Author: Pamela Constable
Publication: The Washington Post
Date: October 8, 2001
URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22837-2001Oct7.html
Musharraf's Backing of U.S. Effort
Creates Political Risk, Opportunity
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Oct. 7 -- Pakistan's
decision to side with the U.S. anti-terrorist campaign has left this military-ruled
Muslim nation in the throes of change as shattering -- and potentially
as liberating -- as the air strikes that began tonight next door in Afghanistan.
When President Pervez Musharraf
cast Pakistan's lot with the West three weeks ago, he abruptly turned a
Muslim neighbor into an enemy, challenged the popular grip of radical Islamic
groups here and moved to break their formidable alliance with segments
of the Pakistani armed forces.
Instead of grudgingly acquiescing
to U.S. demands for support and trying to minimize the political fallout,
Musharraf has worked to turn the crisis into an opportunity to bring about
far-reaching changes in Pakistan's society, institutions and foreign relations
that many people here have felt were long overdue.
But in doing so, Musharraf has also
taken enormous risks, sharpening the religious contradictions and institutional
divisions in a volatile, impoverished nation of 140 million. Moreover,
he has staked his country's future on support from Western powers that
have abandoned Pakistan in the past and until recently had shunned Musharraf
as a dictator. Only now has the West embraced him out of strategic necessity.
"President Musharraf realized this
was a defining moment for Pakistan," said Khalid Mahmood, director of the
Institute for Regional Studies here. "He jettisoned a lot of ideological,
emotional and historical baggage because he believed it was in the country's
best interest. He can neutralize the opposition, but if he is to live up
to his new road map, he needs a stronger hand."
By far the most significant step
Musharraf has taken is to defy the small but vocal radical religious groups
that, with growing influence, have sown violence and intolerance inside
Pakistan, tarred its image abroad and held its foreign policy hostage to
a militant Islamic agenda.
Over the past 20 years, the mission
of Pakistan's army has become increasingly religious, based largely on
opposition to Hindu-led India and favoring Islamic-ruled Afghanistan. Pakistan's
military intelligence agencies nurtured Islamic guerrilla groups, first
to fight Soviet troops in Afghanistan with U.S. support and later to covertly
fight Indian troops in Kashmir.
Musharraf, a moderate Muslim who
pledged to reform and modernize Pakistan when he seized power in October
1999, has tried to curb the influence of these groups ever since. But he
has been repeatedly forced to back off -- in part because the groups commanded
passionate support from some Muslims, and in part because of the key role
they played in Kashmir and Afghanistan.
After the terrorist attacks last
month in New York and Washington, a wave of vituperative, anti-American
protests was launched by radical Islamic groups who support the ruling
Taliban Islamic movement in Afghanistan. They threatened mass violence
if the United States launched an attack there.
Until last weekend, Musharraf tolerated
the protests. Police were instructed to intervene only if serious violence
broke out. But today, Musharraf ordered Maulana Fazl-ur Rehman, leader
of the most virulent Islamic group, placed under house arrest, removing
him from the scene just before U.S. missiles began to strike.
In a related move today, Musharraf
unexpectedly replaced his intelligence chief and other senior generals
known to have strong religious views -- even though three of them had been
key players in the 1999 coup. In the short term, Musharraf was trying to
eliminate any institutional challenge to his leadership during the current
crisis.
It was not clear, though, whether
these combined actions will be sufficient to quell the threat of violence
from other Islamic leaders, who have called for mass protests Monday --
and how the army would now respond. If mayhem does erupt, it could divide
or paralyze the armed forces, splinter the country along religious and
ethnic lines, and even destabilize the government.
"If we are the guardians of the
country's physical borders, these religious organizations have always guarded
Pakistan's ideological borders," one senior Pakistani law enforcement official
said last week. "It is simply out of the question that the army would turn
against them."
In the long term, however, some
civilian analysts and moderate government aides said Musharraf has taken
a crucial first step toward calling the bluff of Islamic groups and permanently
separating the army from their agenda. Some critics, who before Sept. 11
were calling for a quick return to civilian rule, now note that only an
army general would have dared make such changes.
Over the past three weeks, moreover,
Musharraf's authority has been reinforced by pledges of strong diplomatic
and economic support from Western powers that once shunned him and by praise
from Pakistani opinion makers who had criticized him.
"I think we are lucky President
Musharraf was in power when this happened," said one civilian cabinet minister.
"He is a gutsy guy who has made the right decision. He didn't vacillate
or panic. This has put Pakistan back on the world map and it can turn the
country around, but the implications will be prolonged and difficult to
manage."
Musharraf's sudden shift in policy
toward Afghanistan has brought its own new dangers and opportunities for
Pakistan. Most Pakistanis have little love for the Taliban, a rigid regime
that has sent only trouble spilling into their territory. Musharraf's new
stance has instantly distanced his government from radical Islam in the
approving eyes of the world.
On the other hand, the two countries
share a long border and a large floating populace of Afghan descent. Many
Afghan refugees in Pakistan are sympathetic to the Taliban and strongly
oppose a U.S. attack on their homeland. War in Afghanistan could easily
spill across the border, leading to violence and unleashing a flood of
refugees the nation can ill afford to absorb.
The United States has pledged to
provide economic help, but many Pakistanis do not trust the United States.
They bitterly recall the Cold War flip-flops of the 1980s in which the
United States sided with Pakistan against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan,
only to walk away after the Soviets were driven out and bloody civil strife
erupted there, sending millions of refugees fleeing into Pakistan.
Pakistan's military and intelligence
sources helped to support the Taliban when it formed in 1994, and until
recently had hoped that by maintaining cordial ties with the Taliban, they
could exert a moderating influence on the movement's behavior. But last
month, when the United States asked the Taliban to hand over bin Laden,
even Pakistan's intelligence chief could not persuade the Afghans to comply.
An angry Musharraf had no choice but to turn against the Taliban.
At the same time, however, he has
clung to a second controversial pillar of his foreign policy -- support
for separatist Muslim guerrillas in Indian Kashmir -- in hopes of shoring
up his domestic credentials as a supporter of jihad, or holy war, and to
counter criticism that he has sold out Pakistan's interests to the West.
The insurgency in Kashmir is a far
more popular national cause than Afghanistan. Most Pakistani Muslims view
it as a justified "freedom struggle" against oppression by India, the much
larger, Hindu-led neighbor that is Pakistan's longtime military adversary
and more recent nuclear rival.
Musharraf also hopes that by doing
the United States' bidding, he can win international pressure on India
to negotiate a Kashmir settlement. But U.S. ties with India are closer
now than they have been in decades, and the Bush administration has increasingly
adopted the Indian argument that the guerrilla movement in Kashmir is part
of the regional terrorist threat.
Meanwhile, a second controversial
component of Pakistan's rivalry with India, its nuclear weapons program,
has suddenly become an international liability.
In 1998, both India and Pakistan
conducted nuclear tests, alarming the West and drawing economic sanctions
from the United States. But to many Pakistani Muslims, the "Islamic bomb"
was a source of national pride, while Musharraf asserted that Pakistan's
nuclear capability could deter a military clash with India and ensure regional
stability.
After the U.S. terrorist attacks,
however, the Bush administration presented Musharraf with an all-or-nothing
choice between standing with the West or with terrorism. Suddenly, the
Pakistani leader realized that his country's nuclear asset could become
a liability, vulnerable to attack by far greater powers than India.
"Pakistan had to choose between
going along with America or becoming another Iraq," said Pervez Hoodbhuy,
a physicist at Quaid-I-Azam University and one of Pakistan's few anti-nuclear
activists. "Our foreign policy was being held hostage by the fundamentalists,
and Sept. 11 brought it all to a head."
With Pakistan's pretensions to regional
influence suddenly deflated, Musharraf hopes his new strategic alliance
with the United States and Europe can at least bring enough economic benefits
to reverse Pakistan's downward economic spiral and prove to a skeptical
and impoverished nation that he has not delivered Pakistan's support for
peanuts.
In the past three weeks, there have
been numerous indications that the West intends to offer substantial help.
The Bush administration has lifted the economic sanctions imposed after
Pakistan's nuclear tests, and it appears likely to lift a second set of
sanctions imposed after Musharraf's coup. A sizable chunk of Pakistan's
foreign debt has just been rescheduled, and the European Union has promised
new economic support.
The most serious sign of commitment,
however, came last week from British Prime Minister Tony Blair, until now
an outspoken critic of Musharraf. On Friday, he flew to Pakistan and spoke
to reporters with Musharraf, praising him and pledging to restore military
ties, promote trade and assist with debt relief.
Musharraf's decision, Blair predicted,
would be "significant and long-lasting in strengthening the outside world's
relations with Pakistan. In Britain we will play our part. We will not
walk away, and neither will the others."
