As the 40 day period of mourning comes to an end, nothing very good seems to have come out of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination.
Eager to capitalize on the outpouring of outrage in the aftermath of the assassination, the Pakistan People’s Party, led by her widower Asif Zardari, refuses to consider any reforms, procedures, or policies that might put time, distance, and cool reflection between it and the election.
Just the opposite, in fact.
The party is insistent on participating in what its own leaders call a rigged election on February 18.
Apparently, after repurposing itself as a dynastic artifact to be passed down inside the Bhutto family, the PPP has decided what Pakistan needs isn’t democracy. What Pakistan needs a quasi-religious cult of personality that will clothe a determined grasp for power with the trappings of a mass movement.
Rallying the faithful on January 28 in the PPP’s Sindh heartland, Zardari proclaimed the new orthodoxy:
The PPP co-chairman deliberated at length in a somber mood about Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto and her wisdom, bravery, intuition, leadership, and her martyrdom. He said that Shaheed Benazir Bhutto had the intuition about her martyrdom and her judge is the history.
She has defeated the dictatorial and evil forces by laying down her life. Today, the people consider her as an angel and her politics as prayers. She raised the stature of politicians and forced even the dictator of the day to declare her a martyr.
"We consider her will as an order" announcing that the will would be the part of Shaheed Chairperson's book and added that if our eyes are filled with tears than our hearts are filled with fire but we would transform our grief and sufferings into strength.
There’s more:
The PPP co-chairman also expressed his will to be buried in Garhi Khuda Bux with two pre-conditions including that he is martyred while struggling to accomplish the mission of Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto or his life comes to an end while continuing with her mission for Pakistan.
He authorised all the party leaders, workers and the people of Pakistan to halt him and tell if he drifts away from the mission of Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto adding that he would have no right to be buried in Garhi Khuda Bux if he drifts off from the mission.
And there’s more:
He pointed out that rotten eggs in politics and these political Eskimos were talking of break up of the party because they don't have the level of intellect to understand the depth of Bhutoism.
More more more:
PPP Sindh Information Secretary and member of the CEC Dr Fehmida Mirza in her brief speech said Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto are not personalities but they are ideology in themselves.
The word made flesh, huh? Somebody please whack these people upside the head with an inverted bust of Hegel.
Zardari made a statement that I do agree with:
He said that “Bhuttoism” starts where intellect ends...
But back to our regularly scheduled rapture:
Zardari urged the party workers and friends to get ready for an effective election campaign. "We will have to face our Benazir on the Judgement Day and we must meet her with victory," Zardari told the party aspirants.
Let’s not forget her anointed spiritual, political, and physical heirs:
The crowded porch where the PPP aspirants scrambled to draw as close to the telephone as possible echoed with slogans of 'Jeay Bhutto'. Taking lead from the slogans, Zardari warned 'the enemies' to listen to the voice of the masses as proof of their defeat. "Benazir is alive," he said, adding he had vowed to fulfill the mission of Zulfikar and Benazir Bhutto while Bilawal Bhutto Zardari would complete the party mission.
The moment he mentioned Bilawal, the supporters broke into another spell of slogans chanting 'Jeay Bilawal'.
The PPP wants to make sure this fervor is on display outside, and not just inside the polling places:
He said that the PPP supporters would stage a sit-in outside each polling station until the results were announced by the returning officers. Mr Zardari said that the Feb 18 polls were crucial for the integrity of the country and the PPP was confronting the forces which were working against the foundations of the state.
Mr Zardari said the PPP had worked out on a strategy to counter the alleged rigging plans of the government and had given necessary directives to its district presidents, other office-bearers and workers. He added that different committees were being formed from this point of view.
And what happens if participating in a rigged election produces a rigged election?
Bad things. Baaaaaaaaaaad things:
Urging the people to vote peacefully, he said, ''God willing we will win the election and by a huge mandate.''PPP workers will stage a dharna at every polling station to make sure that the results are not rigged, he added.
''The upcoming polls must be transparent because they are crucial for Pakistan's future,'' Zardari said, adding ''The polls are crucial for the federation and the survival of Pakistan. People should vote for the PPP to save Pakistan.''
A cynic—and, yes, I am a cynic—would look at this and say that the PPP has knowingly created the expectations, doctrine, organization, mechanism—and intimidating sense of purpose--to trigger a national crisis if the election doesn’t deliver the majority that the PPP wants.
And, for the time being, it looks like the other players in Pakistan’s electoral drama are sitting back and letting it happen.
President Musharraf has apparently resigned himself to the fact that neither the PPP nor the PML-N is willing to enter into a pre-election alliance that will give his regime some popular legitimacy. He might have some master plan for manipulating the election, but politically he’s too discredited to have a voice in Pakistan’s political discourse. All he can do is buckle his seatbelt and hope he walks away from the crash when Pakistan hits the wall on February 18.
The seatbelt strategy is also all the United States has left. The PPP, intent on running as the more-Islamist-than-thou keeper of the sacred Bhutto flame and nothing else, is now ignoring the US except to push its futile and grandstanding demand for a UN commission to investigate the assassination.
Army Chief of Staff Kiyani, eager to demonstrate the army is ready to move into the post-Musharraf apolitical era, has ostentatiously distanced the army from involvement in Pakistan’s civil society and policing the elections themselves. Time will tell if, faced with the PPP’s potential to exploit the power vacuum at the polls, this was a wise decision or another one of the Pakistan military’s extensive list of boneheaded blunders.
Though it’s not openly discussed, one of the primary targets of the PPP’s pre-election chestthumping is the other opposition party—Nawaz Sharif's PML-N.
In order to claim the national/heavenly/Bhuttoian mandate for the PPP, the Sindh-based PPP has to dominate the only other province in Pakistan that matters—the rich, politically powerful heartland of Punjab.
The Punjab was the stronghold of Nawaz Sharif—until Musharraf’s coup forced Sharif from office and out of the country in 1999. Musharraf co-opted what was apparently a large and eager opportunist or loti segment of Sharif’s party to set up what is derisively known as the King’s Party—the PML-Q. The PML-Q and the Punjab are controlled by the Chaudhry brothers, who distribute patronage, graft, and rigged votes throughout the province on behalf of Musharraf.
In a normal election—or one that passes for a normal election in Pakistan—Sharif’s PML-N party and/or the PML-Q would have delivered a defendably strong showing in Punjab, containing the PPP to Sindh, and delivering that devoutly and virtually universally desired outcome—a hung parliament that could claim popular support but would not confront Musharraf or the army.
Now, with its support in Sindh rock-solid after the assassination of its favorite daughter, Benazir Bhutto—PML-Q hacks are literally afraid to show their faces there, and Sharif, identified with the resented rival province of Punjab, is probably not doing much better—the PPP has turned its sights on Sharif’s home turf.
From Pakistan’s The News:
Addressing for the first time PPP candidates by telephone from the residence of the party's Lahore chapter president, Haji Aziz-ur-Rehman Chan, he expressed the intention to resume the election campaign in the Punjab and hold rallies at all places where Benazir Bhutto was scheduled to go after Liaquat Bagh, as the 40-day mourning period for Benazir was over.
Again, from The News:
He said the party leaders reviewed the PPP’s election prospect in the Punjab in a meeting held on Friday and claimed that the PPP would win the election from that province. The PPP leader said he had convened the meeting of the Punjab PPP leaders and candidates to assess the party position in every district of the Punjab.
So far, despite the de facto breakdown in the alliance of convenience between the PPP and the PML-N, Nawaz Sharif has not yet come up with a public political riposte to the PPP’s challenge.
Sharif’s problems are exacerbated by a weaker organization and smaller candidate list than the PPP, and the competition within Punjab from the unpopular but undoubtedly clout-heavyPML-Q.
His political stature also suffered when his brother engaged in a public, graceless, and fruitless flirtation with Musharraf concerning possible PML-N entry into a pre-election national unity government, presumably to pre-empt the PPP’s powerful electoral push for power on February 18.
Now, with the 40 day mourning period for Bhutto over and Zardari out on the campaign trail, it will be interesting to see how the Punjab, the PML-Q—and Nawaz Sharif—treat him. Zardari’s enemies might decide to take the gloves off to keep the PPP from staking its claim as Pakistan’s only truly national party and defining the PML-N and Q as insignificant rump parties even within their home provinces.
The only political figure who seems to have held on to his stature—and sense—is Imran Khan.
Beyond his charisma, craggy good looks, cricket-star hunkiness, international jet-set presence—and miniscule Pakistan Movement for Justice party—Khan feels, thinks, and says the right thing, recognizing Pakistan’s activist judiciary and not a Benazir Bhutto cult as the true heart of Pakistan’s democratic aspirations.
The Christian Science Monitor interviewed Khan during his trip to the United States and managed, through design, disinterest, and/or general obliviousness, to ignore the fact that Khan’s approach to a meaningful election and a healthy civil society in Pakistan is diametrically opposed not only to Musharraf’s, but to the PPP’s:
Khan said he came to challenge conventional wisdom in the US. His argument: An election in Pakistan could do more harm than good. Restoring an independent judiciary, rather than holding elections, should be the first goal. The US "should back the democratic process, by insisting on the reinstatement of the judges, rather than back any individual in an election," Khan said.
Good luck with that, Imran.
Perhaps, now that the mourning period is officially over, Pakistan can emerge from the nadir of navel-gazing, demoralization, panic, and delusion it appears to have fallen in.
Otherwise, the February 18 elections will not provide catharsis, purpose, or unity.
Instead, they will give birth to continued confusion, rancor, and suffering.
Showing posts with label Bhutto. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bhutto. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Did We Just Lose Pakistan...To Nawaz Sharif and Saudi Arabia?
With Pakistan in the middle of a burgeoning security and political crisis, the report from Islamabad is that Musharraf has finally turned to the opposition to provide his government with stability...and his nation with unity.
But he’s not turning to Benazir Bhutto’s PPP, the supposedly empowering force that the United States has been promoting as the solution to Pakistan’s problems.
He’s turning to the PML-N and Nawaz Sharif, who enjoy the backing of the conservative Islamic government of Saudi Arabia, as I reported in Nawaz Sharif: Saudi Arabia’s Plan B for Pakistan? back in November.
That’s going to cause some heartburn and late nights at Condoleezza Rice’s shop, as well as a round of gormless headscratching by the U.S. papers, who have had a hard time looking beyond the U.S. script—and the PPP.
Dawn, Pakistan’s most authoritative media outlet, reports:
Shahbaz ‘asked to join national govt’
By Amir Wasim
ISLAMABAD, Jan 12: Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) head Shahbaz Sharif dashed to Islamabad on Saturday and returned to Lahore in the evening after holding separate meetings with an aide of President Pervez Musharraf, the Saudi ambassador and a former bureaucrat, sources told Dawn.
The sources said the PML-N president had met Brig (retd) Niaz Ahmad, who passed a message from President Musharraf on to Mr Sharif about the formation of a national government before the general election.Sources in the PML-N said the president had suggested Shahbaz Sharif to become a part of the proposed government. The sources said the president had also proposed a “future role” for Shahbaz Sharif after the elections.
However, they added, Mr Shahbaz had told Mr Niaz that he would not reply to the proposals without consulting Nawaz Sharif....
They said Niaz Ahmad had requested the Sharif brothers to “soften the language” against the president at their public meetings.
Brig (retd) Niaz, a former instructor to President Musharraf, has been negotiating with the PML-N and the PPP leaders for the past several years and had held several meeting with the Sharif brothers in London and Saudi Arabia.
In the past, the PML-N had denied such contacts, but on Saturday a group of reporters caught Mr Sharif outside the Embassy Road residence of the retired brigadier when he was leaving the place after the meeting.
Talking to reporters, the PML-N president said his meeting with Brig Niaz should not be construed as a ‘political move’. He said he had come only to pay a “courtesy call”....Earlier, a senior PML-N leader, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, ruled out at a press conference the possibility of his party becoming a part of a national government under President Musharraf, indicating that the party had officially received “some sort of a proposal along this line”.
...SAUDI AMBASSADOR: Shahbaz Sharif also met the Saudi ambassador in Islamabad, Ali Awadhi Al Asseri, and a former director-general of the Federal Investigation Agency, Wajahat Latif.Party sources said Mr Sharif had met the ambassador to thank him for the hospitality extended to the Sharif family during its stay in Saudi Arabia.
About his meeting with Wajahat Latif, the PML-N leader said that he had come to meet him “only to offer my good wishes”.[emph. added]
Did you notice that the Saudi ambassador was participated in this supersensitive high level meeting? Didja?
It remains to be seen if Sharif responds to Musharraf’s initiative.
It will be hard because Sharif genuinely hates Musharraf—who deposed him—and Sharif has been sedulously cultivating his opposition cred by roasting Musharraf at every opportunity and demanding he step down.
Musharraf is plainly trying to co-opt Sharif. And I hope he does.
Because Pakistan needs to ameliorate its political crisis if it is to confront its security crisis. And until recently the exact opposite was happening.
When Islamist extremists attacked, the opposition used it as a stick to beat Musharraf with, thundering that he couldn’t provide security for the country. And, I believe, Islamist militants saw this and determined that now was an opportune time to further divide and damage Pakistan’s secular society with further attacks.
For Pakistan’s political elite inside and outside the government, the turning point might have been the horrific suicide bombing at the Lahore High Court on January 10.
It apparently targeted policemen assembling in preparation for a protest march by local lawyers, killing over 20.
From Dawn:
Aftab Cheema, SSP Operations, said the bomber had a 14-kg explosive device, with three kilograms of ball bearings, strapped to his body. He said the size of the ball bearings was larger than the ones used in earlier blasts.’’A man rammed into our ranks and soon after there was a huge explosion,” said policeman Syed Imtiaz Hussain, who suffered wounds in his legs and groin.
“I saw the bodies of other policemen burning. It was like hell.’’
...
“I saw about 50 to 60 injured policemen, bleeding, scattered everywhere. They were asking for water.”
They found the bomber’s head 100 feet away.
Noted South Asia watcher Syed Saleem Shahzad reported on a chain of events that indicates to me that Pakistan’s elites has decided that the political paralysis incurred by trying to please the United States, give lip service to its unpopular and wrongheaded policies, and coddle its leaderless client, the PPP—and the growing security crisis feeding off it--is no longer acceptable.
In a recent report in Asia Times subtitled Washington May Lose a Friend, he wrote:
...there is serious consideration for repositioning the country’s foreign policy as neutral in the United States-led “war on terror”.
This would mean non-interference in the restive tribal areas on the border with Afghanistan. These are virtually autonomous areas where Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants have established bases and vital supply lines into Afghanistan. Such a move would have devastating effects on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) efforts to control the ever-growing insurgency in Afghanistan.
Following a meeting of the Pakistan corps commanders headed by the new chief of army staff, General Ashfaq Kayani, a press release said there would be a review of the situation in the tribal areas and, instead of citing any plans for military operations there against militants, the release said the military’s decisions would be based on “the wishes of the nation”. Islamabad’s rethink has been prompted by the violence and political crisis resulting from the assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi last month. [emph. added]
Ishfaq Kiyani is of course, the purportedly pro-Western army boss who was floated as potential coup material by Western neo-conservatives because he was expected to walk hand in hand with Benazir Bhutto through a post-Musharraf field of sunshine and buttercups to smite the Islamist extremists permeating Pakistan’s borderlands.
Guess not.
It seems that the army has decided the ongoing political drift—with Musharraf floundering in the polls with favorability ratings in the 20s and serving as a pinata for the PPP and PML-N as a result of his colossal political ineptitude while the country burns--is unacceptable.
The army’s solution, however, is not to wait for the elections and allow the PPP, emboldened by U.S. support, to claim a mandate to govern and threaten to exacerbate the security crisis by promoting aggressive anti-Islamist, anti-Taleban, and anti-al Qaeda border policies that are anathema to the army, the intelligence services, and the country as a whole.
Instead, in a deal supported by the Saudis and brokered by the army, Musharraf pre-emptively proposes an alliance with Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N, a group that is both reasonably popular to the electorate and acceptable to the conservative and increasingly anti-American elite.
In sum: for the time being, Mush doesn’t go.
At least, he’s not going to get pushed out by the PPP alone, and the government has decided to make its move to prevent a genuine alliance between the PPP and PML-N, which could cause serious problems.
It doesn’t hurt that Musharraf has been sounding downright reasonable:
"If that (impeachment) happens, let me assure that I'd be leaving office before they would do anything. If they won with this kind of majority and they formed a government that had the intention of doing this, I wouldn't like to stick around," he said. "I would like to quit the scene."
He’s talking about what would happen in the (unlikely) event that the two opposition parties—Bhutto’s PPP and Sharif’s PML-N—were able to win enough seats in the parliamentary elections to a) form a government and b) amend the constitution without the input of the pro-government PML-Q party.
Of course, that scenario isn’t likely if the PML-N enters the government.
If Nawaz Sharif takes up Musharraf on his offer, it’s the U.S. that is left holding the short end of the stick, of course.
And opinion in Pakistan probably feels that Washington’s embarrassment is richly deserved.
Cheney’s people recently tried to exploit the unrest inside Pakistan to float an irresponsible plan to conduct expanded military operations under CIA direction in Pakistan’s frontierlands.
The Democratic presidential candidates, not to be outdone and led by Hillary Clinton, had an attack of stupids, proposing various ways to inject ourselves further into Pakistan’s security regime in order to protect the world against Pakistan’s nukes.
Clinton’s plan was convincingly debunked by Jeffrey Lewis over at Arms Control Wonk.
Inside Pakistan, of course, these U.S. initiatives caused a firestorm.
Musharraf, undoubtedly with a hearty amen or whatever the Islamic equivalent is from his countrymen, told the U.S.to bug out:
“The United States seems to think that what our army cannot do, they can do, this is a very wrong perception,” he said.“I challenge anybody to come into our mountains. They would regret that day. It’s not easy there.”
As for Hillary:
[Musharraf] also criticised US senator Hillary Clinton's proposal to place Pakistan's nuclear weapons under US and British supervision. According to Musharraf, Clinton's statement was "an intrusion into our privacy, into our sensitivity... She doesn't seem to understand how well-guarded these assets are."
Saleem Shahzad provides a pretty clear idea of the implications of the shift toward a more nuanced and conciliatory Pakistani security policy that puts Islamabad on Washington’s bad side.
Should Pakistan scale down or halt its operations in the tribal areas, where it has thousands of troops, the US might be forced to act. Reports have been swirling for some time of US plans to undertake aggressive covert operations inside Pakistan.
Despite ominous grunts from the Dick Cheney quadrant, it looks like Pakistan might not care anymore what we think: (Saleem Shahzad, again):
[Ex ISI chief] Durrani, who regularly attends international sessions of British and American policy think tanks, said Pakistan’s military operations in the tribal areas as part of the “war on terror” had resulted in problems in Pakistani cities.
When asked about the corps commanders’ conference and the possibility of peace dialogue between the tribals and the government instead of military operations, Durrani said, “I don’t know about the exact agenda of the conference, but you can’t tell me of any disagreement anywhere in the country that Pakistan should shun military operations and initiate dialogue.”
Durrani, who participated in the joint Pakistan-Afghanistan peace efforts in the Pakistani city of Peshawar last year, continued, “Nobody is in favor of operations, not even those who are actually doing the operations. Even people from [the port city of] Karachi, who are considered ultra-liberal [are against operations] and on the Lal Masjid [Red Mosque] operation, I found them calling it irrational.” Durrani was referring to security forces storming the radical mosque in Islamabad last year to root out militants.
It looks like Pakistan’s army, with pressing problems of its own that we seem incapable of understanding or acknowledging, sees no obstacle to distancing themselves from a failed American doctrine and lame-duck administration that they never really cared for
And when an ex-ISI chief who is the smiling face of professional Pakistani security policy on the Western think tank circuit goes on the record to make statements like that, I think that’s the fat lady singing. It’s over for the Bush administration in Pakistan.
And that would mean bad news for the PPP, which can no longer count on Musharraf’s government yielding to U.S. pressure in the matters of eschewing egregious voterigging against the PPP, tolerating PPP posturing and street demonstrations to gain additional political leverage, or accommodating a leading role for the PPP in the post-election government.
If Musharraf bags the PML-N, the government will feel free to drop the hammer on the PPP; and it's already doing plenty, starting with mass detentions of PPP activists in Sindh and illegally parachuting its bespoke hacks into key constituencies, presumably to conduct electoral skullduggery.
I came across a particularly egregious piece of ISI pushback against the PPP--and the US--in the Pakistan News, via Antiwar.com (since I’m quoting at length I’ve highlighted the really striking parts):
The US embassy in Islamabad has termed the reports connecting Washington to an international conspiracy behind Benazir Bhutto’s assassination “completely outrageous and unfounded” amid fresh revelations that the slain leader had established indirect contacts with Dr AQ Khan and Lt-Gen (retd) Hamid Gul shortly before her death. ...
Ms Colton [of the U.S. embassy] was asked to comment on the growing perception in Pakistan that Ms Bhutto’s killing was part of an international conspiracy to which the US was said to be a leading part with the grand design of destabilising and denuclearising Pakistan.
When asked if Washington had “pressurised” Ms Bhutto to strike a deal with President Musharraf, a fact that has been confirmed by sources in her Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and also a top presidential aide, Colton said, “our consistent interest is to see Pakistan succeed as a moderate, democratic country, led by the choice of the Pakistani people. We do not endorse particular candidates or parties. We are ready to work with whomever the Pakistani people choose to lead them.”
...
While the US embassy completely distanced itself from the growing perception in Pakistan that Islamabad was facing a serious international conspiracy to denuclearise Pakistan, a source having close relations with the slain chairperson of the PPP told this correspondent that Ms Bhutto had been punished for changing the script of the international conspirators as she wanted to save Pakistan from any damage.
Well, it looks like America has a “growing problem” in Pakistan.
This is a pretty crude piece of nationalistic anti-American agitprop and I’m amazed the embassy responded.
It gets better:
The source, while referring to his meeting with Benazir shortly before her death, revealed that after her return to Pakistan ending her nine-year exile she had changed her policy and started distancing herself from what some leading world capitals wanted her to pursue.
Not only that she had developed indirect contacts with the likes of Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan as reported already to pursue a peaceful negotiated settlement of extremism instead of using force or letting any foreign country intervene, and also sent separate messages to both Dr AQ Khan and Hamid Gul.
The source also shared the names of two of the messengers but requested not to make these public. He said Gul, who was one of the four persons nominated by Ms Bhutto in her October 2007 letter sent to the president in case she was killed, was conveyed that Ms Bhutto was under pressure to include the former ISI chief’s name in the list.
Similarly, Dr AQ Khan, the source claimed, was conveyed to forget about her earlier statement that when in power she would give the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access to the father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb, who is under house arrest for more than four years.
Although, Dr AQ Khan or any of his immediate relation was not accessible to media persons to confirm such an indirect contact, the source said Benazir got back a message from the scientist, who was quoted to have said, “I consider you more than a daughter.”
Gul confirmed that he received Benazir’s message from two different sources associated with the PPP. He said he was told that Benazir did not want to include his name in the list of four, who were after her life.
The last message that he received, Gul disclosed, was delivered to him on December 24, three days before the assassination of Ms Bhutto. “The messenger told me that Benazir stated that Gen Sahib (Gul) would know what pressures she was referring to,” Gul said.
He said according to his information, Ms Bhutto had changed the script of the influential world capitals and for this very crime, she was assassinated.
The former ISI chief, while offering himself for testimony before an independent commission comprising respected retired Supreme Court judges, said he had the conviction that Ms Bhutto was made a scapegoat by the international players conspiring against Pakistan.
Saying that Benazir’s killing was done in an extremely sophisticated and professional manner, he stated that to his reckoning it was a Mossad operation. He said knowing well that a popular leader like Ms Bhutto could not get along with Musharraf in the government, the international powers pressurised both sides to strike a deal.
“It was nothing less than a dream theme but still done to assassinate Ms Bhutto to cause destabilisation in Pakistan.”
Referring to the statements of the US presidential candidates and the latest utterance of ElBaradei, the IAEA chief, Gul said all this was being done under the greater design against Pakistan’s nuclear programme.
This certainly wins points for chutzpah.
Especially the part where Gul, the ex-ISI chief, while claiming that Bhutto was reaching out to him, labors to explain away the fact that Bhutto named him as one of her four most likely assassins in a letter she wrote last year.
Looking for electoral traction, the Musharraf government is trying to wrap itself in the mantle of protector of Pakistan’s sovereignty, its nuclear deterrent, and for good measure, A.Q. Khan.
More than that, it’s trying to blunt the PPP’s appeal by appropriating Bhutto’s legacy, claiming she was abandoning the Bush administration and detaching herself from the confrontational policies demanded by Washington in favor of...the same nationalist rhetoric vis a vis the U.S. and conciliatory policies vis a vis A.Q. Khan and Islamists that the Musharraf government plans to carry out with the PML-N...and died as a direct result!
Gul’s over-the-top allegation that the Mossad did the hit on Bhutto, I think identifies this whole article as bona fide, brazenly ham-fisted ISI “everything including the kitchen sink and we can get away with anything” creative writing product.
The ironic thing is that I think in her relentlessly chameleonlike way, Bhutto probably did all those things.
With power almost in her grasp, she intended to neglect her promise to confront the non-democratic, extremist, and anti-secular forces inside Pakistan that she had made so fulsomely to Washington, and instead was preparing to make peace with them.
Instead, after her death, her daring stratagems, fine calculations, and equivocal actions—and the unrealistic hopes of the United States—may come to naught and ironically be appropriated as the preferred tactics of our successful competitors—Nawaz Sharif and Saudi Arabia.
We’ll soon know if the Musharraf—PML-N alliance bears fruit--and if the Bush administration has fumbled Pakistan out of our sphere of influence and into Saudi Arabia's.
But he’s not turning to Benazir Bhutto’s PPP, the supposedly empowering force that the United States has been promoting as the solution to Pakistan’s problems.
He’s turning to the PML-N and Nawaz Sharif, who enjoy the backing of the conservative Islamic government of Saudi Arabia, as I reported in Nawaz Sharif: Saudi Arabia’s Plan B for Pakistan? back in November.
That’s going to cause some heartburn and late nights at Condoleezza Rice’s shop, as well as a round of gormless headscratching by the U.S. papers, who have had a hard time looking beyond the U.S. script—and the PPP.
Dawn, Pakistan’s most authoritative media outlet, reports:
Shahbaz ‘asked to join national govt’
By Amir Wasim
ISLAMABAD, Jan 12: Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) head Shahbaz Sharif dashed to Islamabad on Saturday and returned to Lahore in the evening after holding separate meetings with an aide of President Pervez Musharraf, the Saudi ambassador and a former bureaucrat, sources told Dawn.
The sources said the PML-N president had met Brig (retd) Niaz Ahmad, who passed a message from President Musharraf on to Mr Sharif about the formation of a national government before the general election.Sources in the PML-N said the president had suggested Shahbaz Sharif to become a part of the proposed government. The sources said the president had also proposed a “future role” for Shahbaz Sharif after the elections.
However, they added, Mr Shahbaz had told Mr Niaz that he would not reply to the proposals without consulting Nawaz Sharif....
They said Niaz Ahmad had requested the Sharif brothers to “soften the language” against the president at their public meetings.
Brig (retd) Niaz, a former instructor to President Musharraf, has been negotiating with the PML-N and the PPP leaders for the past several years and had held several meeting with the Sharif brothers in London and Saudi Arabia.
In the past, the PML-N had denied such contacts, but on Saturday a group of reporters caught Mr Sharif outside the Embassy Road residence of the retired brigadier when he was leaving the place after the meeting.
Talking to reporters, the PML-N president said his meeting with Brig Niaz should not be construed as a ‘political move’. He said he had come only to pay a “courtesy call”....Earlier, a senior PML-N leader, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, ruled out at a press conference the possibility of his party becoming a part of a national government under President Musharraf, indicating that the party had officially received “some sort of a proposal along this line”.
...SAUDI AMBASSADOR: Shahbaz Sharif also met the Saudi ambassador in Islamabad, Ali Awadhi Al Asseri, and a former director-general of the Federal Investigation Agency, Wajahat Latif.Party sources said Mr Sharif had met the ambassador to thank him for the hospitality extended to the Sharif family during its stay in Saudi Arabia.
About his meeting with Wajahat Latif, the PML-N leader said that he had come to meet him “only to offer my good wishes”.[emph. added]
Did you notice that the Saudi ambassador was participated in this supersensitive high level meeting? Didja?
It remains to be seen if Sharif responds to Musharraf’s initiative.
It will be hard because Sharif genuinely hates Musharraf—who deposed him—and Sharif has been sedulously cultivating his opposition cred by roasting Musharraf at every opportunity and demanding he step down.
Musharraf is plainly trying to co-opt Sharif. And I hope he does.
Because Pakistan needs to ameliorate its political crisis if it is to confront its security crisis. And until recently the exact opposite was happening.
When Islamist extremists attacked, the opposition used it as a stick to beat Musharraf with, thundering that he couldn’t provide security for the country. And, I believe, Islamist militants saw this and determined that now was an opportune time to further divide and damage Pakistan’s secular society with further attacks.
For Pakistan’s political elite inside and outside the government, the turning point might have been the horrific suicide bombing at the Lahore High Court on January 10.
It apparently targeted policemen assembling in preparation for a protest march by local lawyers, killing over 20.
From Dawn:
Aftab Cheema, SSP Operations, said the bomber had a 14-kg explosive device, with three kilograms of ball bearings, strapped to his body. He said the size of the ball bearings was larger than the ones used in earlier blasts.’’A man rammed into our ranks and soon after there was a huge explosion,” said policeman Syed Imtiaz Hussain, who suffered wounds in his legs and groin.
“I saw the bodies of other policemen burning. It was like hell.’’
...
“I saw about 50 to 60 injured policemen, bleeding, scattered everywhere. They were asking for water.”
They found the bomber’s head 100 feet away.
Noted South Asia watcher Syed Saleem Shahzad reported on a chain of events that indicates to me that Pakistan’s elites has decided that the political paralysis incurred by trying to please the United States, give lip service to its unpopular and wrongheaded policies, and coddle its leaderless client, the PPP—and the growing security crisis feeding off it--is no longer acceptable.
In a recent report in Asia Times subtitled Washington May Lose a Friend, he wrote:
...there is serious consideration for repositioning the country’s foreign policy as neutral in the United States-led “war on terror”.
This would mean non-interference in the restive tribal areas on the border with Afghanistan. These are virtually autonomous areas where Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants have established bases and vital supply lines into Afghanistan. Such a move would have devastating effects on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) efforts to control the ever-growing insurgency in Afghanistan.
Following a meeting of the Pakistan corps commanders headed by the new chief of army staff, General Ashfaq Kayani, a press release said there would be a review of the situation in the tribal areas and, instead of citing any plans for military operations there against militants, the release said the military’s decisions would be based on “the wishes of the nation”. Islamabad’s rethink has been prompted by the violence and political crisis resulting from the assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi last month. [emph. added]
Ishfaq Kiyani is of course, the purportedly pro-Western army boss who was floated as potential coup material by Western neo-conservatives because he was expected to walk hand in hand with Benazir Bhutto through a post-Musharraf field of sunshine and buttercups to smite the Islamist extremists permeating Pakistan’s borderlands.
Guess not.
It seems that the army has decided the ongoing political drift—with Musharraf floundering in the polls with favorability ratings in the 20s and serving as a pinata for the PPP and PML-N as a result of his colossal political ineptitude while the country burns--is unacceptable.
The army’s solution, however, is not to wait for the elections and allow the PPP, emboldened by U.S. support, to claim a mandate to govern and threaten to exacerbate the security crisis by promoting aggressive anti-Islamist, anti-Taleban, and anti-al Qaeda border policies that are anathema to the army, the intelligence services, and the country as a whole.
Instead, in a deal supported by the Saudis and brokered by the army, Musharraf pre-emptively proposes an alliance with Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N, a group that is both reasonably popular to the electorate and acceptable to the conservative and increasingly anti-American elite.
In sum: for the time being, Mush doesn’t go.
At least, he’s not going to get pushed out by the PPP alone, and the government has decided to make its move to prevent a genuine alliance between the PPP and PML-N, which could cause serious problems.
It doesn’t hurt that Musharraf has been sounding downright reasonable:
"If that (impeachment) happens, let me assure that I'd be leaving office before they would do anything. If they won with this kind of majority and they formed a government that had the intention of doing this, I wouldn't like to stick around," he said. "I would like to quit the scene."
He’s talking about what would happen in the (unlikely) event that the two opposition parties—Bhutto’s PPP and Sharif’s PML-N—were able to win enough seats in the parliamentary elections to a) form a government and b) amend the constitution without the input of the pro-government PML-Q party.
Of course, that scenario isn’t likely if the PML-N enters the government.
If Nawaz Sharif takes up Musharraf on his offer, it’s the U.S. that is left holding the short end of the stick, of course.
And opinion in Pakistan probably feels that Washington’s embarrassment is richly deserved.
Cheney’s people recently tried to exploit the unrest inside Pakistan to float an irresponsible plan to conduct expanded military operations under CIA direction in Pakistan’s frontierlands.
The Democratic presidential candidates, not to be outdone and led by Hillary Clinton, had an attack of stupids, proposing various ways to inject ourselves further into Pakistan’s security regime in order to protect the world against Pakistan’s nukes.
Clinton’s plan was convincingly debunked by Jeffrey Lewis over at Arms Control Wonk.
Inside Pakistan, of course, these U.S. initiatives caused a firestorm.
Musharraf, undoubtedly with a hearty amen or whatever the Islamic equivalent is from his countrymen, told the U.S.to bug out:
“The United States seems to think that what our army cannot do, they can do, this is a very wrong perception,” he said.“I challenge anybody to come into our mountains. They would regret that day. It’s not easy there.”
As for Hillary:
[Musharraf] also criticised US senator Hillary Clinton's proposal to place Pakistan's nuclear weapons under US and British supervision. According to Musharraf, Clinton's statement was "an intrusion into our privacy, into our sensitivity... She doesn't seem to understand how well-guarded these assets are."
Saleem Shahzad provides a pretty clear idea of the implications of the shift toward a more nuanced and conciliatory Pakistani security policy that puts Islamabad on Washington’s bad side.
Should Pakistan scale down or halt its operations in the tribal areas, where it has thousands of troops, the US might be forced to act. Reports have been swirling for some time of US plans to undertake aggressive covert operations inside Pakistan.
Despite ominous grunts from the Dick Cheney quadrant, it looks like Pakistan might not care anymore what we think: (Saleem Shahzad, again):
[Ex ISI chief] Durrani, who regularly attends international sessions of British and American policy think tanks, said Pakistan’s military operations in the tribal areas as part of the “war on terror” had resulted in problems in Pakistani cities.
When asked about the corps commanders’ conference and the possibility of peace dialogue between the tribals and the government instead of military operations, Durrani said, “I don’t know about the exact agenda of the conference, but you can’t tell me of any disagreement anywhere in the country that Pakistan should shun military operations and initiate dialogue.”
Durrani, who participated in the joint Pakistan-Afghanistan peace efforts in the Pakistani city of Peshawar last year, continued, “Nobody is in favor of operations, not even those who are actually doing the operations. Even people from [the port city of] Karachi, who are considered ultra-liberal [are against operations] and on the Lal Masjid [Red Mosque] operation, I found them calling it irrational.” Durrani was referring to security forces storming the radical mosque in Islamabad last year to root out militants.
It looks like Pakistan’s army, with pressing problems of its own that we seem incapable of understanding or acknowledging, sees no obstacle to distancing themselves from a failed American doctrine and lame-duck administration that they never really cared for
And when an ex-ISI chief who is the smiling face of professional Pakistani security policy on the Western think tank circuit goes on the record to make statements like that, I think that’s the fat lady singing. It’s over for the Bush administration in Pakistan.
And that would mean bad news for the PPP, which can no longer count on Musharraf’s government yielding to U.S. pressure in the matters of eschewing egregious voterigging against the PPP, tolerating PPP posturing and street demonstrations to gain additional political leverage, or accommodating a leading role for the PPP in the post-election government.
If Musharraf bags the PML-N, the government will feel free to drop the hammer on the PPP; and it's already doing plenty, starting with mass detentions of PPP activists in Sindh and illegally parachuting its bespoke hacks into key constituencies, presumably to conduct electoral skullduggery.
I came across a particularly egregious piece of ISI pushback against the PPP--and the US--in the Pakistan News, via Antiwar.com (since I’m quoting at length I’ve highlighted the really striking parts):
The US embassy in Islamabad has termed the reports connecting Washington to an international conspiracy behind Benazir Bhutto’s assassination “completely outrageous and unfounded” amid fresh revelations that the slain leader had established indirect contacts with Dr AQ Khan and Lt-Gen (retd) Hamid Gul shortly before her death. ...
Ms Colton [of the U.S. embassy] was asked to comment on the growing perception in Pakistan that Ms Bhutto’s killing was part of an international conspiracy to which the US was said to be a leading part with the grand design of destabilising and denuclearising Pakistan.
When asked if Washington had “pressurised” Ms Bhutto to strike a deal with President Musharraf, a fact that has been confirmed by sources in her Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and also a top presidential aide, Colton said, “our consistent interest is to see Pakistan succeed as a moderate, democratic country, led by the choice of the Pakistani people. We do not endorse particular candidates or parties. We are ready to work with whomever the Pakistani people choose to lead them.”
...
While the US embassy completely distanced itself from the growing perception in Pakistan that Islamabad was facing a serious international conspiracy to denuclearise Pakistan, a source having close relations with the slain chairperson of the PPP told this correspondent that Ms Bhutto had been punished for changing the script of the international conspirators as she wanted to save Pakistan from any damage.
Well, it looks like America has a “growing problem” in Pakistan.
This is a pretty crude piece of nationalistic anti-American agitprop and I’m amazed the embassy responded.
It gets better:
The source, while referring to his meeting with Benazir shortly before her death, revealed that after her return to Pakistan ending her nine-year exile she had changed her policy and started distancing herself from what some leading world capitals wanted her to pursue.
Not only that she had developed indirect contacts with the likes of Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan as reported already to pursue a peaceful negotiated settlement of extremism instead of using force or letting any foreign country intervene, and also sent separate messages to both Dr AQ Khan and Hamid Gul.
The source also shared the names of two of the messengers but requested not to make these public. He said Gul, who was one of the four persons nominated by Ms Bhutto in her October 2007 letter sent to the president in case she was killed, was conveyed that Ms Bhutto was under pressure to include the former ISI chief’s name in the list.
Similarly, Dr AQ Khan, the source claimed, was conveyed to forget about her earlier statement that when in power she would give the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access to the father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb, who is under house arrest for more than four years.
Although, Dr AQ Khan or any of his immediate relation was not accessible to media persons to confirm such an indirect contact, the source said Benazir got back a message from the scientist, who was quoted to have said, “I consider you more than a daughter.”
Gul confirmed that he received Benazir’s message from two different sources associated with the PPP. He said he was told that Benazir did not want to include his name in the list of four, who were after her life.
The last message that he received, Gul disclosed, was delivered to him on December 24, three days before the assassination of Ms Bhutto. “The messenger told me that Benazir stated that Gen Sahib (Gul) would know what pressures she was referring to,” Gul said.
He said according to his information, Ms Bhutto had changed the script of the influential world capitals and for this very crime, she was assassinated.
The former ISI chief, while offering himself for testimony before an independent commission comprising respected retired Supreme Court judges, said he had the conviction that Ms Bhutto was made a scapegoat by the international players conspiring against Pakistan.
Saying that Benazir’s killing was done in an extremely sophisticated and professional manner, he stated that to his reckoning it was a Mossad operation. He said knowing well that a popular leader like Ms Bhutto could not get along with Musharraf in the government, the international powers pressurised both sides to strike a deal.
“It was nothing less than a dream theme but still done to assassinate Ms Bhutto to cause destabilisation in Pakistan.”
Referring to the statements of the US presidential candidates and the latest utterance of ElBaradei, the IAEA chief, Gul said all this was being done under the greater design against Pakistan’s nuclear programme.
This certainly wins points for chutzpah.
Especially the part where Gul, the ex-ISI chief, while claiming that Bhutto was reaching out to him, labors to explain away the fact that Bhutto named him as one of her four most likely assassins in a letter she wrote last year.
Looking for electoral traction, the Musharraf government is trying to wrap itself in the mantle of protector of Pakistan’s sovereignty, its nuclear deterrent, and for good measure, A.Q. Khan.
More than that, it’s trying to blunt the PPP’s appeal by appropriating Bhutto’s legacy, claiming she was abandoning the Bush administration and detaching herself from the confrontational policies demanded by Washington in favor of...the same nationalist rhetoric vis a vis the U.S. and conciliatory policies vis a vis A.Q. Khan and Islamists that the Musharraf government plans to carry out with the PML-N...and died as a direct result!
Gul’s over-the-top allegation that the Mossad did the hit on Bhutto, I think identifies this whole article as bona fide, brazenly ham-fisted ISI “everything including the kitchen sink and we can get away with anything” creative writing product.
The ironic thing is that I think in her relentlessly chameleonlike way, Bhutto probably did all those things.
With power almost in her grasp, she intended to neglect her promise to confront the non-democratic, extremist, and anti-secular forces inside Pakistan that she had made so fulsomely to Washington, and instead was preparing to make peace with them.
Instead, after her death, her daring stratagems, fine calculations, and equivocal actions—and the unrealistic hopes of the United States—may come to naught and ironically be appropriated as the preferred tactics of our successful competitors—Nawaz Sharif and Saudi Arabia.
We’ll soon know if the Musharraf—PML-N alliance bears fruit--and if the Bush administration has fumbled Pakistan out of our sphere of influence and into Saudi Arabia's.
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Dumbageddon
America's Delusional Policy Pushes Pakistan Toward Catastrophe
How’s that U.S. plan to stabilize Pakistan working out?
Not too great.
And not all the troublemakers are inside Pakistan.
In fact, a lot of them are right here in the U.S.A.
It's not just Islamist extremists who see U.S. meddling as the source of Pakistan’s problems.
Liberal, secular opinion inside Pakistan increasingly sees U.S. interference in Pakistan’s politics on behalf of military rule and in pursuit of its own misguided and dangerous security priorities as the root cause of that country’s miserable political instability.
Recent events make it easy to see why.
Acting on their unofficial motto “Where there’s death there’s hope”, the currently sidelined enthusiasts for military action constellated around Dick Cheney are doing their best to take advantage of the unrest in Pakistan triggered by Benazir Bhutto’s assassination—and the resultant disarray in the State Department—to push their own plans to broaden the hot war on terror with a third front in West Pakistan.
From the New York Times:
...at the White House and the Pentagon, officials see an opportunity in the changing power structure for the Americans to advocate for the expanded authority in Pakistan, a nuclear-armed country. “After years of focusing on Afghanistan, we think the extremists now see a chance for the big prize — creating chaos in Pakistan itself,” one senior official said.
Aah. The sweet smell of chaos...and opportunity.
The new options for expanded covert operations include loosening restrictions on the C.I.A. to strike selected targets in Pakistan, in some cases using intelligence provided by Pakistani sources...
... if the C.I.A. were given broader authority, it could call for help from the military or deputize some forces of the Special Operations Command to act under the authority of the agency.
And, in a series of nice hmmm-inducing asides:
Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and a number of President Bush’s top national security advisers met Friday at the White House to discuss the proposal...
The meeting on Friday, which was not publicly announced, included Stephen J. Hadley, Mr. Bush’s national security adviser; Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and top intelligence officials...
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who was on vacation last week and did not attend the White House meeting...
Hmmm.
It doesn’t take a lot of reading between the lines to guess that Condoleezza Rice doesn’t like this plan, since unleashing the CIA and Special Ops to slaughter and abduct suspected terrorists in the border areas in unilateral paramilitary operations would be wildly unpopular within Pakistan, accelerate Musharraf’s political collapse, and contribute mightily to the deadly instability she would like to avert.
Although Secretary Rice was forced to take the meeting bereft of reinforcement from her most effective realist ally, Robert Gates, she has thankfully taken steps to spike the initiative through the press.
Rice’s minions leaked the news of the meeting to the New York Times, and the article concludes with a plethora of, to my mind, completely accurate predictions of disaster from two on-the-record think tankers and that ubiquitous but circumspect presence, Mr. Officials Say:
[O]fficials say, some American diplomats and military officials, as well as outside experts, argue that American-led military operations on the Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan could result in a tremendous backlash and ultimately do more harm than good. That is particularly true, they say, if Americans were captured or killed in the territory.
For good measure, the Pakistanis don’t like the idea either.
Here’s what Dawn, Pakistan’s major English-language media outlet, had to say in an editorial:
AMERICAN threats to intervene in Pakistan militarily have become a routine affair. This time, however, the threat ...has evoked the usual response by the Foreign Office spokesman. Islamabad, he said, would not allow America to intervene militarily in Pakistan, because fighting terrorism in Fata and elsewhere was the government’s responsibility. One does not know who to pick up first for some plain speaking. The naivety being show by the Bush administration is amazing.
The second absurdity is the Bush administration’s belief that it knows something about guerilla war. Actually, going by the mess they have created in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush aides are the last people on earth to claim anti-insurgency expertise.
So far so good.
And, if Secretary Rice can steer President Bush’s force-infatuated and success-averse attention away from this plan, Pakistan will be better off.
However, it looks like we can’t expect anything good to come out of Secretary Rice’s shop either.
Having announced in oblivious “it’s not a bug it’s a feature” style that we have no Plan B for Pakistan, the State Department has redoubled its efforts to push through the elections and the coalition between Bhutto’s PPP and Musharraf’s creatures in Pakistan’s parliament, the PML-Q.
This unavoidably means trashing Nawaz Sharif and his PML-N, the only opposition politician with national organizational reach and stature after Bhutto’s death.
Because Nawaz Sharif might be good for Pakistan, but he’s not good for the U.S. State Department.
If the PML-N and the PPP, who will probably both do well—but not too well—in the elections, went ahead and formed a ruling coalition, parliament could push for sanctions of every conceivable kind against Musharraf, such as invalidating his blatantly illegal presidency...
...and undoubtedly cleave to Sharif’s popular anti-American and cautious line in dealing with Pakistan’s Islamicist/Taliban/al Qaeda problem.
That means that the U.S. takeaway from Pakistan be zero in terms of shoring up the eastern front against the Taleban resurgence in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s tribal areas...
...and less than zero if one factors in the inadvertent political destruction of Musharraf, the wayward U.S. client we meant to rescue...
...not to mention the slaughter of Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan’s most prominent pro-Western politician...
...and the descent of Pakistan into political crisis and, in some areas, near anarchy.
Not the kind of legacy-building Secretary Rice was looking for in the last year of her dismal term at State.
So we are left with a policy of support for the PPP + Musharraf that is, clinically speaking, insane.
Let me count the ways.
First, the U.S. is openly committing to keeping Musharraf in power. We are allying with the most despised political force in Pakistan.
Second, U.S. patronage is distorting the political activities of the PPP—to its and our detriment.
Unconditional support of the PPP brings with it unconditional support for Benazir Bhutto’s creepy widower, Asif Ali Zardari.
For those accustomed to patronizing him with the insulting nickname Mr. 10%,: Hey, it’s Mr. 30% to you!
[Zardari] acquired the less-than-flattering nickname 'Mr 10 Per Cent' -- a reference to the cut he took for approving government contracts. That government was dismissed for corruption by the president, but Benazir was returned to power in 1993. Her second stint in office proved no different, however -- except that Zardari's nickname was 'Mr 30 Per Cent'.
It remains to be seen at what percentage a Zardari government would finally max out at, given the immense amount of patronage he would need to dispense to keep his unpopular presence on top of the PPP.
With Bhutto gone, the PPP has lost its transcendent image-management resource and the party is increasingly portrayed in the Western press as the feudal plaything of a corrupt and vindictive operator who bungees his son in to front the party for brief English-language press availabilities before popping him back to Oxford and blissful obscurity.
Here’s the lede from the current Time cover story on Pakistan:
As the new self-appointed standard bearers of Pakistani democracy, Asif Ali Zardari and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari don't inspire much confidence. One is a feudal aristocrat widely reviled as corrupt and blamed for his wife's undoing when she was the country's Prime Minister in the 1990s. The other, their son, is a bookish Oxford undergraduate who talks of democracy but whose political clout derives entirely from his middle name. Yet there they were, three days after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, their beloved wife and mother, proclaiming themselves inheritors of her political fief, the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), and assuring Pakistan that they were the answer to all its problems.
Ouch.
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s most recent press conference informed the world that the elder Zardari has decided to pursue the Hariri option—pushing for a U.N. investigation of Bhutto’s assassination.
Giving the U.N. Security Council—and U.S. and Great Britain—carte blanche to interfere in Pakistan’s internal affairs might provide Zardari with another valuable political weapon in his struggle with Musharraf, but Pakistanis will resent a measure that would undoubtedly undermine Pakistan’s sovereignty and political stability.
Zardari is desperate for quick elections, despite the horrific violence that gripped Pakistan since the assassination. I assume he knows that as time passes the image of Benazir Bhutto will fade from the public mind, to be replaced with awareness of the dubious and flawed legacy she left behind.
The PPP—and Pakistan—could have used a period of reflection and restructuring, which they aren’t going to get, given Zadari’s need to wave the bloody shirt and U.S. haste to push the PPP—Musharraf deal down people’s throats asap.
Third, Sharif is one of the most popular politicians in Pakistan. Even if he can’t win significant support from PPP voters after Bhutto’s demise, he’s probably the single most well-known—and one of the more trusted—political figures in Pakistan. So by allying with Musharraf and spurning Sharif, the U.S. is allying with the least popular national figure in Pakistan in opposition to the most popular.
Fourth, we are once again selling out Pakistan’s genuine democracy movement—the activists of the judiciary and legal profession who have been trying to get Pakistan to live up to the democratic promises of its constitution—by pushing our backroom deal instead of supporting a return to constitutional rule. This gives the anti-Musharraf bourgeoisie yet another reason to hate us.
Fifth, we are pushing the military strongman—anti Taliban/anti terrorist regional security model on Pakistan that nobody likes.
That includes the army, of course.
Benazir Bhutto herself would probably have been incapable of getting the Pakistan military to abandon the comfortable strategic posture of standing as Pakistan’s modern, well-armed, and prestigious national bulwark against India in favor the dangerous and dirty work of pursuing its ex-clients and enemies through the mud villages of western Pakistan more than it’s already doing.
No chance for the disorganized and opportunistic no-names who would be staffing a PML-Q/PPP administration.
No chance they’d try, given the intense public opposition to U.S. security policy inside Pakistan.
Increasingly, Pakistani opinion sees the dysfunctional dynamic of a military strongman propped up by the U.S. and permitted to trample on the constitution so he can pursue the U.S. aim of chasing terrorists as the thing that is destroying Pakistan.
The U.S. global war on terror only enjoys 15% support in Pakistan, according to the International Republican Institute.
U.S. security policy—and not Islamist extremism—is seen as doing the greatest damage to Pakistan’s civil society.
I’d like to stress that a little bit.
As Kevin Drum pointed out, in a November poll by the University of Maryland’s Program of International Policy Attitudes, Pakistanis were asked to characterize threats to Pakistan’s national interests in the next 10 years.
The largest number characterized the U.S. military presence in Asia a critical threat.
How many people? 72%
What’s the next biggest threat?
The U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, characterized by 68% of resondents as a critical threat.
Those are big numbers. Really big numbers.
Especially since we're actually allies with Pakistan. We're not supposed to be a threat.
Even Pakistan's enemies are seen as less of a threat than us.
The Indian threat—that old standby of Pakistani security policy, politics, and military rule—clocked in third at 53%.
(Since I write a China blog, I should point out that rising China came in at the bottom of the list, viewed as a critical threat by only 10% of respondents.)
As for the areas that interest us the most:
Al Qaeda clocked in as a critical threat to a respectable but distant 4th for 41% of the respondents.
The local Taliban: 34%.
Islamist movements are definitely a problem, but here’s something to chew on from the poll results:
Asked about the "cooperation in the last few years between Pakistan and the US on military and security matters”, only one in four (27%) said that it had brought any benefits to akistan...Nearly one-third said US-Pakistani cooperation had actually hurt Pakistan...
Supporters of all leaders were united in their distrust of the United States and its motives. Majorities of all said they did not trust the United States to act responsibly in the world, including 68% of Sharif supporters, 65% of Bhutto supporters, and 55% of Musharraf supporters.[emph. added].
And those are the people we think support us.
As for allowing U.S. or foreign troops to capture al Qaeda fighters in Pakistan?
5% approved.
We're not just pushing an unpopular client. We're an unpopular patron. And we're pushing very unpopular policies, seemingly without regard for the facts on the ground or the interests of our "ally".
In other words, in the name of stabilizing Pakistan and shoring up support for Musharraf, we are pretty much guaranteeing that Musharraf will be less popular—and Pakistan’s government less stable—than before our failed injection of Bhutto into Pakistani politics threw that nation into disarray.
I assume the geniuses of Foggy Bottom—and the Office of the Vice President--are well aware of these numbers and the bleak situation.
Maybe State is pushing the doomed PPP—Musharraf alliance because we know that only a regime of weak and unpopular clients reliant on American aid will keep the threat of a populist, united, anti-American and Taleban friendly regime at bay, at least until the Bush administration is out of office.
Maybe that same vision of a helpless, discredited pro-US regime in Islamabad convinced Cheney’s people that the time was ripe to discard the dream of stabilizing a friendly Pakistan for the thrill of kindling America’s third Eurasian land war in the mountains and valleys of West Pakistan.
I looked at the recent Time cover and actually had to laugh.
It’s a classic piece of what I call “muscular handwringing”—the unwillingness to understand that the bizarre problems that the World's Only Superpower can't seem to solve are not arising out of mysterious local conditions, the political and/or moral perversity of the subject population, or our client’s inexplicable political dysfunction.
The cover story is entitled:
No One Could Save Benazir Bhutto. Why We Need To Save Pakistan
It's too disturbing and inconvenient to realize that the source of the mess can be discovered by looking in a mirror.
In Pakistan, we are dealing with the inevitable consequences of our own failed policies.
Actually, the best way to save Pakistan is for us to leave it alone.
That might have saved Benazir Bhutto, too
How’s that U.S. plan to stabilize Pakistan working out?
Not too great.
And not all the troublemakers are inside Pakistan.
In fact, a lot of them are right here in the U.S.A.
It's not just Islamist extremists who see U.S. meddling as the source of Pakistan’s problems.
Liberal, secular opinion inside Pakistan increasingly sees U.S. interference in Pakistan’s politics on behalf of military rule and in pursuit of its own misguided and dangerous security priorities as the root cause of that country’s miserable political instability.
Recent events make it easy to see why.
Acting on their unofficial motto “Where there’s death there’s hope”, the currently sidelined enthusiasts for military action constellated around Dick Cheney are doing their best to take advantage of the unrest in Pakistan triggered by Benazir Bhutto’s assassination—and the resultant disarray in the State Department—to push their own plans to broaden the hot war on terror with a third front in West Pakistan.
From the New York Times:
...at the White House and the Pentagon, officials see an opportunity in the changing power structure for the Americans to advocate for the expanded authority in Pakistan, a nuclear-armed country. “After years of focusing on Afghanistan, we think the extremists now see a chance for the big prize — creating chaos in Pakistan itself,” one senior official said.
Aah. The sweet smell of chaos...and opportunity.
The new options for expanded covert operations include loosening restrictions on the C.I.A. to strike selected targets in Pakistan, in some cases using intelligence provided by Pakistani sources...
... if the C.I.A. were given broader authority, it could call for help from the military or deputize some forces of the Special Operations Command to act under the authority of the agency.
And, in a series of nice hmmm-inducing asides:
Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and a number of President Bush’s top national security advisers met Friday at the White House to discuss the proposal...
The meeting on Friday, which was not publicly announced, included Stephen J. Hadley, Mr. Bush’s national security adviser; Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and top intelligence officials...
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who was on vacation last week and did not attend the White House meeting...
Hmmm.
It doesn’t take a lot of reading between the lines to guess that Condoleezza Rice doesn’t like this plan, since unleashing the CIA and Special Ops to slaughter and abduct suspected terrorists in the border areas in unilateral paramilitary operations would be wildly unpopular within Pakistan, accelerate Musharraf’s political collapse, and contribute mightily to the deadly instability she would like to avert.
Although Secretary Rice was forced to take the meeting bereft of reinforcement from her most effective realist ally, Robert Gates, she has thankfully taken steps to spike the initiative through the press.
Rice’s minions leaked the news of the meeting to the New York Times, and the article concludes with a plethora of, to my mind, completely accurate predictions of disaster from two on-the-record think tankers and that ubiquitous but circumspect presence, Mr. Officials Say:
[O]fficials say, some American diplomats and military officials, as well as outside experts, argue that American-led military operations on the Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan could result in a tremendous backlash and ultimately do more harm than good. That is particularly true, they say, if Americans were captured or killed in the territory.
For good measure, the Pakistanis don’t like the idea either.
Here’s what Dawn, Pakistan’s major English-language media outlet, had to say in an editorial:
AMERICAN threats to intervene in Pakistan militarily have become a routine affair. This time, however, the threat ...has evoked the usual response by the Foreign Office spokesman. Islamabad, he said, would not allow America to intervene militarily in Pakistan, because fighting terrorism in Fata and elsewhere was the government’s responsibility. One does not know who to pick up first for some plain speaking. The naivety being show by the Bush administration is amazing.
The second absurdity is the Bush administration’s belief that it knows something about guerilla war. Actually, going by the mess they have created in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush aides are the last people on earth to claim anti-insurgency expertise.
So far so good.
And, if Secretary Rice can steer President Bush’s force-infatuated and success-averse attention away from this plan, Pakistan will be better off.
However, it looks like we can’t expect anything good to come out of Secretary Rice’s shop either.
Having announced in oblivious “it’s not a bug it’s a feature” style that we have no Plan B for Pakistan, the State Department has redoubled its efforts to push through the elections and the coalition between Bhutto’s PPP and Musharraf’s creatures in Pakistan’s parliament, the PML-Q.
This unavoidably means trashing Nawaz Sharif and his PML-N, the only opposition politician with national organizational reach and stature after Bhutto’s death.
Because Nawaz Sharif might be good for Pakistan, but he’s not good for the U.S. State Department.
If the PML-N and the PPP, who will probably both do well—but not too well—in the elections, went ahead and formed a ruling coalition, parliament could push for sanctions of every conceivable kind against Musharraf, such as invalidating his blatantly illegal presidency...
...and undoubtedly cleave to Sharif’s popular anti-American and cautious line in dealing with Pakistan’s Islamicist/Taliban/al Qaeda problem.
That means that the U.S. takeaway from Pakistan be zero in terms of shoring up the eastern front against the Taleban resurgence in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s tribal areas...
...and less than zero if one factors in the inadvertent political destruction of Musharraf, the wayward U.S. client we meant to rescue...
...not to mention the slaughter of Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan’s most prominent pro-Western politician...
...and the descent of Pakistan into political crisis and, in some areas, near anarchy.
Not the kind of legacy-building Secretary Rice was looking for in the last year of her dismal term at State.
So we are left with a policy of support for the PPP + Musharraf that is, clinically speaking, insane.
Let me count the ways.
First, the U.S. is openly committing to keeping Musharraf in power. We are allying with the most despised political force in Pakistan.
Second, U.S. patronage is distorting the political activities of the PPP—to its and our detriment.
Unconditional support of the PPP brings with it unconditional support for Benazir Bhutto’s creepy widower, Asif Ali Zardari.
For those accustomed to patronizing him with the insulting nickname Mr. 10%,: Hey, it’s Mr. 30% to you!
[Zardari] acquired the less-than-flattering nickname 'Mr 10 Per Cent' -- a reference to the cut he took for approving government contracts. That government was dismissed for corruption by the president, but Benazir was returned to power in 1993. Her second stint in office proved no different, however -- except that Zardari's nickname was 'Mr 30 Per Cent'.
It remains to be seen at what percentage a Zardari government would finally max out at, given the immense amount of patronage he would need to dispense to keep his unpopular presence on top of the PPP.
With Bhutto gone, the PPP has lost its transcendent image-management resource and the party is increasingly portrayed in the Western press as the feudal plaything of a corrupt and vindictive operator who bungees his son in to front the party for brief English-language press availabilities before popping him back to Oxford and blissful obscurity.
Here’s the lede from the current Time cover story on Pakistan:
As the new self-appointed standard bearers of Pakistani democracy, Asif Ali Zardari and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari don't inspire much confidence. One is a feudal aristocrat widely reviled as corrupt and blamed for his wife's undoing when she was the country's Prime Minister in the 1990s. The other, their son, is a bookish Oxford undergraduate who talks of democracy but whose political clout derives entirely from his middle name. Yet there they were, three days after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, their beloved wife and mother, proclaiming themselves inheritors of her political fief, the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), and assuring Pakistan that they were the answer to all its problems.
Ouch.
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s most recent press conference informed the world that the elder Zardari has decided to pursue the Hariri option—pushing for a U.N. investigation of Bhutto’s assassination.
Giving the U.N. Security Council—and U.S. and Great Britain—carte blanche to interfere in Pakistan’s internal affairs might provide Zardari with another valuable political weapon in his struggle with Musharraf, but Pakistanis will resent a measure that would undoubtedly undermine Pakistan’s sovereignty and political stability.
Zardari is desperate for quick elections, despite the horrific violence that gripped Pakistan since the assassination. I assume he knows that as time passes the image of Benazir Bhutto will fade from the public mind, to be replaced with awareness of the dubious and flawed legacy she left behind.
The PPP—and Pakistan—could have used a period of reflection and restructuring, which they aren’t going to get, given Zadari’s need to wave the bloody shirt and U.S. haste to push the PPP—Musharraf deal down people’s throats asap.
Third, Sharif is one of the most popular politicians in Pakistan. Even if he can’t win significant support from PPP voters after Bhutto’s demise, he’s probably the single most well-known—and one of the more trusted—political figures in Pakistan. So by allying with Musharraf and spurning Sharif, the U.S. is allying with the least popular national figure in Pakistan in opposition to the most popular.
Fourth, we are once again selling out Pakistan’s genuine democracy movement—the activists of the judiciary and legal profession who have been trying to get Pakistan to live up to the democratic promises of its constitution—by pushing our backroom deal instead of supporting a return to constitutional rule. This gives the anti-Musharraf bourgeoisie yet another reason to hate us.
Fifth, we are pushing the military strongman—anti Taliban/anti terrorist regional security model on Pakistan that nobody likes.
That includes the army, of course.
Benazir Bhutto herself would probably have been incapable of getting the Pakistan military to abandon the comfortable strategic posture of standing as Pakistan’s modern, well-armed, and prestigious national bulwark against India in favor the dangerous and dirty work of pursuing its ex-clients and enemies through the mud villages of western Pakistan more than it’s already doing.
No chance for the disorganized and opportunistic no-names who would be staffing a PML-Q/PPP administration.
No chance they’d try, given the intense public opposition to U.S. security policy inside Pakistan.
Increasingly, Pakistani opinion sees the dysfunctional dynamic of a military strongman propped up by the U.S. and permitted to trample on the constitution so he can pursue the U.S. aim of chasing terrorists as the thing that is destroying Pakistan.
The U.S. global war on terror only enjoys 15% support in Pakistan, according to the International Republican Institute.
U.S. security policy—and not Islamist extremism—is seen as doing the greatest damage to Pakistan’s civil society.
I’d like to stress that a little bit.
As Kevin Drum pointed out, in a November poll by the University of Maryland’s Program of International Policy Attitudes, Pakistanis were asked to characterize threats to Pakistan’s national interests in the next 10 years.
The largest number characterized the U.S. military presence in Asia a critical threat.
How many people? 72%
What’s the next biggest threat?
The U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, characterized by 68% of resondents as a critical threat.
Those are big numbers. Really big numbers.
Especially since we're actually allies with Pakistan. We're not supposed to be a threat.
Even Pakistan's enemies are seen as less of a threat than us.
The Indian threat—that old standby of Pakistani security policy, politics, and military rule—clocked in third at 53%.
(Since I write a China blog, I should point out that rising China came in at the bottom of the list, viewed as a critical threat by only 10% of respondents.)
As for the areas that interest us the most:
Al Qaeda clocked in as a critical threat to a respectable but distant 4th for 41% of the respondents.
The local Taliban: 34%.
Islamist movements are definitely a problem, but here’s something to chew on from the poll results:
Asked about the "cooperation in the last few years between Pakistan and the US on military and security matters”, only one in four (27%) said that it had brought any benefits to akistan...Nearly one-third said US-Pakistani cooperation had actually hurt Pakistan...
Supporters of all leaders were united in their distrust of the United States and its motives. Majorities of all said they did not trust the United States to act responsibly in the world, including 68% of Sharif supporters, 65% of Bhutto supporters, and 55% of Musharraf supporters.[emph. added].
And those are the people we think support us.
As for allowing U.S. or foreign troops to capture al Qaeda fighters in Pakistan?
5% approved.
We're not just pushing an unpopular client. We're an unpopular patron. And we're pushing very unpopular policies, seemingly without regard for the facts on the ground or the interests of our "ally".
In other words, in the name of stabilizing Pakistan and shoring up support for Musharraf, we are pretty much guaranteeing that Musharraf will be less popular—and Pakistan’s government less stable—than before our failed injection of Bhutto into Pakistani politics threw that nation into disarray.
I assume the geniuses of Foggy Bottom—and the Office of the Vice President--are well aware of these numbers and the bleak situation.
Maybe State is pushing the doomed PPP—Musharraf alliance because we know that only a regime of weak and unpopular clients reliant on American aid will keep the threat of a populist, united, anti-American and Taleban friendly regime at bay, at least until the Bush administration is out of office.
Maybe that same vision of a helpless, discredited pro-US regime in Islamabad convinced Cheney’s people that the time was ripe to discard the dream of stabilizing a friendly Pakistan for the thrill of kindling America’s third Eurasian land war in the mountains and valleys of West Pakistan.
I looked at the recent Time cover and actually had to laugh.
It’s a classic piece of what I call “muscular handwringing”—the unwillingness to understand that the bizarre problems that the World's Only Superpower can't seem to solve are not arising out of mysterious local conditions, the political and/or moral perversity of the subject population, or our client’s inexplicable political dysfunction.
The cover story is entitled:
No One Could Save Benazir Bhutto. Why We Need To Save Pakistan
It's too disturbing and inconvenient to realize that the source of the mess can be discovered by looking in a mirror.
In Pakistan, we are dealing with the inevitable consequences of our own failed policies.
Actually, the best way to save Pakistan is for us to leave it alone.
That might have saved Benazir Bhutto, too
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Democratic Pakistan Stares Into the Abyss
Beyond the immediate tragedy of Benazir Bhutto’s death by violence in Rawalpindi, the greater tragedy for Pakistan is that the opportunity for a peaceful transfer of power—one that did not involve assassination, judicial murder, or legal vendetta—has been lost.
What was going to happen after January 8 parliamentary elections was probably not going to be fair, democratic, or ungrudging, but the consensual shoehorning of some combination of Bhutto and elements of Sharif’s PML-N into Pakistan’s governing arrangement seemed imminent.
Now these hopes have been dashed, brutally and seemingly totally.
And at a stroke, the assassination has revealed how rickety the U.S. brokered deal to elevate her into the prime ministership was, and, more importantly, displayed frailties and fissures at the heart of Pakistan’s political institutions and civil society.
Bhutto’s PPP was a one-woman show and her violent removal from Pakistan’s political scene was a contingency that the United States apparently failed to plan for. Bhutto left no obvious successor.
Now her supporters, with their expectations and anger, have been cut adrift.
Dawn reports:
Intense violence was reported from all parts of Sindh, especially Karachi and Larkana, Ms Bhutto’s hometown.
Fear and chaos ruled Karachi after news spread about Ms Bhutto’s death. The ensuing violence in the Sindh metropolis claimed at least five lives while more than 150 vehicles, some petrol pumps and a hospital were set ablaze.
The city descended into anarchy as armed mobs came out in the streets, to be joined later by gangsters, holding up panicked people stuck in traffic jams on major roads.
The traffic came to a standstill after hundreds of thousands of people, anticipating violence, fled their offices and sought to reach their homes. Law-enforcers were nowhere to be seen.
As fearful citizens made calls to inquire about the safety of their friends and family and learn about the traffic situation, the telecommunications networks jammed because of overloading.
This sparked off rumours, further fuelling panic and the sense of insecurity.
Bereft of their leader, the commitment of the foot soldiers of the PPP to Pakistani democracy is now open to question. Beneath the anguished rioting is also a disturbing undercurrent of Sindh separatism (the province of Sindh was Bhutto’s homeland and her political stronghold).
The fatal deficiencies of ability and/or will displayed by Musharraf’s military-backed government in protecting the democratic parties, their leaders, and the process itself are now a matter of dismayed speculation.
And beneath it all is the horrified realization that Pakistan’s fragile democratic processes are nakedly vulnerable to attack not only by extremist Islamist forces.
That Pakistan’s democratic process could apparently unravel so quickly with the death of one person gives a sense that Pakistan’s democratic process is so weak, so compromised, and so mismanaged that its basic viability as a vehicle for national unity and civil society is called into question.
That weakness is not only fueling Islamist extremism. It’s also fueling radicalism and separatism. And disillusionment with democracy.
That, I think, accounts for the deep dismay, indeed fear, expressed in the English-language Pakistani media even by people who were no fans of Benazir Bhutto.
Pakistani journalist Adil Najam wrote on his influential blog All Things Pakistan:
I, like most Pakistanis, am still too numb with shock and grief to think coherently about what has happened or what the implications of this are for teh country and for the world. But this I know, whether you agreed with her political positions or not you cannot but be in shock. Even as I type these lines I am literally shaking.
Aftab Khan Sherpao, who broke with Bhutto to set up his own political faction, was quoted by Dawn as follows:
Asked if elections would be possible in such circumstances, the former two-time chief minister of the NWFP said, “I don’t think so. This (Ms Bhutto’s death) will lead to more violence and beneficiaries of destabilisation would join in.”
Pakistan was expecting that an unconstitutional backroom deal brokered by the United States with the acquiescence of a politically crippled president would somehow survive its way through the sausage grinder of opposition by the secular judiciary, the intelligence services, and Islamist forces, wind its way through an opaque, rigged parliamentary process, survive whatever street demonstrations got thrown at it, and emerge as a new, viable Pakistani polity.
Maybe that was hoping for too much. Maybe Pakistan’s democrats realize that now.
Pakistan will survive.
But its democratic aspirations may not be so lucky.
People have been eager to point the finger at Musharraf and/or the intelligence services for conniving in Bhutto’s assassination.
I’m more inclined toward General Zinni’s take, which is that extremist Islamist elements wanted to put paid both to an American client and to Pakistani secular democracy, and create a crisis which would boost the strategic fortunes of groups like al Qaeda.
For Musharraf personally, the assassination looks like a disaster. At best he looks like a mug, at worst a murderer, in any case a like a lousy president in a country grappling with a national crisis.
Nawaz Sharif, now Pakistan’s leading opposition politician, has already called on Musharraf to resign and that could easily turn into the price that Pakistan’s military is willing to pay to ratchet down the domestic crisis.
It’s impossible to divine what calculations go on in the black heart of Pakistan’s intelligence services, and they are doubtless not shedding any tears over the death of Bhutto. But their future actions may provide some clues as to their complicity—and their commitment to Pakistan’s civil society and willingness to engage with and accommodate democratic forces.
In the coming days, an important indicator will be whether the intelligence services and the army decide to take seriously this affront to their pretensions as stewards of Pakistan’s security.
Also, if they do decide to do more than incarcerate some symbolic offenders in an attempt to appease domestic and international opinion, it will be interesting to see whether Pakistan’s soldiers and spooks can exploit their close relationship with Islamist groups to punish the offenders against Pakistan’s law, order, and society, and at the same time thread the needle between law enforcement, suppression, and oppression more successfully than the United States has done in that part of the world.
As for Nawaz Sharif, with his main rival, Benazir Bhutto, out of the way, it remains to be seen if he can successfully negotiate the now-empty tightrope of Pakistan’s opposition politics to political—and personal—survival.
He’d better not stare down at the abyss beneath his feet.
What was going to happen after January 8 parliamentary elections was probably not going to be fair, democratic, or ungrudging, but the consensual shoehorning of some combination of Bhutto and elements of Sharif’s PML-N into Pakistan’s governing arrangement seemed imminent.
Now these hopes have been dashed, brutally and seemingly totally.
And at a stroke, the assassination has revealed how rickety the U.S. brokered deal to elevate her into the prime ministership was, and, more importantly, displayed frailties and fissures at the heart of Pakistan’s political institutions and civil society.
Bhutto’s PPP was a one-woman show and her violent removal from Pakistan’s political scene was a contingency that the United States apparently failed to plan for. Bhutto left no obvious successor.
Now her supporters, with their expectations and anger, have been cut adrift.
Dawn reports:
Intense violence was reported from all parts of Sindh, especially Karachi and Larkana, Ms Bhutto’s hometown.
Fear and chaos ruled Karachi after news spread about Ms Bhutto’s death. The ensuing violence in the Sindh metropolis claimed at least five lives while more than 150 vehicles, some petrol pumps and a hospital were set ablaze.
The city descended into anarchy as armed mobs came out in the streets, to be joined later by gangsters, holding up panicked people stuck in traffic jams on major roads.
The traffic came to a standstill after hundreds of thousands of people, anticipating violence, fled their offices and sought to reach their homes. Law-enforcers were nowhere to be seen.
As fearful citizens made calls to inquire about the safety of their friends and family and learn about the traffic situation, the telecommunications networks jammed because of overloading.
This sparked off rumours, further fuelling panic and the sense of insecurity.
Bereft of their leader, the commitment of the foot soldiers of the PPP to Pakistani democracy is now open to question. Beneath the anguished rioting is also a disturbing undercurrent of Sindh separatism (the province of Sindh was Bhutto’s homeland and her political stronghold).
The fatal deficiencies of ability and/or will displayed by Musharraf’s military-backed government in protecting the democratic parties, their leaders, and the process itself are now a matter of dismayed speculation.
And beneath it all is the horrified realization that Pakistan’s fragile democratic processes are nakedly vulnerable to attack not only by extremist Islamist forces.
That Pakistan’s democratic process could apparently unravel so quickly with the death of one person gives a sense that Pakistan’s democratic process is so weak, so compromised, and so mismanaged that its basic viability as a vehicle for national unity and civil society is called into question.
That weakness is not only fueling Islamist extremism. It’s also fueling radicalism and separatism. And disillusionment with democracy.
That, I think, accounts for the deep dismay, indeed fear, expressed in the English-language Pakistani media even by people who were no fans of Benazir Bhutto.
Pakistani journalist Adil Najam wrote on his influential blog All Things Pakistan:
I, like most Pakistanis, am still too numb with shock and grief to think coherently about what has happened or what the implications of this are for teh country and for the world. But this I know, whether you agreed with her political positions or not you cannot but be in shock. Even as I type these lines I am literally shaking.
Aftab Khan Sherpao, who broke with Bhutto to set up his own political faction, was quoted by Dawn as follows:
Asked if elections would be possible in such circumstances, the former two-time chief minister of the NWFP said, “I don’t think so. This (Ms Bhutto’s death) will lead to more violence and beneficiaries of destabilisation would join in.”
Pakistan was expecting that an unconstitutional backroom deal brokered by the United States with the acquiescence of a politically crippled president would somehow survive its way through the sausage grinder of opposition by the secular judiciary, the intelligence services, and Islamist forces, wind its way through an opaque, rigged parliamentary process, survive whatever street demonstrations got thrown at it, and emerge as a new, viable Pakistani polity.
Maybe that was hoping for too much. Maybe Pakistan’s democrats realize that now.
Pakistan will survive.
But its democratic aspirations may not be so lucky.
People have been eager to point the finger at Musharraf and/or the intelligence services for conniving in Bhutto’s assassination.
I’m more inclined toward General Zinni’s take, which is that extremist Islamist elements wanted to put paid both to an American client and to Pakistani secular democracy, and create a crisis which would boost the strategic fortunes of groups like al Qaeda.
For Musharraf personally, the assassination looks like a disaster. At best he looks like a mug, at worst a murderer, in any case a like a lousy president in a country grappling with a national crisis.
Nawaz Sharif, now Pakistan’s leading opposition politician, has already called on Musharraf to resign and that could easily turn into the price that Pakistan’s military is willing to pay to ratchet down the domestic crisis.
It’s impossible to divine what calculations go on in the black heart of Pakistan’s intelligence services, and they are doubtless not shedding any tears over the death of Bhutto. But their future actions may provide some clues as to their complicity—and their commitment to Pakistan’s civil society and willingness to engage with and accommodate democratic forces.
In the coming days, an important indicator will be whether the intelligence services and the army decide to take seriously this affront to their pretensions as stewards of Pakistan’s security.
Also, if they do decide to do more than incarcerate some symbolic offenders in an attempt to appease domestic and international opinion, it will be interesting to see whether Pakistan’s soldiers and spooks can exploit their close relationship with Islamist groups to punish the offenders against Pakistan’s law, order, and society, and at the same time thread the needle between law enforcement, suppression, and oppression more successfully than the United States has done in that part of the world.
As for Nawaz Sharif, with his main rival, Benazir Bhutto, out of the way, it remains to be seen if he can successfully negotiate the now-empty tightrope of Pakistan’s opposition politics to political—and personal—survival.
He’d better not stare down at the abyss beneath his feet.
Picture of unrest in Lahore after Benazir Bhutto's assassination from the BBC
Monday, December 17, 2007
Pakistan's Elections
It's All Over But the Squealing
...About the vote rigging, that is.
Update:
IRI has its numbers and the ISI apparently has their own.
And perhaps political strength and electoral success are two different things.
According to a report in Dawn, reflecting assumptions in early December, when the parliamentary elections are done and the seats divied up, the PML-Q--though excoriated as the despised creature of Musharraf's bankrupt rule-- is expected to come out on top, with Bhutto's PPP in second place and Sharif’s PML-N a distant fourth.
This is a snapshot from approximately the same period as the U.S. International Republican Institute poll cited below.
The source? Apparently leaks from Pakistan's intelligence agencies.
As reported in Dawn :
It’s an interesting situation where the intelligence agency doesn’t just manage expectations; it announces them.
We’ll find out in early January how accurate the math of the intelligence agencies is.
CH
Now back to the original post.
The latest International Republican Institute polling is out and the intended (and unintended) message is Watch Out, Benazir!
The Western press has given a lot of play to the finding that two-thirds of the respondents think that the January parliamentary poll will be rigged by Musharraf.
But here’s what everybody should be thinking about:
In a party vote election test, PPP topped the field, garnering 30 percent in the national sample. PML-N was second with 25 percent and PML-Q came in third with 23 percent.
In other words, in the end-November snapshot, even if the elections were fair, Bhutto’s PPP would only garner 30% of the vote.
That makes one appreciate how canny a move it was for Musharraf—whose support has dwindled to a Bush-like base of the low twenties, both personally and for his PML-Q creation—to permit Nawaz Sharifk, probably with Saudi direction and support, to return from Saudi Arabia and energize the PML-N.
Sharif’s numbers in September—a soaring upward trend that I reported on—were apparently triggered by the favorable publicity surrounding his previous attempt to return and the subsequent expulsion, and have deflated somewhat since then.
But:
In head-to-head match-ups, Bhutto topped the list with Sharif coming in second and Musharraf in third. However, over the course of the poll being taken, Bhutto's numbers were trending down, indicating that they had been higher. Sharif, on the other hand, trended upwards over the course of the fieldwork. IRI's last poll (August 29-September 13, 2007) was taken in the days leading-up to his first return and subsequent deportation, and Nawaz's numbers were very high.
However, after he was deported, his numbers deflated, as is reflected in this most recent poll. IRI's fieldwork for this poll was largely completed before Sharif's most recent return and it does not capture the extent to which his popularity increased as a result. However, his numbers did tick up slightly in the portion of the fieldwork conducted after his return, indicating that he is now trending upwards.[emph. added]
So, the real concern for Benazir Bhutto is not necessarily that the Musharraf’s harpies will dash the fruits of democracy from Pakistan’s lips.
The real concern is that Bhutto’s limited popularity, coupled with the challenge from Sharif, and with an added dollop of vote rigging that might not even be necessary, will keep her PPP from claiming the top spot in the election...and prevent her from feasting on the power she has been thirsting for since the 1990s.
Parliamentary system, doncha know.
Top party in parliament gets a chance to form a government and anoint its chief as Prime Minister.
There’s no chance that the PPP will get close to an absolute majority.
Zero chance even with the fairest elections on this planet.
What Bhutto really needs is to come out of the election with the most MPs in order to commence the horsetrading needed to put her in the Prime Minister slot.
That means she needs to beat Nawaz Sharif and the PML-N—not Pervez Musharraf and his dead-ender PML-Q. So the number that matters isn’t Musharraf’s fading 23%; it’s Sharif’s growing 25% vs. Bhutto’s sagging 30%.
If by fair means or foul, Bhutto falters at the finish, she has promised to howl about vote rigging and bring her supporters in the streets and the banner of a color-coded democracy revolution.
But it won’t look that great if what she’s really howling about how Nawaz Sharif edged her party out...after she sold out the popular democracy movement by betraying its plan for an election boycott.
As I posted previously, with Sharif and a genuine democracy movement in the picture, Bhutto invoking people power might come off less as a principled protest and more like a selfish and self-serving power play...perhaps not the best move for Ms. 30%...and in fact one that might play into the hands of Musharraf and his cronies.
So, Bhutto had better play her hand carefully, during and after the elections, and inside the smoke-filled room, to gain the coveted PM post.
Dealing with the religious parties is off the table.
So Bhutto will have to deal either with Sharif’s PML-N...or Musharraf’s PML-Q.
That is what is presumably behind Bhutto’s shocking statement that she was willing to deal with Musharraf...and, in the most obvious quid pro quo imaginable, ignore the dismissal of the anti-Musharraf supreme court justices.
Musharraf reciprocated, but kept a key political lever close at hand:
Under the constitution passed after Musharraf seized power in 1999, Bhutto is barred from serving as prime minister as she has held the office twice. But he said: “If she wins enough votes, we may reconsider the third-term condition.”
In any event, Musharraf seems to be in pretty good shape, according to Dawn’s political correspondent:
In their election campaign, the PPP leaders are not saying anything against President Musharraf, while the PML-N, though critical of the general who overthrew the Nawaz Sharif government in October 1999, is not seeking his ouster any more....The PPP leadership did target Gen Musharraf in the beginning, but now it has changed the focus.
A time came when Ms Bhutto declared that her party would not accept Gen Musharraf even without uniform, and demanded the pre-Nov 3 judiciary should decide the issue of the general’s eligibility for the second term as president.
However, the PPP chairperson changed her stance on both the issues....Though Mr Sharif has announced that he will not like to work as prime minister with President Musharraf, he is not talking of his ouster, an objective he has been working for years. This has been noticed even by Mr Sharif’s colleagues.
A perspicacious op-ed pointed out:
Musharraf’s best interest thus lies not in sponsoring rigging, or even conniving at it, but in ensuring that it does not take place at all. Post-election manoeuvres for power in a hung parliament should enable him to seek a compromise solution to the judicial crisis which pacifies the legal community, vindicates the honour of the judges and, equally important, reasserts the principle of their accountability.
There is concern that Musharraf will pull a boneheaded play and rig the elections in a heavy-handed manner in favor of the profoundly unpopular pro-government PML-Q, provoking street demonstrations and imposition of martial law.
But Musharraf’s involvement in the intensive political maneuvering involving Bhutto and Sharif’s return, his efforts to legitimize the elections by shedding his uniform and lifting the state of emergency, and the simple fact that two of his sworn enemies are inside the country leading energized political factions would seem to militate against such a blunder.
And by letting Nawaz Sharif return, Musharraf seems to have consciously purchased himself some insurance against a color-coded revolution pushed unilaterally by Bhutto.
If anybody’s acting like an over-the-top dingbat, it’s Benazir Bhutto, courtesy of the Western media:
Any attempt to rig next month's parliamentary elections could lead to anarchy and help Islamic militancy spread further, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto said on Monday.
"If the militancy spreads and if, God forbid, the country disintegrates, it would become another Afghanistan where people are living like refugees in camps," Bhutto told a crowd of about 12,000 supporters during a campaign stop in Hyderabad.
Her doomsday scenario seems unlikely...
Anyway, the current prognosis would be Bhutto as Prime Minister, Musharraf as President, the judicial crisis papered over by mutual consent...and Sharif’s party acting as a check on Bhutto while promoting the conservative, cautiously religious, and rather anti-American policies that the country seems to want.
Sharif’s party is participating in the parliamentary elections, though Sharif personally is barred from seeking a seat. Sharif is touring the country on behalf of his party’s slate, breathing fire at Musharraf and insisting that he (unlike Bhutto) will not entertain any alliance with the strongman who removed him from power and exiled him.
In Pakistani politics, the general rule is never say never and, in particular, never believe a politician who swears he will never deal with his sworn enemy.
However, my personal opinion is that Sharif may be happy to play the role of leader of the principled opposition, refusing to join a coalition with the PPP, and thereby forcing Bhutto into a suicidal embrace with Musharraf—the most unpopular politician in the country—and his MPL-Q in order to gain power as prime minister.
Certainly, any politician that straps him or herself to the political anvil that is Pervez Musharraf and the status quo is in for a bumpy ride.
There is one graph in the IRI poll on the concerns motivating voters that I think deserves some play:
Percentage of Pakistani electorate that will vote on basis of inflation concerns: 53%.
Add the poverty and unemployment numbers brings the lunchpail figure to 75%.
Terrorism: 6%.
That’s right. 6%.
In a country that is represented in the Western media as teetering on the brink of collapse fueled by militant extremist Islamicism, only 6% of the electorate feels that terrorism is important enough to determine its vote. 75% are worried about economic issues.
Sharif’s statements on pro-Taleban, pro-al Qaeda, and militantly Islamic strains in Pakistan’s society are apparently more in tune with the popular mood than Bhutto’s America friendly “we will fight them on the beaches” anti-terrorist bravado.
In recent days, Sharif has criticized the assault on the Lal Masjid mosque, condemned aggressive military tactics in the border areas, dissed U.S. influence over Pakistan’s security policy, and called for the release of Pakistan’s favorite nuclear proliferator and national hero A.Q. Khan from house arrest.
Here’s a flavor of what’s going on in the hustings:
Comparing his regime with the present one, Nawaz said that Pervez Musharraf obtained dictation from the US, whereas he received five phone calls from the US administration but did not bow to the foreign will. India made five nuclear explosions, in response, Pakistan made six atomic explosions, he told the gathering.
Got that? India 5, Pakistan 6. Pakistan wins!
How about some more numbers:
During [Sharif’s] regime, the flour was available at the rate of seven rupees per kilogram but today this most inevitable commodity was not available even for a triple sum, Nawaz said referring to recent flour shortage. "The price of bread during our government was one rupee only but today its price is above four rupees," he said.
From a report in the Pakistan News:
He said the great benefactor of Pakistan Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan was lying on the death bed because of victimization by the present rulers. In Karachi, the government conspired with the MQM to slaughter the people. In the Lal Masjid operation, the limbs of innocent children, less than five years of age, were scattered by use of bombs. In Swat, people were facing bullets and their abodes were being destroyed with bombardment and rocketing.
In a perhaps unintentionally revealing piece of Pinglish, the Pakistan Times reported:
PML-N also calls for making to deal with the menace of terrorism including involvement of the people of respective tribal areas in the politics process.
Pandering? Fer sure.
But here’s what the IRI polling said:
Voters also expressed concern regarding rising Islamic fundamentalism; 66 percent agreed that religious extremism was a serious problem in Pakistan. Further, 63 percent said that the Taliban and Al Qaida operating in the country was also a serious concern. However, only 40 percent of Pakistanis supported the Army operations in NWFP and Tribal Areas and just 15 percent felt that Pakistan should cooperate with the United States in its War on Terror. [emph. added]
Hmmm. 15%. That means even if the PPP—party of our pro-American savior, Benazir Bhutto—monopolized support for the war on terror, only half of its 30% share of the electorate supports the GWOT that Benazir has pledged to fight on our behalf.
Read what this columnist for the determinedly moderate, democratic, and secular periodical Dawn had to say:
The dangers facing Pakistan are real. We have to guard against the spread of religious militancy because its spread negates the idea of Pakistan as presented by the country’s founding fathers. But we also have to realise that the rise of religious militancy is a response to the failure of the state to protect its democratic ethos. The Taliban have their own war to fight in Afghanistan and whether that war is a just war or not is for the people of Afghanistan to decide. We should have no truck with the Taliban. At the same time we should not be pushed into fighting America’s war against our own people in the tribal areas.
True, the Americans are paying us to fight this war. But hasn’t the time come for us to decide whether American largesse is worth more than the wounds that we ourselves are inflicting on Pakistani nationhood? ... We will not step out of the shadows of the Musharraf era unless we rethink our commitment to America’s war in Afghanistan.
Decoupling from the War on Terror is no longer just an issue of Pakistani nationalism or local Islamicism.
It’s also a display of disgust with military rule...and an expression of growing, activist democratic sentiment in Pakistan’s secular, educated middle class.
That’s probably why the United States finds it much easier to embrace Benazir Bhutto than Pakistan’s genuine democracy movement driven by judges, lawyers, and journalists outside of the political structure.
And that’s probably why, even if the Musharraf—Bhutto deal goes through, America is not going to get what it wants out of Pakistan.
...About the vote rigging, that is.
Update:
IRI has its numbers and the ISI apparently has their own.
And perhaps political strength and electoral success are two different things.
According to a report in Dawn, reflecting assumptions in early December, when the parliamentary elections are done and the seats divied up, the PML-Q--though excoriated as the despised creature of Musharraf's bankrupt rule-- is expected to come out on top, with Bhutto's PPP in second place and Sharif’s PML-N a distant fourth.
This is a snapshot from approximately the same period as the U.S. International Republican Institute poll cited below.
The source? Apparently leaks from Pakistan's intelligence agencies.
As reported in Dawn :
These estimates which the PPP and the PML-N sources here believe have been drawn up by the intelligence agencies in the first week of the current month have
given the PML-Q 115 seats followed by PPP (90), MMA (45), PML-N (40), MQM (20) and ANP (12) in a house of 342.These estimates are said to have been made on the basis of the ‘strength’ of each party constituency-wise plus individual
candidate’s own ‘ability’ to pull voters and the political affiliation of the
nazims in the constituency.
The sources who did not wish to be identified alleged that the official plan was to rig the polls in such a way as to deny a clear majority to any of the contesting parties so as to place President Pervez Musharraf in a position of cobbling together a coalition of his choice which, according to the American script, is a coalition of the PML-Q and the PPP.
...
They, however, did not rule out the possibility of the original official estimates undergoing further changes in the remaining three weeks to the polls which could swing in favour of the PPP and the PML-N
It’s an interesting situation where the intelligence agency doesn’t just manage expectations; it announces them.
We’ll find out in early January how accurate the math of the intelligence agencies is.
CH
Now back to the original post.
The latest International Republican Institute polling is out and the intended (and unintended) message is Watch Out, Benazir!
The Western press has given a lot of play to the finding that two-thirds of the respondents think that the January parliamentary poll will be rigged by Musharraf.
But here’s what everybody should be thinking about:
In a party vote election test, PPP topped the field, garnering 30 percent in the national sample. PML-N was second with 25 percent and PML-Q came in third with 23 percent.
In other words, in the end-November snapshot, even if the elections were fair, Bhutto’s PPP would only garner 30% of the vote.
That makes one appreciate how canny a move it was for Musharraf—whose support has dwindled to a Bush-like base of the low twenties, both personally and for his PML-Q creation—to permit Nawaz Sharifk, probably with Saudi direction and support, to return from Saudi Arabia and energize the PML-N.
Sharif’s numbers in September—a soaring upward trend that I reported on—were apparently triggered by the favorable publicity surrounding his previous attempt to return and the subsequent expulsion, and have deflated somewhat since then.
But:
In head-to-head match-ups, Bhutto topped the list with Sharif coming in second and Musharraf in third. However, over the course of the poll being taken, Bhutto's numbers were trending down, indicating that they had been higher. Sharif, on the other hand, trended upwards over the course of the fieldwork. IRI's last poll (August 29-September 13, 2007) was taken in the days leading-up to his first return and subsequent deportation, and Nawaz's numbers were very high.
However, after he was deported, his numbers deflated, as is reflected in this most recent poll. IRI's fieldwork for this poll was largely completed before Sharif's most recent return and it does not capture the extent to which his popularity increased as a result. However, his numbers did tick up slightly in the portion of the fieldwork conducted after his return, indicating that he is now trending upwards.[emph. added]
So, the real concern for Benazir Bhutto is not necessarily that the Musharraf’s harpies will dash the fruits of democracy from Pakistan’s lips.
The real concern is that Bhutto’s limited popularity, coupled with the challenge from Sharif, and with an added dollop of vote rigging that might not even be necessary, will keep her PPP from claiming the top spot in the election...and prevent her from feasting on the power she has been thirsting for since the 1990s.
Parliamentary system, doncha know.
Top party in parliament gets a chance to form a government and anoint its chief as Prime Minister.
There’s no chance that the PPP will get close to an absolute majority.
Zero chance even with the fairest elections on this planet.
What Bhutto really needs is to come out of the election with the most MPs in order to commence the horsetrading needed to put her in the Prime Minister slot.
That means she needs to beat Nawaz Sharif and the PML-N—not Pervez Musharraf and his dead-ender PML-Q. So the number that matters isn’t Musharraf’s fading 23%; it’s Sharif’s growing 25% vs. Bhutto’s sagging 30%.
If by fair means or foul, Bhutto falters at the finish, she has promised to howl about vote rigging and bring her supporters in the streets and the banner of a color-coded democracy revolution.
But it won’t look that great if what she’s really howling about how Nawaz Sharif edged her party out...after she sold out the popular democracy movement by betraying its plan for an election boycott.
As I posted previously, with Sharif and a genuine democracy movement in the picture, Bhutto invoking people power might come off less as a principled protest and more like a selfish and self-serving power play...perhaps not the best move for Ms. 30%...and in fact one that might play into the hands of Musharraf and his cronies.
So, Bhutto had better play her hand carefully, during and after the elections, and inside the smoke-filled room, to gain the coveted PM post.
Dealing with the religious parties is off the table.
So Bhutto will have to deal either with Sharif’s PML-N...or Musharraf’s PML-Q.
That is what is presumably behind Bhutto’s shocking statement that she was willing to deal with Musharraf...and, in the most obvious quid pro quo imaginable, ignore the dismissal of the anti-Musharraf supreme court justices.
Musharraf reciprocated, but kept a key political lever close at hand:
Under the constitution passed after Musharraf seized power in 1999, Bhutto is barred from serving as prime minister as she has held the office twice. But he said: “If she wins enough votes, we may reconsider the third-term condition.”
In any event, Musharraf seems to be in pretty good shape, according to Dawn’s political correspondent:
In their election campaign, the PPP leaders are not saying anything against President Musharraf, while the PML-N, though critical of the general who overthrew the Nawaz Sharif government in October 1999, is not seeking his ouster any more....The PPP leadership did target Gen Musharraf in the beginning, but now it has changed the focus.
A time came when Ms Bhutto declared that her party would not accept Gen Musharraf even without uniform, and demanded the pre-Nov 3 judiciary should decide the issue of the general’s eligibility for the second term as president.
However, the PPP chairperson changed her stance on both the issues....Though Mr Sharif has announced that he will not like to work as prime minister with President Musharraf, he is not talking of his ouster, an objective he has been working for years. This has been noticed even by Mr Sharif’s colleagues.
A perspicacious op-ed pointed out:
Musharraf’s best interest thus lies not in sponsoring rigging, or even conniving at it, but in ensuring that it does not take place at all. Post-election manoeuvres for power in a hung parliament should enable him to seek a compromise solution to the judicial crisis which pacifies the legal community, vindicates the honour of the judges and, equally important, reasserts the principle of their accountability.
There is concern that Musharraf will pull a boneheaded play and rig the elections in a heavy-handed manner in favor of the profoundly unpopular pro-government PML-Q, provoking street demonstrations and imposition of martial law.
But Musharraf’s involvement in the intensive political maneuvering involving Bhutto and Sharif’s return, his efforts to legitimize the elections by shedding his uniform and lifting the state of emergency, and the simple fact that two of his sworn enemies are inside the country leading energized political factions would seem to militate against such a blunder.
And by letting Nawaz Sharif return, Musharraf seems to have consciously purchased himself some insurance against a color-coded revolution pushed unilaterally by Bhutto.
If anybody’s acting like an over-the-top dingbat, it’s Benazir Bhutto, courtesy of the Western media:
Any attempt to rig next month's parliamentary elections could lead to anarchy and help Islamic militancy spread further, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto said on Monday.
"If the militancy spreads and if, God forbid, the country disintegrates, it would become another Afghanistan where people are living like refugees in camps," Bhutto told a crowd of about 12,000 supporters during a campaign stop in Hyderabad.
Her doomsday scenario seems unlikely...
Anyway, the current prognosis would be Bhutto as Prime Minister, Musharraf as President, the judicial crisis papered over by mutual consent...and Sharif’s party acting as a check on Bhutto while promoting the conservative, cautiously religious, and rather anti-American policies that the country seems to want.
Sharif’s party is participating in the parliamentary elections, though Sharif personally is barred from seeking a seat. Sharif is touring the country on behalf of his party’s slate, breathing fire at Musharraf and insisting that he (unlike Bhutto) will not entertain any alliance with the strongman who removed him from power and exiled him.
In Pakistani politics, the general rule is never say never and, in particular, never believe a politician who swears he will never deal with his sworn enemy.
However, my personal opinion is that Sharif may be happy to play the role of leader of the principled opposition, refusing to join a coalition with the PPP, and thereby forcing Bhutto into a suicidal embrace with Musharraf—the most unpopular politician in the country—and his MPL-Q in order to gain power as prime minister.
Certainly, any politician that straps him or herself to the political anvil that is Pervez Musharraf and the status quo is in for a bumpy ride.
There is one graph in the IRI poll on the concerns motivating voters that I think deserves some play:
Percentage of Pakistani electorate that will vote on basis of inflation concerns: 53%.
Add the poverty and unemployment numbers brings the lunchpail figure to 75%.
Terrorism: 6%.
That’s right. 6%.
In a country that is represented in the Western media as teetering on the brink of collapse fueled by militant extremist Islamicism, only 6% of the electorate feels that terrorism is important enough to determine its vote. 75% are worried about economic issues.
Sharif’s statements on pro-Taleban, pro-al Qaeda, and militantly Islamic strains in Pakistan’s society are apparently more in tune with the popular mood than Bhutto’s America friendly “we will fight them on the beaches” anti-terrorist bravado.
In recent days, Sharif has criticized the assault on the Lal Masjid mosque, condemned aggressive military tactics in the border areas, dissed U.S. influence over Pakistan’s security policy, and called for the release of Pakistan’s favorite nuclear proliferator and national hero A.Q. Khan from house arrest.
Here’s a flavor of what’s going on in the hustings:
Comparing his regime with the present one, Nawaz said that Pervez Musharraf obtained dictation from the US, whereas he received five phone calls from the US administration but did not bow to the foreign will. India made five nuclear explosions, in response, Pakistan made six atomic explosions, he told the gathering.
Got that? India 5, Pakistan 6. Pakistan wins!
How about some more numbers:
During [Sharif’s] regime, the flour was available at the rate of seven rupees per kilogram but today this most inevitable commodity was not available even for a triple sum, Nawaz said referring to recent flour shortage. "The price of bread during our government was one rupee only but today its price is above four rupees," he said.
From a report in the Pakistan News:
He said the great benefactor of Pakistan Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan was lying on the death bed because of victimization by the present rulers. In Karachi, the government conspired with the MQM to slaughter the people. In the Lal Masjid operation, the limbs of innocent children, less than five years of age, were scattered by use of bombs. In Swat, people were facing bullets and their abodes were being destroyed with bombardment and rocketing.
In a perhaps unintentionally revealing piece of Pinglish, the Pakistan Times reported:
PML-N also calls for making to deal with the menace of terrorism including involvement of the people of respective tribal areas in the politics process.
Pandering? Fer sure.
But here’s what the IRI polling said:
Voters also expressed concern regarding rising Islamic fundamentalism; 66 percent agreed that religious extremism was a serious problem in Pakistan. Further, 63 percent said that the Taliban and Al Qaida operating in the country was also a serious concern. However, only 40 percent of Pakistanis supported the Army operations in NWFP and Tribal Areas and just 15 percent felt that Pakistan should cooperate with the United States in its War on Terror. [emph. added]
Hmmm. 15%. That means even if the PPP—party of our pro-American savior, Benazir Bhutto—monopolized support for the war on terror, only half of its 30% share of the electorate supports the GWOT that Benazir has pledged to fight on our behalf.
Read what this columnist for the determinedly moderate, democratic, and secular periodical Dawn had to say:
The dangers facing Pakistan are real. We have to guard against the spread of religious militancy because its spread negates the idea of Pakistan as presented by the country’s founding fathers. But we also have to realise that the rise of religious militancy is a response to the failure of the state to protect its democratic ethos. The Taliban have their own war to fight in Afghanistan and whether that war is a just war or not is for the people of Afghanistan to decide. We should have no truck with the Taliban. At the same time we should not be pushed into fighting America’s war against our own people in the tribal areas.
True, the Americans are paying us to fight this war. But hasn’t the time come for us to decide whether American largesse is worth more than the wounds that we ourselves are inflicting on Pakistani nationhood? ... We will not step out of the shadows of the Musharraf era unless we rethink our commitment to America’s war in Afghanistan.
Decoupling from the War on Terror is no longer just an issue of Pakistani nationalism or local Islamicism.
It’s also a display of disgust with military rule...and an expression of growing, activist democratic sentiment in Pakistan’s secular, educated middle class.
That’s probably why the United States finds it much easier to embrace Benazir Bhutto than Pakistan’s genuine democracy movement driven by judges, lawyers, and journalists outside of the political structure.
And that’s probably why, even if the Musharraf—Bhutto deal goes through, America is not going to get what it wants out of Pakistan.
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
America’s Sharif Problem in Pakistan
U.S. Ignores Own Polling Showing Bhutto's Weakness and Sharif's Strength
Sitting side by side at a news conference, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, both former premiers, said that major opposition parties would set out their conditions for what would constitute free and fair elections. The move would allow the opposition to begin organizing for mass protests against Musharraf, though the two leaders still do not agree on whether any protests should be held before votes are counted or afterward.
Bhutto said the street demonstrations could be modeled on the peaceful 2004 Orange Revolution that overturned what was widely seen as a fixed vote in Ukraine. (LA Times, Dec. 4, 2007, emph. added)
Benazir Bhutto has a clear strategy.
Participate in the January 8 parliamentary elections under protest, contest the results with some street demonstrations, push Musharraf out of the presidency, and govern Pakistan from a strengthened prime minister office.
The United States has a clear strategy, also.
Back Bhutto and her political program, and rely on her to purge the army and security services of pro-Taliban forces and conduct counter-insurgency operations in the northwest and anti-al Qaeda security campaigns with renewed brio.
President Bush enraged conservative and nationalist Pakistan opinion on December 3 by poor-mouthing the other main opposition force in Pakistan—Nawaz Sharif—thereby overtly tipping America’s hand in favor of Benazir Bhutto in an interview with AP.
The president spoke cautiously about Nawaz Sharif, the former prime minister Musharraf ousted in a 1999 coup who returned to Pakistan on Sunday from exile. "I don't know him well enough," Bush said. Sharif has good relations with Pakistan's religious parties and has raised doubts about his commitment to battling the Taliban and al-Qaida. "I would be very concerned if there was any leader in Pakistan that didn't understand the nature of the world in which we live today," Bush added.
The president's statement was important, because it effectively elevated Bhutto’s electoral success to a matter of U.S. policy and more than a quixotic and reckless democratization project by the neo-con rump still remaining in the Bush administration.
President Bush’s statement was also particularly blatant and clumsy because a very strong case can be made—using the U.S. government’s own data—that Nawaz Sharif is a heck of a lot more popular inside Pakistan than Benzair Bhutto.
The International Republican Institute is America’s tip of the spear for democratization activities.
IRI’s most recent polling for Pakistan is from September. A lot has happened since then, but I’m pretty sure that the trends their polling showed have been reinforced by events and strengthened instead of weakening.
No surprise about Musharraf’s sky high disapprovals. Cancer is more popular.
Here’s the key graph: the politician Pakistanis believe can best handle the nation's problems. Clicking on the graphics will enlarge them nicely.
For the graphically challenged, Sharif is significantly more popular than Bhutto and his popularity is trending upward while Bhutto is sagging.
And that’s before Sharif even returned to Pakistan and political life.
Here’s another one, showing relative political strength in Pakistan’s provinces.
Sharif owns Pakistan’s biggest province, Punjab. Again, this is before he returned.
This, by the way, directly contradicts Robert Novak’s most recent column —which was also noted inside Pakistan—“that Sharif is boycotting the January elections, in which he would lose badly.” [emph. added.]
The September snapshot show Sharif and Bhutto dominating in their home provinces of Punjab and Sindh, respectively and splitting support in the smaller provinces; as noted above, the overall trendline shows Sharif strengthening.
Has President Bush drunk his own democracy promotion Kool-Aid and is blindly and mistakenly nurturing Bhutto as part of an effort to promote a democratic civil society in Pakistan as a bulwark against jihadist extremism?
Fear not.
The Bush administration is exploiting the fervor, abilities, and media savvy of the neo-cons but good old-fashioned realpolitik is at the bottom of our Pakistan policy.
Pakistan’s army has little interest in massive counterinsurgency operations in the Northwest.
Pakistan’s intelligence service—the ISI—has little interest in trying to exterminate al Qaeda.
In both instances, Musharraf’s government is gingerly pursuing accommodation with. tribalist and radical forces.
And this policy is not doing very much for America’s program in Afghanistan, where the Taleban is gaining the upper hand and al Qaeda is finding new areas to operate.
Washington has clearly made the decision that the army and intelligence services must be brought to heel, both by reforming their personnel and doctrine, and by pushing them out of their central position in Pakistan’s politics.
There are only two things standing between the United States and the successful realization of its goals.
1. Nawaz Sharif
2. Reality
The most obvious indication of the U.S. desire to sideline the army and intelligence services has been the media campaign to depict Pakistan as a nation sliding into failed state status—in other words, a state that is so dangerous to the world and to America’s interests that overt interference by the United States on behalf of its client, Bhutto, can be defended and, indeed, insisted upon.
The basics of the campaign were laid out in the Newsweek cover story Pakistan: the most dangerous nation on earth. (This article, which reads like a Bhutto infomercial, ironically cited the IRI poll, indicating that its results are well-known to US decision-makers, but ignored its most significant findings).
The picture presented was of a society under siege from jihadists, ruled by a discredited autocrat, and in danger of sliding into anarchy and losing control of its precious nukes.
The nuclear factor is, of course, vital to this framing.
The United States can’t justify interference in Pakistan’s domestic politics just because we look askance at Musharraf’s lack of vigor and enthusiasm in supporting our aims in Afghanistan or his reluctance, as a Muslim leader of a Muslim nation, to assist us in trampling on Islamicist political and social movements.
But nuclear weapons—hey, that gives us plenty of skin in the game!
The apogee of absurdity in this argument was the notorious Frederic Kagan/Michael O’Hanlon op-ed in the New York Times, which posited that Pakistan was “tottering on the abyss” and proposed that we either kidnap Pakistan’s nukes and sequester them in New Mexico or create a Fort Apache nuclear redoubt somewhere in Pakistan guarded by Special Forces and reliable elements of the Pakistan army.
One can only assume that the purpose of this idiocy was not to offer a realistic solution.
The op-ed was, instead, intended as a piece of perception management: to create the understanding in the mind of the American public that, if Kagan and O’Hanlon are being driven to incoherent hysterics by the prospect of Nukes Gone Wild in Pakistan, then Pakistan must really have a nuclear problem.
This Pakistan is not the Pakistan that Pakistanis would recognize.
The Pakistan that Pakistanis recognize does acknowledge a worrisome problem with the growing organization and political clout of Islamicists.
But the real Pakistan also cares about inflation, democracy, an independent judiciary, and getting the army and the intelligence services out of politics.
As a matter of fact, the political crisis that Pakistan is facing is not runaway Islamist extremism; it’s a loss of confidence by its middle class in Musharraf’s rule and military control, as symbolized by the rebellion of the judiciary.
Collapse of the Pakistani nation and dispersal of its nuclear weapons into the hands of al Qaeda: not on the radar.
What is on the radar, by the way, is the collapse of popular faith in political parties such as Bhutto’s PPP as democratic actors or, for that matter, as anything other than vehicles for their leaders’ vaunting ambition.
That’s something that the U.S. might want to take into account when considering the popular support for our favorite rich, educated, pro-Western, tractable, and ethically challenged client.
But the key thing to realize is that, in the real Pakistan, Pervaiz Musharraf is not an idiot.
Which brings us to Nawaz Sharif.
Let’s say that you are an ambitious, able, and crafty army guy named Pervaiz Musharraf who realizes that the United States is twisting your arm to allow an ambitious, able, and crafty politician named Benazir Bhutto to participate in parliamentary elections for the purpose of pushing you and the army and the intelligence services out of power.
You know the only reason the U.S. acquiesced when you packed the judiciary and shredded the constitution to get your second term is to get the parliamentary elections off the ground as the mechanism as a vehicle for de facto regime change.
You suspect that once the parliamentary election is over and no matter what the results are, Bhutto, with the backing of the United States, is going to cry foul and trot out some color-coded revolution charade to complete her seizure of power.
You opinion polls are lower than whale dung and any electoral success you enjoy is going to be understandably, accurately, and indignantly attributed to vote-rigging.
The only way to blunt Bhutto’s drive for power is if another powerful, charismatic political leader is added to the mix.
Someone named Nawaz Sharif.
He's popular.
His power base is Pakistan's most populous and politically crucial province.
Sharif is religiously conservative, and will probably be willing to manage with finesse and understanding the key issues preoccupying the military and the intelligence services: handling the border problems with money and divide-and-conquer policies instead of the high-stakes high-cost military campaign the U.S. is pushing; and keeping a lid on al Qaeda and other extremists by a judicious mixture of accommodation and targeted suppression.
The Saudis like Sharif’s take on things and will provide financial and material support for his campaign and international diplomatic cover.
So Sharif is allowed to return to Pakistan, where he easily provides a challenge to Bhutto’s shaky credentials as the leader of the opposition.
If you’re counting on some piece of U.S. inspired democratic unrest on behalf of Bhutto after the elections, Sharif doesn’t even have to run. Fact is, it’s even better that way. Sharif can nurture his opposition cred by boycotting the elections.
If Bhutto tries to use mass demonstrations to challenge the election results and strengthen her hand vis a vis Musharraf, the government happily exacerbates the crisis to the point of gridlock, discrediting parliamentary democracy and letting Sharif pop up as the savior.
In fact, the government even has an incentive to cheat in the elections, to push Bhutto into a futile, self-destructive protest.
Sweeeeet!
Sharif is no angel.
But to every segment of Pakistan society except for the PPP’s adherents, he’s probably better than Bhutto.
And, after January 8, if and when Bhutto tries to orchestrate demonstrations with the trappings of a color coded revolution to drive Musharraf from power, I think Sharif will have the army, the ISI, Saudi Arabia, and enough of the Pakistani public on his side.
And, in bad news for Bhutto, even if she doesn’t try to upset the apple cart with a color-coded revolution, I think the army and the ISI will find some way to force Bhutto from the scene with some provocation.
That’s obviously what the United States is worried about, and what they are working to pre-empt.
Take it away, Robert Novak !:
In a recent private conversation with a former Pakistani government official, Sharif said that he hoped a coup would not be necessary to take power but did not rule it out.
Sharif in control would fit the Saudi royal family's desire for support from nuclear power Pakistan but would be a nightmare for U.S. interests because of his Islamist ties. Bush has bet heavily on Musharraf, sending an estimated $150 million a month in aid. But Pakistan is resisting the Pentagon's request to send additional U.S. Special Forces to the Afghan border to help Pakistan's Frontier Corps fight terrorists. Pakistan's dedication to fighting the Islamist terrorists is diluted by officials sharing in gun-running and drug-running. The U.S. return on its massive investment in Pakistan has been disappointing, with hopes for more from Bhutto if vote-rigging does not stop her.
There it is, in one convenient package, is the effort to pre-emptively discredit the parliamentary elections as rigged, spuriously insist that Bhutto is Pakistan’s most popular politician, and lay the groundwork for a post-election people power campaign by Bhutto.
Most importantly, no doubt aware of Sharif's actual political strength vis a vis Bhutto, Novak advances the all-important strategy—backed yesterday by President Bush--to denigrate Sharif, arguably Pakistan’s most popular politician, as an unpopular, coup-hungry Islamicist in bed with Pakistan’s military and intelligence services.
That kind of framing might work for ignorant American audiences preoccupied with their own fears and priorities.
But I don’t think they’ll be shared within Pakistan, where American support and policies are virtually an anvil to political oblivion--and our disapproval bestows legitimacy and popularity.
It looks like now our only meaningful leverage—since we’ve declared almost open war on the army and intelligence services and decided to go toe-to-toe against the Saudis by trying to block their candidate—is Benazir Bhutto’s political organization, her appetite for power—and risk—and our multi-million dollar monthly anti-terrorism subsidy to the Pakistani army.
By mid-January, we’ll know how much that got us.
The full September 2007 IRI polling on Pakistan, from which the charts shown above are reproduced, can be found here.
Sitting side by side at a news conference, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, both former premiers, said that major opposition parties would set out their conditions for what would constitute free and fair elections. The move would allow the opposition to begin organizing for mass protests against Musharraf, though the two leaders still do not agree on whether any protests should be held before votes are counted or afterward.
Bhutto said the street demonstrations could be modeled on the peaceful 2004 Orange Revolution that overturned what was widely seen as a fixed vote in Ukraine. (LA Times, Dec. 4, 2007, emph. added)
Benazir Bhutto has a clear strategy.
Participate in the January 8 parliamentary elections under protest, contest the results with some street demonstrations, push Musharraf out of the presidency, and govern Pakistan from a strengthened prime minister office.
The United States has a clear strategy, also.
Back Bhutto and her political program, and rely on her to purge the army and security services of pro-Taliban forces and conduct counter-insurgency operations in the northwest and anti-al Qaeda security campaigns with renewed brio.
President Bush enraged conservative and nationalist Pakistan opinion on December 3 by poor-mouthing the other main opposition force in Pakistan—Nawaz Sharif—thereby overtly tipping America’s hand in favor of Benazir Bhutto in an interview with AP.
The president spoke cautiously about Nawaz Sharif, the former prime minister Musharraf ousted in a 1999 coup who returned to Pakistan on Sunday from exile. "I don't know him well enough," Bush said. Sharif has good relations with Pakistan's religious parties and has raised doubts about his commitment to battling the Taliban and al-Qaida. "I would be very concerned if there was any leader in Pakistan that didn't understand the nature of the world in which we live today," Bush added.
The president's statement was important, because it effectively elevated Bhutto’s electoral success to a matter of U.S. policy and more than a quixotic and reckless democratization project by the neo-con rump still remaining in the Bush administration.
President Bush’s statement was also particularly blatant and clumsy because a very strong case can be made—using the U.S. government’s own data—that Nawaz Sharif is a heck of a lot more popular inside Pakistan than Benzair Bhutto.
The International Republican Institute is America’s tip of the spear for democratization activities.
IRI’s most recent polling for Pakistan is from September. A lot has happened since then, but I’m pretty sure that the trends their polling showed have been reinforced by events and strengthened instead of weakening.
No surprise about Musharraf’s sky high disapprovals. Cancer is more popular.
Here’s the key graph: the politician Pakistanis believe can best handle the nation's problems. Clicking on the graphics will enlarge them nicely.
For the graphically challenged, Sharif is significantly more popular than Bhutto and his popularity is trending upward while Bhutto is sagging.
And that’s before Sharif even returned to Pakistan and political life.
Here’s another one, showing relative political strength in Pakistan’s provinces.
Sharif owns Pakistan’s biggest province, Punjab. Again, this is before he returned.
This, by the way, directly contradicts Robert Novak’s most recent column —which was also noted inside Pakistan—“that Sharif is boycotting the January elections, in which he would lose badly.” [emph. added.]
The September snapshot show Sharif and Bhutto dominating in their home provinces of Punjab and Sindh, respectively and splitting support in the smaller provinces; as noted above, the overall trendline shows Sharif strengthening.
Has President Bush drunk his own democracy promotion Kool-Aid and is blindly and mistakenly nurturing Bhutto as part of an effort to promote a democratic civil society in Pakistan as a bulwark against jihadist extremism?
Fear not.
The Bush administration is exploiting the fervor, abilities, and media savvy of the neo-cons but good old-fashioned realpolitik is at the bottom of our Pakistan policy.
Pakistan’s army has little interest in massive counterinsurgency operations in the Northwest.
Pakistan’s intelligence service—the ISI—has little interest in trying to exterminate al Qaeda.
In both instances, Musharraf’s government is gingerly pursuing accommodation with. tribalist and radical forces.
And this policy is not doing very much for America’s program in Afghanistan, where the Taleban is gaining the upper hand and al Qaeda is finding new areas to operate.
Washington has clearly made the decision that the army and intelligence services must be brought to heel, both by reforming their personnel and doctrine, and by pushing them out of their central position in Pakistan’s politics.
There are only two things standing between the United States and the successful realization of its goals.
1. Nawaz Sharif
2. Reality
The most obvious indication of the U.S. desire to sideline the army and intelligence services has been the media campaign to depict Pakistan as a nation sliding into failed state status—in other words, a state that is so dangerous to the world and to America’s interests that overt interference by the United States on behalf of its client, Bhutto, can be defended and, indeed, insisted upon.
The basics of the campaign were laid out in the Newsweek cover story Pakistan: the most dangerous nation on earth. (This article, which reads like a Bhutto infomercial, ironically cited the IRI poll, indicating that its results are well-known to US decision-makers, but ignored its most significant findings).
The picture presented was of a society under siege from jihadists, ruled by a discredited autocrat, and in danger of sliding into anarchy and losing control of its precious nukes.
The nuclear factor is, of course, vital to this framing.
The United States can’t justify interference in Pakistan’s domestic politics just because we look askance at Musharraf’s lack of vigor and enthusiasm in supporting our aims in Afghanistan or his reluctance, as a Muslim leader of a Muslim nation, to assist us in trampling on Islamicist political and social movements.
But nuclear weapons—hey, that gives us plenty of skin in the game!
The apogee of absurdity in this argument was the notorious Frederic Kagan/Michael O’Hanlon op-ed in the New York Times, which posited that Pakistan was “tottering on the abyss” and proposed that we either kidnap Pakistan’s nukes and sequester them in New Mexico or create a Fort Apache nuclear redoubt somewhere in Pakistan guarded by Special Forces and reliable elements of the Pakistan army.
One can only assume that the purpose of this idiocy was not to offer a realistic solution.
The op-ed was, instead, intended as a piece of perception management: to create the understanding in the mind of the American public that, if Kagan and O’Hanlon are being driven to incoherent hysterics by the prospect of Nukes Gone Wild in Pakistan, then Pakistan must really have a nuclear problem.
This Pakistan is not the Pakistan that Pakistanis would recognize.
The Pakistan that Pakistanis recognize does acknowledge a worrisome problem with the growing organization and political clout of Islamicists.
But the real Pakistan also cares about inflation, democracy, an independent judiciary, and getting the army and the intelligence services out of politics.
As a matter of fact, the political crisis that Pakistan is facing is not runaway Islamist extremism; it’s a loss of confidence by its middle class in Musharraf’s rule and military control, as symbolized by the rebellion of the judiciary.
Collapse of the Pakistani nation and dispersal of its nuclear weapons into the hands of al Qaeda: not on the radar.
What is on the radar, by the way, is the collapse of popular faith in political parties such as Bhutto’s PPP as democratic actors or, for that matter, as anything other than vehicles for their leaders’ vaunting ambition.
That’s something that the U.S. might want to take into account when considering the popular support for our favorite rich, educated, pro-Western, tractable, and ethically challenged client.
But the key thing to realize is that, in the real Pakistan, Pervaiz Musharraf is not an idiot.
Which brings us to Nawaz Sharif.
Let’s say that you are an ambitious, able, and crafty army guy named Pervaiz Musharraf who realizes that the United States is twisting your arm to allow an ambitious, able, and crafty politician named Benazir Bhutto to participate in parliamentary elections for the purpose of pushing you and the army and the intelligence services out of power.
You know the only reason the U.S. acquiesced when you packed the judiciary and shredded the constitution to get your second term is to get the parliamentary elections off the ground as the mechanism as a vehicle for de facto regime change.
You suspect that once the parliamentary election is over and no matter what the results are, Bhutto, with the backing of the United States, is going to cry foul and trot out some color-coded revolution charade to complete her seizure of power.
You opinion polls are lower than whale dung and any electoral success you enjoy is going to be understandably, accurately, and indignantly attributed to vote-rigging.
The only way to blunt Bhutto’s drive for power is if another powerful, charismatic political leader is added to the mix.
Someone named Nawaz Sharif.
He's popular.
His power base is Pakistan's most populous and politically crucial province.
Sharif is religiously conservative, and will probably be willing to manage with finesse and understanding the key issues preoccupying the military and the intelligence services: handling the border problems with money and divide-and-conquer policies instead of the high-stakes high-cost military campaign the U.S. is pushing; and keeping a lid on al Qaeda and other extremists by a judicious mixture of accommodation and targeted suppression.
The Saudis like Sharif’s take on things and will provide financial and material support for his campaign and international diplomatic cover.
So Sharif is allowed to return to Pakistan, where he easily provides a challenge to Bhutto’s shaky credentials as the leader of the opposition.
If you’re counting on some piece of U.S. inspired democratic unrest on behalf of Bhutto after the elections, Sharif doesn’t even have to run. Fact is, it’s even better that way. Sharif can nurture his opposition cred by boycotting the elections.
If Bhutto tries to use mass demonstrations to challenge the election results and strengthen her hand vis a vis Musharraf, the government happily exacerbates the crisis to the point of gridlock, discrediting parliamentary democracy and letting Sharif pop up as the savior.
In fact, the government even has an incentive to cheat in the elections, to push Bhutto into a futile, self-destructive protest.
Sweeeeet!
Sharif is no angel.
But to every segment of Pakistan society except for the PPP’s adherents, he’s probably better than Bhutto.
And, after January 8, if and when Bhutto tries to orchestrate demonstrations with the trappings of a color coded revolution to drive Musharraf from power, I think Sharif will have the army, the ISI, Saudi Arabia, and enough of the Pakistani public on his side.
And, in bad news for Bhutto, even if she doesn’t try to upset the apple cart with a color-coded revolution, I think the army and the ISI will find some way to force Bhutto from the scene with some provocation.
That’s obviously what the United States is worried about, and what they are working to pre-empt.
Take it away, Robert Novak !:
In a recent private conversation with a former Pakistani government official, Sharif said that he hoped a coup would not be necessary to take power but did not rule it out.
Sharif in control would fit the Saudi royal family's desire for support from nuclear power Pakistan but would be a nightmare for U.S. interests because of his Islamist ties. Bush has bet heavily on Musharraf, sending an estimated $150 million a month in aid. But Pakistan is resisting the Pentagon's request to send additional U.S. Special Forces to the Afghan border to help Pakistan's Frontier Corps fight terrorists. Pakistan's dedication to fighting the Islamist terrorists is diluted by officials sharing in gun-running and drug-running. The U.S. return on its massive investment in Pakistan has been disappointing, with hopes for more from Bhutto if vote-rigging does not stop her.
There it is, in one convenient package, is the effort to pre-emptively discredit the parliamentary elections as rigged, spuriously insist that Bhutto is Pakistan’s most popular politician, and lay the groundwork for a post-election people power campaign by Bhutto.
Most importantly, no doubt aware of Sharif's actual political strength vis a vis Bhutto, Novak advances the all-important strategy—backed yesterday by President Bush--to denigrate Sharif, arguably Pakistan’s most popular politician, as an unpopular, coup-hungry Islamicist in bed with Pakistan’s military and intelligence services.
That kind of framing might work for ignorant American audiences preoccupied with their own fears and priorities.
But I don’t think they’ll be shared within Pakistan, where American support and policies are virtually an anvil to political oblivion--and our disapproval bestows legitimacy and popularity.
It looks like now our only meaningful leverage—since we’ve declared almost open war on the army and intelligence services and decided to go toe-to-toe against the Saudis by trying to block their candidate—is Benazir Bhutto’s political organization, her appetite for power—and risk—and our multi-million dollar monthly anti-terrorism subsidy to the Pakistani army.
By mid-January, we’ll know how much that got us.
The full September 2007 IRI polling on Pakistan, from which the charts shown above are reproduced, can be found here.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Nawaz Sharif: Saudi Arabia's Plan B for Pakistan?
Western scribes are perhaps overly enamored of the “Musharraf has his back against the wall and is being forced to make democratic concessions” narrative, which grows organically out of misrepresentation of Benazir Bhutto and the United States as the leader and sponsor, respectively, of an anti-Musharraf democratic vanguard.
Onthe contrary, events in recent days have shown that Bhutto is an ambitious, overly opportunistic, and by now perhaps fatally compromised American client, and the United States—as opposed to an apparent neo-con rump egging Bhutto and the Bush administration on—is an American patron committed to Musharraf but with a fatal and counterproductive desire to meddle in Pakistan’s internal politics.
The "democracy on the march" narrative has been applied to coverage of Musharraf’s trip to Saudi Arabia and Nawaz Sharif’s plans to return to Pakistan from Saudi Arabia.
The Western version is that Musharraf went to Saudi Arabia to try to convince the Saudis not to let Sharif return from exile and add to Musharraf’s electoral woes in Pakistan.
But, accustomed to the assumption that American plans and wishes direct Pakistan’s politics, it looks like we are missing the manifestation of Musharraf’s careful calculation and a guiding Saudi hand in Islamabad’s affairs.
And everything in the English language press in Pakistan and the Middle East indicates that the Anglo-American take on Pakistan’s politics is just plain wrong.
Typical is a Reuters report headlined Sharif due in Pakistan, Musharraf’s problems mount. It goes on to state:
Sharif's return, just in time to file nomination papers for a Jan. 8 parliamentary election, means the increasingly unpopular Musharraf will have to contend with two ex-premiers he has spent much of the last eight years trying to marginalise.
It makes a certain amount of sense on the surface, since Musharraf deposed Sharif in a coup and there is no love lost between them.
However, in contrast to the Reuters headline, the Pakistan Daily Times lede read:
* Insiders say Nawaz allowed to return in order to neutralise Benazir
Even before we turn to the regional coverage, the western coverage begged a fundamental question.
Why would Musharraf go to Saudi Arabia to try to convince the Saudis not to let Sharif come back?
A. Musharraf is in control of Pakistan’s borders. He doesn’t need to ask the Saudis to keep Sharif out. All he has to do is not let Sharif in.
B. Musharraf did just that on September 10. Sharif arrived on a plane from Saudi Arabia and Musharraf turned him around and sent him right back.
Another possible explanation—which I prefer—is that Musharraf has matters pretty well in hand, he went to Saudi Arabia to discuss Sharif’s return, and his trip represents a decline in Bhutto’s fortunes and a diminution of U.S. influence.
In fact, maybe the Saudis got impatient with America’s stumbling and destabilizing approach to the Pakistan problem, and stepped in to broker a deal between Musharraf and Sharif.
And the deal involves Sharif being allowed to return to Pakistan.
This aspect has received exhaustive coverage in the regional media.
Here’s a very interesting and circumstantial account, including hints of Islamic derring-do and secret meetings in Saudi mosques, from Asian News International:
Islamabad, Nov 22 : A top security official of the Musharraf regime has reached 'minimum understanding', who accompanied President Pervez Musharraf to Riyadh, stayed back and met former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in the presence of Saudi royal family members. "The Saudis succeeded in creating a minimum understanding for peaceful coexistence between the two sides," well placed sources said. ...
Saudi Arabia's envoy in Pakistan, Ali Saeed Awadh Assiri, who played an important role, is also staying back in Jeddah. He came to the airport to see off Musharraf. ...
The General arrived in Jeddah late in the evening on Tuesday from Riyadh and proceeded straight to Mecca to perform Umrah with his brief entourage, he said. According to reports when he came back to the port city, Sharif, who lives in a posh area of the city, left for offering his Isha (night prayers) in a mosque in the vicinity with his male family members and some newsmen of Jeddah.
Sharif spent more than two hours in the mosque and in the meantime officials kept on trying to contact him, but he was not available, sources said. Musharraf spent less than 16 hours in Riyadh and left for Jeddah after talks with King Abdullah and Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz.
Interestingly, Saudi Arabia's ambassadors to the United States Adel A. Al-Jubeir and to Pakistan Ali Saeed Awadh Assiri were present in the meetings with the King Abdullah. The presence of the Saudi envoy to the US was important since it indicated that the US would also be on board in the ongoing interaction between Sharif and the authorities in Pakistan, sources added.
Pakistan Daily Times added a few evocative and somewhat greasy details about the deal, while also including PML-N denials that any deal had happened:
Nawaz, following a meeting with Saudi King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz, met with senior Pakistani officials and close associates of President General Pervez Musharraf, and agreed that the Sharif family could return to Pakistan as long as the PML-N did not boycott the elections, PML-Q sources told Daily Times. They said the understanding also involves the restoration of some of Nawaz’s business interests in the country and his Model Town residence. ISI DG Gen Nadeem Taj and Brig (r) Niaz, a mutual “friend” of Gen Musharraf and Nawaz, mediated the negotiations in Jeddah. The sources said that Nawaz had also agreed not to destabilise Gen Musharraf’s “transition” to democracy or try to overthrow him.
In any case, Sharif is returning to Pakistan with more than a little Saudi political and material support:
The Saudi monarch is sending Sharif to Pakistan on a royal plane and has gifted him two bulletproof Mercedes cars and also lent him a helicopter for use during the elections.
According to early reports, Sharif wouldn’t personally run in the upcoming election but his party won’t boycott the January 8 parliamentary poll.
But Sharif is keeping Musharraf off-balance by returning hours before the deadline for filing election papers expires.
The Pakistan Daily Times stated:
“The Saudi king, Musharraf and Nawaz know what has been agreed to among them,” a PML-N leader said when asked about details of the “agreement” between President Musharraf and Nawaz. However, he said it would be clear in a few days. “November 26 is the last date for filing nomination papers. The cat will be out of the bag after the deadline for nomination papers ends,” he said.
We’ll see.
If Sharif’s party joins the elections the threat to the legitimacy of the elections and the vulnerability of Musharraf’s government by a boycott by Bhutto’s PPP is significantly diminished.
Bhutto’s insistence on a boycott has been weakening; if she faces the prospect of being supplanted by another opposition party that does participate in the elections, her principled resistance to joining the poll will probably evaporate.
Furthermore, with Sharif’s party competing, Musharraf will now have a convenient alternative to Bhutto when negotiating the post-election coalition between his PML-Q party and the two alternatives acceptable to the U.S. and Saudi Arabia—Bhutto’s PPP and Sharif’s PML-N.
There are even indications that it is not unthinkable for Musharraf to let Sharif personally stand for a seat and put himself in the running for the prime ministership, even if it means undercutting the electoral fortunes of Musharraf’s own party or even forcing a merger between the two.
An article entitled Panic in PML-Q, jubiliation in PML-N reported:
Alarm bells have started ringing in the PML-Q with its leadership fearing a major dent in the party as most ticket-holders might defect to the PML-N following former premier Nawaz Sharif’s return to the country today (Sunday) to participate in politics.
...
Insiders ... do not foresee any merger of the PML-Q and PML-N at this stage, they do predict a possible understanding between the two estranged leagues on the basis of seat adjustments to avoid split of the anti-Benazir vote.
Sharif, who has quite possibly noticed how Bhutto’s political standing has been compromised by her open embrace of a U.S. brokered deal with Musharraf, is ostentatiously declaring he has no deal with Musharraf.
Well, deal or no deal?
On November 23, the Pakistan media organization Dawn gave a run-down of the conflicting spin and indignant denials put on the rumored deal by the PML-N, the PML-Q, and the PPP entitled Deal shadow over Sharifs’ homecoming:
First, the PML-N:
[A spokesman for Sharif] denied that Gen Musharraf had allowed Nawaz to return home on the condition that he would not boycott the forthcoming elections.
On the contrary, Nadir said, President Musharraf tried to persuade King Abdullah against allowing Nawaz Sharif to go back home before the completion of the “10-year exile deal” he had signed with the Saudi authorities in 2000.
Then Musharraf’s PML-Q weighed in:
Although equally vague on the specifics, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, the head of the pro-Musharraf PML-Q, told DAWN NEWS TV that if Mr Sharif returns to Pakistan before the elections, it would be a result of a “deal” with the Saudi government, and that his party would welcome the development. He said the party was prepared to take on all such challenges. “We are not afraid of him.”
Last and perhaps least, Bhutto’s PPP:
The reports also brought worries to members of the PPP, but some of them pointed out that perhaps Benazir Bhutto, sensing such an eventuality, had already made direct contacts with Mr Sharif to offset the impact of his return.
As to the presumed endgame for all this maneuvering, Dawn concluded:
CONSENSUS GOVT: There have also been suggestions that with Benazir Bhutto already supporting the idea of a government of national consensus, and Nawaz Sharif now softening his tone to talk about reconciliation, there is a possibility that fresh attempt could be made to assemble all major players around a negotiating table, leading to the forming of a consensus government to ensure a smooth transition to democracy.
According to analysts, Benazir Bhutto’s return to Pakistan and pressure from the international community made the Saudi authorities review their decision to keep Nawaz Sharif in exile for another three years.
A plausible interpretation is that Benazir Bhutto relied excessively on U.S. support that didn’t materialize and overplayed her hand, alienating Musharraf and giving grounds for him to reject her as the democratic partner that the U.S. was clamoring for.
And America, by cynically acquiescing to Musharraf’s extra-judicial and unconstitutional second term as president, has effectively dealt itself out of whatever leverage it hoped to have in Pakistani politics.
A close reading of events implies that Musharraf has found in Sharif and Saudi Arabia a more more reliable partner and sympathetic patron than the combination of Bhutto and the United States.
Reporting on Sharif’s return, Pakistan’s Daily Times wrote:
“The understanding with Benazir was that she would return to Pakistan after the general elections but her early arrival and her brinkmanship made the president rethink his policy towards Nawaz,” a source close to the president said.
Now it’s up to Nawaz Sharif--and the Saudis.
It looks like Sharif is the Saudi’s—but not necessarily America’s--Plan B to keep Musharraf comfortably on top of Pakistan’s political heap.
Onthe contrary, events in recent days have shown that Bhutto is an ambitious, overly opportunistic, and by now perhaps fatally compromised American client, and the United States—as opposed to an apparent neo-con rump egging Bhutto and the Bush administration on—is an American patron committed to Musharraf but with a fatal and counterproductive desire to meddle in Pakistan’s internal politics.
The "democracy on the march" narrative has been applied to coverage of Musharraf’s trip to Saudi Arabia and Nawaz Sharif’s plans to return to Pakistan from Saudi Arabia.
The Western version is that Musharraf went to Saudi Arabia to try to convince the Saudis not to let Sharif return from exile and add to Musharraf’s electoral woes in Pakistan.
But, accustomed to the assumption that American plans and wishes direct Pakistan’s politics, it looks like we are missing the manifestation of Musharraf’s careful calculation and a guiding Saudi hand in Islamabad’s affairs.
And everything in the English language press in Pakistan and the Middle East indicates that the Anglo-American take on Pakistan’s politics is just plain wrong.
Typical is a Reuters report headlined Sharif due in Pakistan, Musharraf’s problems mount. It goes on to state:
Sharif's return, just in time to file nomination papers for a Jan. 8 parliamentary election, means the increasingly unpopular Musharraf will have to contend with two ex-premiers he has spent much of the last eight years trying to marginalise.
It makes a certain amount of sense on the surface, since Musharraf deposed Sharif in a coup and there is no love lost between them.
However, in contrast to the Reuters headline, the Pakistan Daily Times lede read:
* Insiders say Nawaz allowed to return in order to neutralise Benazir
Even before we turn to the regional coverage, the western coverage begged a fundamental question.
Why would Musharraf go to Saudi Arabia to try to convince the Saudis not to let Sharif come back?
A. Musharraf is in control of Pakistan’s borders. He doesn’t need to ask the Saudis to keep Sharif out. All he has to do is not let Sharif in.
B. Musharraf did just that on September 10. Sharif arrived on a plane from Saudi Arabia and Musharraf turned him around and sent him right back.
Another possible explanation—which I prefer—is that Musharraf has matters pretty well in hand, he went to Saudi Arabia to discuss Sharif’s return, and his trip represents a decline in Bhutto’s fortunes and a diminution of U.S. influence.
In fact, maybe the Saudis got impatient with America’s stumbling and destabilizing approach to the Pakistan problem, and stepped in to broker a deal between Musharraf and Sharif.
And the deal involves Sharif being allowed to return to Pakistan.
This aspect has received exhaustive coverage in the regional media.
Here’s a very interesting and circumstantial account, including hints of Islamic derring-do and secret meetings in Saudi mosques, from Asian News International:
Islamabad, Nov 22 : A top security official of the Musharraf regime has reached 'minimum understanding', who accompanied President Pervez Musharraf to Riyadh, stayed back and met former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in the presence of Saudi royal family members. "The Saudis succeeded in creating a minimum understanding for peaceful coexistence between the two sides," well placed sources said. ...
Saudi Arabia's envoy in Pakistan, Ali Saeed Awadh Assiri, who played an important role, is also staying back in Jeddah. He came to the airport to see off Musharraf. ...
The General arrived in Jeddah late in the evening on Tuesday from Riyadh and proceeded straight to Mecca to perform Umrah with his brief entourage, he said. According to reports when he came back to the port city, Sharif, who lives in a posh area of the city, left for offering his Isha (night prayers) in a mosque in the vicinity with his male family members and some newsmen of Jeddah.
Sharif spent more than two hours in the mosque and in the meantime officials kept on trying to contact him, but he was not available, sources said. Musharraf spent less than 16 hours in Riyadh and left for Jeddah after talks with King Abdullah and Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz.
Interestingly, Saudi Arabia's ambassadors to the United States Adel A. Al-Jubeir and to Pakistan Ali Saeed Awadh Assiri were present in the meetings with the King Abdullah. The presence of the Saudi envoy to the US was important since it indicated that the US would also be on board in the ongoing interaction between Sharif and the authorities in Pakistan, sources added.
Pakistan Daily Times added a few evocative and somewhat greasy details about the deal, while also including PML-N denials that any deal had happened:
Nawaz, following a meeting with Saudi King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz, met with senior Pakistani officials and close associates of President General Pervez Musharraf, and agreed that the Sharif family could return to Pakistan as long as the PML-N did not boycott the elections, PML-Q sources told Daily Times. They said the understanding also involves the restoration of some of Nawaz’s business interests in the country and his Model Town residence. ISI DG Gen Nadeem Taj and Brig (r) Niaz, a mutual “friend” of Gen Musharraf and Nawaz, mediated the negotiations in Jeddah. The sources said that Nawaz had also agreed not to destabilise Gen Musharraf’s “transition” to democracy or try to overthrow him.
In any case, Sharif is returning to Pakistan with more than a little Saudi political and material support:
The Saudi monarch is sending Sharif to Pakistan on a royal plane and has gifted him two bulletproof Mercedes cars and also lent him a helicopter for use during the elections.
According to early reports, Sharif wouldn’t personally run in the upcoming election but his party won’t boycott the January 8 parliamentary poll.
But Sharif is keeping Musharraf off-balance by returning hours before the deadline for filing election papers expires.
The Pakistan Daily Times stated:
“The Saudi king, Musharraf and Nawaz know what has been agreed to among them,” a PML-N leader said when asked about details of the “agreement” between President Musharraf and Nawaz. However, he said it would be clear in a few days. “November 26 is the last date for filing nomination papers. The cat will be out of the bag after the deadline for nomination papers ends,” he said.
We’ll see.
If Sharif’s party joins the elections the threat to the legitimacy of the elections and the vulnerability of Musharraf’s government by a boycott by Bhutto’s PPP is significantly diminished.
Bhutto’s insistence on a boycott has been weakening; if she faces the prospect of being supplanted by another opposition party that does participate in the elections, her principled resistance to joining the poll will probably evaporate.
Furthermore, with Sharif’s party competing, Musharraf will now have a convenient alternative to Bhutto when negotiating the post-election coalition between his PML-Q party and the two alternatives acceptable to the U.S. and Saudi Arabia—Bhutto’s PPP and Sharif’s PML-N.
There are even indications that it is not unthinkable for Musharraf to let Sharif personally stand for a seat and put himself in the running for the prime ministership, even if it means undercutting the electoral fortunes of Musharraf’s own party or even forcing a merger between the two.
An article entitled Panic in PML-Q, jubiliation in PML-N reported:
Alarm bells have started ringing in the PML-Q with its leadership fearing a major dent in the party as most ticket-holders might defect to the PML-N following former premier Nawaz Sharif’s return to the country today (Sunday) to participate in politics.
...
Insiders ... do not foresee any merger of the PML-Q and PML-N at this stage, they do predict a possible understanding between the two estranged leagues on the basis of seat adjustments to avoid split of the anti-Benazir vote.
Sharif, who has quite possibly noticed how Bhutto’s political standing has been compromised by her open embrace of a U.S. brokered deal with Musharraf, is ostentatiously declaring he has no deal with Musharraf.
Well, deal or no deal?
On November 23, the Pakistan media organization Dawn gave a run-down of the conflicting spin and indignant denials put on the rumored deal by the PML-N, the PML-Q, and the PPP entitled Deal shadow over Sharifs’ homecoming:
First, the PML-N:
[A spokesman for Sharif] denied that Gen Musharraf had allowed Nawaz to return home on the condition that he would not boycott the forthcoming elections.
On the contrary, Nadir said, President Musharraf tried to persuade King Abdullah against allowing Nawaz Sharif to go back home before the completion of the “10-year exile deal” he had signed with the Saudi authorities in 2000.
Then Musharraf’s PML-Q weighed in:
Although equally vague on the specifics, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, the head of the pro-Musharraf PML-Q, told DAWN NEWS TV that if Mr Sharif returns to Pakistan before the elections, it would be a result of a “deal” with the Saudi government, and that his party would welcome the development. He said the party was prepared to take on all such challenges. “We are not afraid of him.”
Last and perhaps least, Bhutto’s PPP:
The reports also brought worries to members of the PPP, but some of them pointed out that perhaps Benazir Bhutto, sensing such an eventuality, had already made direct contacts with Mr Sharif to offset the impact of his return.
As to the presumed endgame for all this maneuvering, Dawn concluded:
CONSENSUS GOVT: There have also been suggestions that with Benazir Bhutto already supporting the idea of a government of national consensus, and Nawaz Sharif now softening his tone to talk about reconciliation, there is a possibility that fresh attempt could be made to assemble all major players around a negotiating table, leading to the forming of a consensus government to ensure a smooth transition to democracy.
According to analysts, Benazir Bhutto’s return to Pakistan and pressure from the international community made the Saudi authorities review their decision to keep Nawaz Sharif in exile for another three years.
A plausible interpretation is that Benazir Bhutto relied excessively on U.S. support that didn’t materialize and overplayed her hand, alienating Musharraf and giving grounds for him to reject her as the democratic partner that the U.S. was clamoring for.
And America, by cynically acquiescing to Musharraf’s extra-judicial and unconstitutional second term as president, has effectively dealt itself out of whatever leverage it hoped to have in Pakistani politics.
A close reading of events implies that Musharraf has found in Sharif and Saudi Arabia a more more reliable partner and sympathetic patron than the combination of Bhutto and the United States.
Reporting on Sharif’s return, Pakistan’s Daily Times wrote:
“The understanding with Benazir was that she would return to Pakistan after the general elections but her early arrival and her brinkmanship made the president rethink his policy towards Nawaz,” a source close to the president said.
Now it’s up to Nawaz Sharif--and the Saudis.
It looks like Sharif is the Saudi’s—but not necessarily America’s--Plan B to keep Musharraf comfortably on top of Pakistan’s political heap.
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