Musharraf
Entrapped in His Own Labyrinth
By Ahmad Faruqui, PhD
Dansville, CA
By
“suspending” the Chief Justice of
the Supreme Court, Musharraf has done to himself
what no one else has been able to do. He has galvanized
the secular opposition in the country and precipitated
an unprecedented domestic crisis. Internationally,
he has created grave doubts that he is serious
about restoring democracy in Pakistan.
The official justification for the action is that
the suspended judge had engaged in misconduct
of an unspecified nature. However, others are
of the view that the chief justice was sacked
because he had been a vocal champion of human
rights and had made it a priority to act against
the wanton disappearance of a large number of
political opponents. The judge had also ruled
against the privatization of the Steel Mills.
Most importantly, he was likely to have ruled
in favor of anyone who challenged Musharraf’s
decision to have himself re-elected by the existing
assemblies.
This event could not have come at a worse time
for the Musharraf regime. It is increasingly isolated
from its patron, the Bush administration. Dick
Cheney’s surprise visit to Islamabad last
month, unexpectedly short and one that did not
feature a customary press conference, was a slap
in Musharraf’s face. During the visit, Cheney
is reported to have told Musharraf that the Democratic
Congress was planning to put tough restrictions
on US aid to Pakistan unless it made rapid progress
in the global war on terror. When a Republican
leader uses the name of the Democratic Party to
get his point across, you know he means business.
As if anticipating this rebuke of his boss’s
policies, Pakistan’s US ambassador, retired
Maj.-Gen. Durrani, protested that if the US were
to withdraw its aid to Pakistan, it would lead
to even more anti-Americanism. And then the general,
who served as Gen. Zia’s military secretary,
dropped a bombshell. He said that were this trend
to continue, Musharraf may be overthrown, hardly
a diplomatic statement.
Of course, the message was not new. Pakistani
officials have been saying that privately to the
White House for a long time. If fact, this has
been the raison d’etre for military rule.
The neo-cons, despite their avowed goals of freedom
and democracy, have accepted Musharraf’s
assertions about enlightened moderation at face
value.
He has presented himself as the lynchpin in the
global war on terror. To prove his credentials,
the general has dutifully “rented out”
his uniformed legions to the US, to use that very
apt expression of Stephen Cohen’s.
On a deeper look, Ambassador Durrani’s statement
amounts to a confession, since it calls into question
Musharraf’s professed economic miracle.
By saying that a withdrawal of economic aid to
Pakistan would trigger a national collapse, he
is essentially conceding what many have argued
in this newspaper: that the bubble is going to
burst whenever America withdraws from Pakistan.
It equally puts the lie to Musharraf’s assertion
that he is the most popular leader in the country.
How likely is an American withdrawal of support?
Much more than it has ever been since Musharraf
came to power. Resolutions are being drafted in
the US Congress that would suspend the delivery
of F-16 fighters to Pakistan if it fails to perform
in the war on terror. US Gen. Pace, the Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs, noted pointedly this week
that Musharraf’s peace making with tribal
elders in Waziristan has failed to stem cross-border
militancy.
Of course, Musharraf has been blamed earlier by
the US for not doing enough. But what is new in
the rhetoric is that he is being blamed not only
for his own failures but also for those of the
Karzai government in Kabul. Senior officials of
the Bush administration, from Dick Cheney on down,
are turning on him in public. Even President Bush,
during his one-day visit to Pakistan last year,
did not exude much warmth.
In January, the US Deputy Secretary of State and
the former director of National Intelligence,
John Negroponte, told a Senate committee that
the leaders of Al Qaeda had found a secure hideout
in Pakistan from where they were rebuilding their
strength. His successor in the National Intelligence
post, retired Vice Admiral Michael McConnell,
identified Pakistan as a “major source”
of religious terrorism at another Senate hearing
and claimed that the top two Al Qaeda figures,
Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahri, were probably
hiding in Pakistan.
Lt.-Gen. Michael D. Maples, Director of the Defense
Intelligence Agency, took another tactic. He surprised
the US Senate, which had been noting with interest
Musharraf’s moves to make peace with India,
that ‘Pakistan-based militants’ continued
to attack India, undermining Pakistan’s
ability to make lasting peace with its neighbor.
Adding more fuel to the fire were statements that
the US force in Afghanistan was prepared to engage
in hot pursuit missions across the Durand Line
into Pakistan. No less a person than the outgoing
US commander, Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, called
for direct US military strikes on alleged terrorist
hideouts inside Pakistan.
Musharraf is now entrapped into the very labyrinth
that he had painstakingly constructed as a snare
for his enemies. For the first time, the opposition
has an issue that may spill into the streets and
lead to his downfall.
Dual insurgencies continue to fester in Waziristan
and Balochistan. While the threat from these insurgencies
is not on the scale posed by the insurgencies
in East Pakistan in 1971, it is deadly serious.
Relations with Kabul are bad, those with Teheran
are deteriorating, ties with the US are fraying
rapidly, and India is patiently waiting for the
next shoe to fall. The foreign policy edifice
that Musharraf had crafted is crumbling around
him.
With so many exposed flanks, the embattled general
has re-instituted unadulterated military rule.
In the days and months to come, all the trappings
of civilian involvement may be pushed aside as
the general pushes forward with his guaranteed
reelection campaign.
Perhaps the only good news is that the general
seems to have abandoned that Orwellian creation,
the National Security Council, whose stillborn
mission was to “keep the military out by
letting the military in.”
Now the man on horseback is in his element. The
Times of London has advised him to retreat, saying
that all good generals know when to do so. But
this is the general who gives himself a good pat
on the back for advancing on Indian positions
in Kargil. He does not know how to retreat. Someone
else will have to do it for him.
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