Author: Jay Solomon and Zahid Hussain
Publication: The Wall Street Journal
Date: March 11, 2004
Pakistani Helps Terrorist Hunt,
But Illicit Nuclear Sale,
Islamic Parties Worry U.S.
'We Will Continue Our Jihad'
The Bush administration has placed
a huge bet on Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, relying on him
to help hunt down Osama bin Laden and root out other Islamic terrorists.
The strategy has paid off in the
short term, with hundreds of terrorists arrested. But those gains have
involved a delicate diplomatic trade-off.
The U.S. has been forced to accept
an incomplete airing of the illegal sale of Pakistani nuclear technology
to rogue states, possibly leaving the door open to more proliferation.
Gen. Musharraf's critics in Pakistan say he has become a more authoritarian
leader at a time when the U.S. is trying to promote democracy abroad. And
to retain his grip on power, he has formed alliances with fundamentalist
Islamic parties, complicating his stated desire to crack down on militant
Islamic schools that harbor al Qaeda and Taliban fighters.
Top American officials' view of
Gen. Musharraf boils down to this: Though he isn't perfect, he has been
a firm and reliable ally.
He is seen as having a steady hand
on Pakistan's nuclear arsenal and seriously pursuing peace with nuclear
rival India -- an issue that has vexed the West for decades. He risked
significant political capital by yanking the rug out from beneath Pakistani
support for Taliban forces after 9/11, when the U.S. routed them in neighboring
Afghanistan in retaliation for harboring Mr. bin Laden.
He also helped capture more than
500 al Qaeda operatives after the Taliban's fall, including three top bin
Laden lieutenants. Currently, Pakistani and U.S. troops are engaged in
a major new effort in the tribal areas that divide Pakistan and Afghanistan
to find Mr. bin Laden.
But the U.S. doesn't have a clear
answer to a question that's growing more urgent: How will Pakistan be ruled
once Gen. Musharraf leaves office?
Mounting Pressure
The president narrowly escaped two
assassination attempts in December, which Pakistani officials say were
orchestrated by al Qaeda-linked groups. And under mounting domestic pressure,
Gen. Musharraf recently agreed to give up his role as army commander in
December. Though he rewrote the Pakistani constitution to give himself
the power to hire and fire the heads of the country's armed forces, relinquishing
direct control could significantly diminish his authority.
Washington pursued a similar policy
of backing Pakistan's generals throughout the Cold War, when Islamabad
was one of Washington's chief allies in the effort to check the Soviet
Union's regional aspirations. While such support helped drive the Soviets
from Afghanistan, it fed instability within Pakistan and inspired many
of the Islamist groups that ultimately formed al Qaeda.
"It's amazing how short-sighted
the Americans are when it comes to Pakistan," says Talat Masood, a retired
Pakistani general and a Musharraf critic. "They're making the same mistake
again of not giving a high priority to democracy."
The biggest long-term risk of the
Bush administration's policy toward Gen. Musharraf involves nuclear proliferation.
Gen. Musharraf drew fire at home
and abroad for pardoning Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear
bomb, after he admitted illegally selling nuclear technologies to Libya,
Iran and North Korea. Mr. Khan said he acted without the knowledge of Gen.
Musharraf and other military officials, an assertion doubted by many here.
Pakistan's government and the armed forces deny any institutional involvement
in Dr. Khan's arms network.
Pakistani officials say the pardon
was the best way to break up Mr. Khan's network while maintaining stability,
given the scientist's status as a national hero. Islamabad continues to
hold seven Khan aides without formal charges, but calls by civic groups
and lawmakers for an independent investigation into the military's alleged
role in the affair have been sternly rebuffed by the government. Absent
a thorough investigation and strong civilian oversight of Pakistan's nuclear
program, opposition leaders and proliferation experts fear future breaches.
Yet the Bush administration has
praised Gen. Musharraf's handling of the affair. "I think he has handled
Dr. Khan ... extremely well," said John Bolton, U.S. undersecretary of
state for arms control and international security, in Tokyo last month.
Gen. Musharraf, a former paratrooper,
was hardly viewed as an iron man when he oversaw the bloodless coup that
toppled Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in October 1999. Thousands of Pakistanis
took to the streets to welcome his military government, having grown disillusioned
by corruption and mismanagement. Even Pakistan's press and middle class
largely saw him as a transitional authority through which Pakistan could
become a more stable and secular democracy.
"For the whiskey-drinking class,
the chattering classes, he was the messiah they'd been waiting for," says
Ayaz Amir, a columnist with the Dawn newspaper, Pakistan's largest English-language
daily.
Then-President Bill Clinton saw
the coup as antidemocratic, slapping sanctions on the general's government
and refusing to be photographed shaking his hand during a two-hour layover
in Islamabad in March 2000.
Crucial Cog
But after 9/11, his willingness
to cut off Pakistani support for the Taliban in Afghanistan and to allow
U.S. military strikes from his nation's soil made him a crucial cog in
President Bush's war on terror.
In return, the U.S. showered Pakistan
with billions of dollars in financial aid, debt relief and larger quotas
for export. Today, U.S. support has underpinned one of Gen. Musharraf's
key achievements: an economic recovery. Pakistani officials project economic
expansion of as much as 6% for the year ending in March, and exports and
foreign-exchange reserves are at record levels.
"The country's moving in the right
direction. We just need to continue with the reforms," said Pakistan's
commerce minister, Humayun Akhtar Khan, in an interview.
POLITICAL MANEUVERINGS
A brief look at the political career
of Pakistan's president
Oct. 12, 1999: Gen. Pervez Musharraf
seizes power in a bloodless coup, overthrowing the government of Prime
Minister Nawaz Sharif
June 2001: Musharraf becomes president
September: Musharraf becomes a key
U.S. ally in the war on terror, and withdraws support for the Taliban government
in Afghanistan
April 2002: Musharraf extends his
tenure as president for five more years through a referendum
October: Pakistan holds parliamentary
elections
December 2003: Parliament ratifies
a constitutional amendment strengthening presidential powers
December: Musharraf narrowly escapes
two assassination attempts
January 2004: Relations with India
thaw following landmark meeting between Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister
Atal Bihari Vajpayee
Critics say Gen. Musharraf's economic
reforms have coincided with backpedaling on his pledge to promote democracy.
In April 2002, the general pushed through a nationwide referendum that
gave him a five-year presidential term. The vote was largely boycotted
by the country's largest opposition parties, which argued that it was unconstitutional
because it wasn't sanctioned by the National Assembly's Parliament and
Senate. An October 2002 National Assembly election, meanwhile, was never
certified by independent monitors from the European Union, which found
irregularities.
"Musharraf massively distorted the
political process," says Sherry Rehman, a Karachi-based lawmaker with the
Pakistan People's Party, which is headed by former Pakistani Prime Minister
Benazir Bhutto, who remains in exile abroad. Independent analysts say regulations
passed by Gen. Musharraf's government restricted the party's ability to
campaign.
After the election, New York-based
Human Rights Watch said in a report based on research and interviews in
Pakistan that the government provided "overt support" for the ruling party
and used police to intimidate the opposition.
The government barred Mrs. Bhutto
from campaigning, which the PPP charged was illegal and hampered its ability
to attract core supporters. Despite this, the PPP won the largest portion
of the popular vote and the second-largest number of parliamentary seats
at 81. Yet, even this victory was later blunted by Gen. Musharraf's government,
which orchestrated the defection of 22 PPP lawmakers.
Last December, the government also
pushed constitutional amendments through the National Assembly that significantly
strengthen the presidency, giving Gen. Musharraf power to suspend the National
Assembly, remove the prime minister and choose his own chiefs of the armed
services. The parliament also endorsed Gen. Musharraf's presidency through
2007 in return for his agreeing to retire as army commander at the end
of this year.
Traditionally, Pakistan's president
was largely a ceremonial job, with the prime minister running the government.
Gen. Musharraf, however, changed the constitution to give the president
the power to run the government and to sack the prime minister.
Gen. Musharraf's political maneuverings
have strengthened Pakistan's Islamist parties. The loss of support for
secular parties such as the PPP has translated into votes for a coalition
of fundamentalist Islamic parties that swept to power in two Pakistani
states in 2002. The Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal -- or the United Forum for Action,
as the coalition is called -- has also become the ruling party's key legislative
partner in strengthening Gen. Musharraf's power.
That partnership has posed problems
for Gen. Musharraf and for the U.S. Among his key policy initiatives since
the 9/11 attacks is a plan to reform the country's vast network of Islamic
boarding schools, known as madrassas. Supported by Islamic fundamentalists,
madrassas have been key recruiting centers for al Qaeda and Taliban fighters,
teaching militancy as well as Quranic studies.
Taliban Support
In the Baluchistan province in the
south, madrassas continue to serve as a key support system for the Taliban,
despite Gen. Musharraf's promises to curb their activities, a recent visit
there shows. In the border town of Chaman, thousands of Taliban soldiers
freely move back and forth between Pakistan and Afghanistan as they launch
strikes against U.S. forces inside Afghanistan.
"I am waiting for a call to jihad
against an un-Islamic regime," says Abdul Hadi, a Taliban fighter who fled
his home in southern Afghanistan and now is housed in a madrassa.
Pashtunabad, a congested slum in
the nearby city of Quetta, also has a large concentration of former Taliban,
and several commanders are believed to be hiding here. Maulana Noor Mohammed,
a member of the National Assembly representing the MMA, runs the principal
madrassa in town. "The Taliban will ultimately triumph," says Mr. Noor
from the school, where a majority of his students are Afghans.
U.S. officials acknowledge that
Gen. Musharraf has been slow to rein in the madrassas, but they also say
they don't think he's capable of controlling some tribal areas where the
Taliban has congregated. "The situation on the Western border is much more
difficult," says a senior U.S. official. "Large portions are no man's land
and have been for 150 years."
To address the problem, the U.S.
and Pakistan are promoting road and infrastructure projects across Pakistan's
tribal areas to integrate the region with the rest of Pakistan. The Bush
administration poured some $31 million into the projects last year and
is expected to release another $37 million this year.
Gen. Musharraf gets high marks from
U.S. officials for his government's efforts to cut off militants operating
inside the disputed territory of Kashmir. India and Pakistan have twice
gone to war over Kashmir and nearly did so again in 2002 after militants
attacked India's Parliament building. New Delhi alleged the assailants
were supported by Islamabad. As part of a new peace initiative, Gen. Musharraf
pledged to cut off all support for militants operating inside Kashmir.
Some fighters based inside Pakistani-controlled
Kashmir say he's making good on his promise. "We have no choice but to
go back to our homes," says Mohammed Asfaq, a Srinigar-based insurgent
in the Kashmiri border town of Muzaffrabad. He says that the order from
Islamabad is clear: Infiltration into India must stop.
But in a dingy room filled with
Kashmiri fighters, bitterness toward Gen. Musharraf is also evident. "We
will not allow Musharraf to sell out the blood of our martyrs," says Saifullah,
a bearded man in his late twenties. "We will continue our jihad."
U.S. officials say they are increasingly
concerned for Gen. Musharraf's life as he cracks down on Kashmiri militants
and widens the bin Laden hunt. Among those arrested in the attempted assassination
on the general in December was a Kashmiri member of an al Qaeda-linked
terrorist group.
And U.S. officials say they don't
want to press him too hard on the nuclear question, for fear of further
undermining his political base. "There is only so hard or so fast that
we can push him," says one U.S. official. A Pakistan without Gen. Musharraf
running it, he says, would be even more frightening.
---- Carla Anne Robbins in Washington
contributed to this article.
Write to Jay Solomon at jay.solomon@wsj.com
