Author: Husain Haqqani
Publication: Satribune
Date: December 10, 2004
URL: http://www.satribune.com/archives/dec04/P1_hh.htm
More than a year has gone by since
President George W. Bush declared promotion of democracy in the Muslim
world as one of the key objectives of US foreign policy in the 'greater
Middle East'. The US went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, partly to create
models for pluralist democracies for neighboring Muslim states.
But after changing two regimes hostile
to the US by using force President Bush is now confronted with the more
difficult task of changing regime behavior among US allies. The rhetoric
of promoting democracy notwithstanding, it seems that the Bush administration
has not drastically changed the previous American policy of supporting
friendly regimes without regard to their lack of democratic credentials.
Torn between the demands of real
politik and their vision of changing the world, President Bush's team is
consistently opting for compromises on both. The vision of a democratic
Muslim world is being sacrificed to accommodate undemocratic Muslim rulers
allied to the US The prospect of finding reliable long-term allies, however,
continues to be jeopardized by alliances of convenience with rulers who
trade their policy for US aid. Hatred and anger towards the US continues
to rise among the people of Muslim countries governed by undemocratic pro-American
rulers.
The gap between Washington's pro-democracy
rhetoric and pro-status quo policies is often illustrated best by America's
complex relationship with Pakistan's military establishment. During the
recent White House meeting between President Bush and General Musharraf,
the American president spoke of the need for building democracy in the
Palestinian territory but not for changing things in Pakistan.
General Musharraf had stopped over
in Washington between official trips to Brazil and the United Kingdom.
President Bush met Musharraf on a Saturday, dragging his entire foreign
policy and national security team out of their homes over a weekend. This
was ostensibly an acknowledgment for Pakistan's key role in the US-led
global war against terrorism and for Musharraf's contribution in making
that role possible.
Mr. Bush was rather enthusiastic
in accepting the legitimacy of the general who took power in a military
coup and who, on the eve of his stopover in Washington, had formalized
arrangements to hold the dual office of unelected President and a uniformed
general commanding Pakistan's ostensibly professional army.
Pretending that he was meeting a
democratic leader, President Bush chose to define what a Palestinian democracy
should look like. He called for "a world effort to help the Palestinians
develop a state that is truly free: one that's got an independent judiciary;
one that's got a civil society; one that's got the capacity to fight off
the terrorists; one that allows for dissent; one in which people can vote."
Most of those criteria are not met
in Pakistan. General Musharraf seized power in a 1999 coup, purged the
Supreme Court, arbitrarily amended the constitution and has never stood
for election in a contested campaign. There is no sign of when the people
of Pakistan would be able to vote for whomever they choose, without fear
of the elected representatives being disqualified by the army or the political
parties being fragmented through manipulation by the clandestine services.
It is true that General Musharraf
allows a fair amount of dissent in Pakistan but that amounts to meeting
one criterion out of the several set forth in President Bush's definition
of a Palestinian democracy. Surely, the US President and his aides realize
the credibility gap they enter when they demand democracy from unfriendly
regimes without applying the same standards to their friends and allies.
The result of President Bush's pat
on the back for General Musharraf was his insistence in media interviews
that under his rule "there is total democracy in Pakistan." General Musharraf
"grew testy" at the suggestion that Pakistan's democratic development would
be undermined by his staying in uniform, reported the Washington Post.
"The amount that I, in uniform, have done for democracy has never been
done in the past in Pakistan," he said. "So let's not see democracy in
the limited scope of [a] uniform. I don't believe that is the end-all of
democracy." What one might wonder is the end-all of democracy, if not to
create contestation for power under rule of law and civic participation?
One understands that international
relations cannot be subject purely to ideals, including the demand that
all nations accept one system of governance. But for any foreign policy
to be effective it must be credible. The Bush administration's mantra of
promoting democracy in the Muslim world is one of those policies that simply
will not be credible if allies such as General Musharraf are allowed to
redefine democracy.
The United States will have to tone
down its rhetoric of democracy promotion or at least find a balance between
maintaining alliances of convenience and its stated higher moral purpose.
The US could demand reform while retaining the pragmatic alliances dictated
by strategic considerations. For example, I doubt if General Musharraf
would have walked out of his alliance with the US if President Bush had
reminded him that he is not fulfilling several conditions for democratic
development.
"We acknowledge that you have a
relatively free media," the US president could have told General Musharraf,
"But allowing some dissent is not a substitute for an independent judiciary,
a sovereign legislature, functioning political parties free of secret service
manipulation and the right of the people to choose their ruler from a variety
of candidates. The United States would like Pakistan to make progress on
these fronts just as we are asking the Palestinian Authority to implement
similar democratic reforms."
President Bush's reluctance to nudge
General Musharraf on the subject of democracy is attributed to the US need
for Pakistani cooperation, especially in the hunt for Osama bin Laden.
But here too the law of diminishing returns appears to be in play.
As he gains greater confidence from
US backing, General Musharraf is beginning to acknowledge that he and his
intelligence services may not have the crucial role in finding Bin Laden
they have been assumed to have. "We don't know where he is," General Musharraf
said of Bin Laden during his stopover in Washington, which was the latest
in several mutually contradictory comments he has made on the subject of
the Al-Qaeda supremo since September 2001.
According to the memoirs of General
Tommy Franks, the CENTCOM commander at the time, General Musharraf had
told him soon after the beginning of American military operations in Afghanistan
that Pakistani intelligence would know if and when bin Laden crosses the
Afghan-Pakistan border.
Then on December 24, 2001, General
Musharraf responded to the China Daily's question about bin Laden by saying:
"Maybe he is dead because of all the operations that have been conducted,
the bombardment of all the caves that have been conducted, there's a great
possibility that he may have lost his life there." He also said: "He is
not in Pakistan; that we are reasonably sure, we cannot be 100 percent
sure, but we have sealed the borders between Afghanistan and Pakistan"
and stuck with the "he is dead" assertion through much of 2002.
After that he repeatedly told several
interviewers that even if bin Laden was alive, he could not be in Pakistan.
That position changed in an interview with the BBC on September 11, 2003.
In that interview, General Musharraf said about bin Laden: "I feel that
he is alive, yes because of the various information and intelligence that
has come up now. But to guess whether he's in Pakistan or in Afghanistan,
the possibility exists that he is shifting places, shifting bases on both
sides. That is the reality." That reply was repeated several times until
the middle of 2004. Only in September 2004 did Musharraf tell CNN: "I don't
know where he is. I wish I did."
Last week in Washington, the General
was interviewed again by CNN's Wolf Blitzer. In that interview Musharraf
conceded that he was "confused" about bin Laden's whereabouts. From the
definition of democracy to the likely hiding place of America's most wanted
terrorist, why is there a significant element of confusion in the US-Pakistan
alliance?
The writer is a Visiting Scholar
at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC and
Associate Professor of International Relations at Boston University.
