Author: Arnaud de Borchgrave
Publication: Washington Times
Date: July 18, 2003
URL: http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20030717-081241-1951r.htm
While Pakistani President Pervez
Musharraf was in the U.S. last month to reassure his interlocutors about
his pro- American bona fides, his own chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff
Committee, Gen. Mohammed Aziz Khan, said, at a public meeting, "America
is the No. 1 enemy of the Muslim world and is conspiring against Muslim
nations all over the world."
As the Army Chief of Staff, Mr.
Musharraf outranks Gen. Aziz Khan. Backed as he is by other Islamist generals
in the army, Gen. Aziz Khan must have felt sufficiently secure to, in effect,
challenge the president for his pro-American policies.
Clearly referring to his chief of
army staff, Gen. Aziz Khan said politics should not be practiced while
in "uniform." Sensing Mr. Musharraf, with President Bush's financial sweetener,
is looking for a way out of the Kashmir morass, he added that even with
a solution to the long-running dispute, India and Pakistan could never
be friends.
Reporters were stunned by Gen. Aziz
Khan's salvo. Before the newspapers went to press, the Inter-Services Public
Relations of the military sent out advisories to kill the story. Editors
were reminded Gen. Aziz Khan's position is largely ceremonial. Still, the
general never would have taken on Mr. Musharraf unless convinced he had
the support of some of the 10 corps commanders who control the country.
As a member of the fundamentalist
Islami-e-Talaba (the youth wing of Jamaat- e-Islami) in his college days,
Kashmir-born Gen. Aziz Khan was known as a zealous Islamic radical. Throughout
his career, he kept in close touch with militant groups outside the army
while developing a wide following among junior officers. He always addressed
them as "son."
Mr. Musharraf owes his life and
his job to Gen. Aziz Khan. When word spread that then Prime Minister Nawaz
Sharif was about to replace army Chief of Staff Musharraf - who was flying
back from Sri Lanka in Oct. 1999 - with a general junior to both of them,
Gen. Aziz Khan, then chief of general staff, decided to mount a rebellion.
He convinced the Islamabad corps commander, who, like him, had been passed
over, that this would be the end of their careers. The bloodless coup that
followed not only kept Mr. Musharraf in place, but also elevated him to
chief executive and then president.
Following September 11, 2001, and
the abrupt about-turn of Pakistan's foreign policy, when Mr. Musharraf
- "either you're with us or against us," Mr. Bush had told him on the phone
- ditched Taliban in Afghanistan and backed the U.S. unconditionally, Gen.
Aziz Khan and his following among politico- extremist groups became security
risks. So Mr. Musharraf kicked him upstairs where he was neutralized. At
least so Mr. Musharraf thought. He has used his ceremonial job - and loyal
following among field-grade officers in the Inter-Services Intelligence
agency (ISI) - to organize army opposition to Mr. Musharraf.
This demonstrates yet again that
Pakistan is still a heartbeat away from becoming the world's first Islamist
nuclear power. Pakistan's arsenal is variously estimated at between 35
and 60 nuclear weapons.
Mr. Musharraf has survived at least
six assassination plots. His support for the U.S. war against terrorism
is unpopular in many segments of society. Some 500 al Qaeda suspects have
been arrested in Pakistan and most have been handed to the U.S., according
to the government. Mr. Musharraf also put the squeeze on the army's support
for the anti-Indian guerrillas in Kashmir. For Pakistan, they're "freedom
fighters"; for the Islamist clergy, "jihadis (holy warriors); and for India,
"terrorists."
Fact is many of them are terrorists
who were trained in al Qaeda's Afghan camps. They switched to the Kashmir
front after Taliban's defeat in November 2001. ISI organized their transfer
from Afghanistan to Kashmir.
Kashmir is the Pakistan army's principal
raison d'etre, as a former Pakistani ambassador to the U.S. put it. "Demonstrate
that your support for the liberation of Kashmir is waning, and you automatically
curry disfavor among senior officers," the ex-envoy explained. And Mr.
Musharraf has done just that. Infiltrations from Pakistan-held Kashmir
into the Indian side continue, but are much reduced.
Mr. Musharraf also is preparing
his public opinion for Pakistan's recognition of Israel if the Bush peace
plan becomes reality. "If Arab nations can recognize Israel, why not Pakistan?"
he asked. By acquiescing to U.S. wishes and sending troops into the Federally
Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) for the first time since independence
half a century ago, where they are not allowed to go by treaty commitment,
Mr. Musharraf triggered much grumbling in the ranks.
Some tribal leaders in FATA-land
have told government troops to butt out. They like Taliban and admire al
Qaeda. The recent sectarian carnage in a Shi'ite mosque in Quetta, the
capital of Baluchistan, killed 50 and wounded more than 300, and was immediately
exploited by another redoubtable Musharraf opponent. In a July 9 interview
with Nawa-e-Waqt, an Urdu daily, retired Gen. Hamid Gul, a former ISI chief
and now "strategic adviser" to politico-religious leaders, said: "America
is directly involved in all terrorist attacks in Pakistan, including the
Quetta bloodbath."
Gen. Gul's calcinatory rhetoric
accused the U.S., India and Israel - the three archvillains in the Islamist
lexicon - of establishing "more than 20 base camps in Afghanistan from
where these powers foment civil unrest in Pakistan. Their aim is to crush
jihad."
MMA - the extremist coalition that
governs the Northwest Frontier Province, shares power in Baluchistan, and
has 20 percent of the seats in the federal assembly - is staging countrywide
demos to protest Mr. Musharraf's legal challenge to disqualify national
and regional assembly members who do not have the required bachelor's degree.
The government contends degrees awarded by madrassas (Koranic schools where
religion is the only discipline taught) do not meet the same standards.
If the Supreme Court rules against
MMA, religious extremists will lose control of the regional government
in NWFP, and mob violence will return with a vengeance. And if the court
rules against Mr. Musharraf, Muslim extremism will consolidate its power
along the entire length of the Afghan frontier and enforce the recently
introduced Sharia (Islamic law) in NWFP.
For the general with the ceremonial
position of chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, it's heads his Islamist
cronies win, tails Mr. Musharraf loses. The Pakistani president's fight
to stay in power does not necessarily conjugate with America's war on terror.
Broken so many times in the past, no one trusts U.S. pledges and promises.
Mr. Musharraf can still dissolve parliament and declare martial law or
call new elections.
The billing and cooing between the
two presidents at the Camp David Summit in June is already a faint warble
in July.
(Arnaud de Borchgrave is editor
at large of The Washington Times and of United Press International.)
