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Let's not forget Afghanistan
When it comes to the situation in Pakistan, the ball is not in Musharraf's court alone but also in Kabul's and half way across the world in Washington.
- By Neena Gopal, Special to Gulf News
- Published: 23:04 September 15, 2007
Pakistan's political endgame is finally falling into place. The coming weeks will see the re-election of President General Pervez Musharraf, his abdication as army chief and a free and fair election that redeems the democratic credentials of a popular leader like Benazir Bhutto, so long denied her rightful place in the country's political and historical narrative.
But it's an endgame that has its roots not in the political chaos roiling present day Pakistan, seen as no more than a temporary irritant, but in the Al Qaida-Taliban inspired instability radiating from neighbouring Afghanistan, striking at the heart of President Musharraf's core strength - his army - and by extension, the US-led war on terror. Therein lies the real challenge of the future.
Washington's two- pronged strategy makes a distinction between indigenous Taliban and the Ayman Al Zawahiri-led Al Qaida, holding talks with the Taliban to give the curiously well-organised, no longer rag-tag Pashtun forces their rightful place in Afghanistan's power strata while decimating "foreign" spoilers holed out in Al Qaida hideouts in the lawless, inhospitable tribal border areas in Pakistan.
The successful conclusion of talks with the Taliban over the release of the South Korean hostages was an insight into a hitherto unknown hierarchical structure. But what guarantee a confrontation with the foreign-led Al Qaida will not have the blowback that already manifests itself in the rash of suicide attacks on Pakistan's military?
The question marks over the rank and file's inclination to fight such forces already mirrors a growing public angst over the grand plan to plug Islamabad back into the US's renewed bid to quell the Islamist-led rebellion. Questions remain over whether neighbouring powers such as India and Iran will accept a rollback of their own areas of influence in Afghanistan-Pakistan.
India, for one does not want to see Kashmir raked up by political groupings of the future after the accommodation reached with the present dispensation. More importantly, what can one expect of Pakistan's rejuvenated judiciary poised to hear cases against Musharraf's candidacy as president and army chief from Monday but curiously already seeing the reinstated chief justice distancing himself? As Bhutto, the Pakistan People's Party leader says over the studied silence on her "power-sharing deal" with Musharraf - the ball is certainly in the president's court. Except, it's not in the Pakistan president's court alone but in the Afghan president's and half way across the world in Washington.
The Bush administration's pointmen in charge of recreating the new political architecture are scrambling to ensure that beneath the democratic façade, the civilian administration takes the sting out of widespread public unease, even as the Pakistan army stays steadfast in its pivotal role fighting the forces who threaten Kabul and Islamabad, and further afield - Baghdad, Delhi, Moscow and Beijing.
The last thing the US wants in Pakistan is a repeat of events in Palestine where Hamas came to power through the ballot.
Hapless leader
September 10 was therefore a given. The haste with which hapless former premier Nawaz Sharif was bundled out of the country and back to Saudi Arabia was clearly because the politically naïve leader was unable to shed his Islamist Trojan horse tag or take the time to reinvent himself as a centrist leader in his own right, without the crutch of the right-wing.
It didn't hurt for opponents to add to the perception that the "rich kid" who couldn't take punishment had done a deal with the government and had once again chosen exile in a cushy palace over jail. Or that the much trumpeted reception for his waapsi (return) failed to materialise giving the lie to the other view perpetuated by commentators - that he was far more popular on the Pakistani street than Bhutto or Musharraf or Osama Bin Laden.
Sharif may be unable to see the six party Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal for what they are - the proverbial albatross around his political neck. But the squabbling among his allies over the botched reception is a pointer to the questionable role played by the MMA. Were they used by the establishment to drive a wedge between Bhutto and Sharif, who failed to see that in reducing the PPP's stature at the expense of the MMA he was losing a much needed ally?
Certainly, when push came to shove not one of Sharif's Islamist allies displayed the will to crank their well-oiled cadres on to the streets and upset a revered benefactor like Saudi Arabia. Whether Sharif is kept out until the next polls remains to be seen, even as the breakaway Quaid faction has cleverly laid out its own anti-PPP stance to carve its own political space.
Certainly in containing Sharif, the "save Musharraf" plan has seen the first salvo fired. Bhutto's return on October 18 will be the second.
October certainly presages change. Will it bring a new president, a new army chief, a new chief justice even? Perhaps even a caretaker government? The political endgame that will fine tune Pakistan's transition to democracy has begun. But when fine tuned in Washington the potential for it to change completely to suit US' interests in the region is all too high.
Neena Gopal is an analyst on Asia.
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