begin with, the troops
patrolling the crucial border areas between Waziristan
and Afghanistan.
While Mr. Cheney was still on his mission, Britain
announced on February 26 that it was sending 1,400
more troops to Afghanistan where NATO has placed
about 33,000 soldiers. The Bush administration has
also announced that it is sending an additional
3.200 US troops to help blunt Taliban’s expected
spring offensive.
A foretaste of this came in the audacious suicide
bomb attack on February 27 at the gate of the main
American base at Bagram near Kabul. Dick Cheney
was at the base when the blast killed 23 and injured
as many. Taliban made it known that the target of
the attack was Cheney himself but the suicide bomber
could not penetrate the security cordon. The blast
is reported to have occurred a mile from where Cheney
was staying ensconced in formidable security.
Significantly, almost at the same time, Pakistan’s
security forces captured in Quetta, Mullah Obaidullah
Akhund, deputy to the elusive Taliban chief, Mullah
Muhammad Omar. He carried a $1 million reward and
is considered the most senior Taliban figure captured
since the end of Taliban power in November 2001.
He was the Defense Minister in Taliban regime. Some
other senior Taliban commanders were also captured
with Akhund.
The problem of the insurgency in Afghanistan can
and should be tackled through negotiations. The
failure in Iraq to seek a solution through the barrel
of the gun is lesson enough for any policy-maker.
The success of negotiations in tackling the nuclear
issue involving North Korea is another precedent
to be seriously taken into account. US refusal to
talk to Iran will, one hopes, give way to talks
in conjunction with Syria, Iraq and other neighboring
countries.
There is hardly any military solution to an essentially
political and diplomatic problem. Afghanistan might
not fall totally in this category but it is not
a solely military problem either. Had saner counsels
prevailed in the US corridors of power, after the
Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, the situation
would have been entirely different today. The US
abandoned Afghanistan and turned its focus on Iraq.
The folly of that shortsighted policy is now acknowledged
in the US by almost all concerned.
It would be no less a folly now to destabilize Musharraf
regime by withholding aid and support to him. He
is waging a war against religious obscurantism in
his own country. And, he is doing this from firm
conviction and not to please the US or any other
country. For a military man, he has shown a lot
of foresight and patience in seeking the cooperation
of the elders of Waziristan. It would be advisable
to let him pursue his vision instead of pressuring
him to don the mantel of John Wayne.
arifhussaini@hotmail.com
