Fanning the Flames of Discontent
Why the turmoil in Pakistan should worry Washington
When President Bush talks about Pakistan's record in battling terrorism, he usually makes it very personal. In a frequent refrain, Bush says that Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf "understands that we are in a struggle against extremists who will use terror as a weapon. ... After all, they've tried to take his life." (Indeed, shots were fired at his airplane in an another apparent assassination attempt last week.)
There are increasing signs, however, that the Bush administration's decision to build so much of Washington's Pakistan policy around one man, Musharraf, could backfire. Today, the Army general and self-installed president is facing sustained protests that are being led by the country's educated middle class-America's most natural allies in Pakistan. "If the Bush administration continues to support the dictatorial regime, which has completely lost the public confidence, it will further fan extremism and fundamentalism," says Shameem Akhtar, the dean of management sciences at Balochistan University of Information Technology and Management Sciences in Quetta, Pakistan. "America should learn a lesson from Iran, where it has been paying the price for supporting an unpopular monarchy even after 28 years."
So far, the protesters—led by the nation's lawyers clad in their dark suits—have not targeted the United States. But many in Pakistan's secular opposition parties are angry at what they see as U.S.support for a profoundly undemocratic regime and a reluctance to pressure Musharraf too hard on holding fair elections. Musharraf seized power in a 1999 coup when he was chief of Army staff. He maneuvered himself into the presidency three years later but retained the powerful military post in violation of the Constitution. He ignited the current crisis in March when he tried to sack Pakistan's Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry in an apparent bid to intimidate the court into blessing his re-election. The protests had been largely peaceful until May, when 40 people were killed as Musharraf loyalists tried to block Chaudhry's visit to Karachi.
Things could get even worse in the coming months. First, the Supreme Court is due to rule as early as this month on Musharraf's attempt to oust Chaudhry. Then, in the next few months, Musharraf is expected to announce that he will seek another term as president. Many diplomats worry that whatever he does to circumvent the Constitution and manipulate his re-election could spark an even more violent round of protests. Parliamentary elections are also due this year, and officials are accused of tampering with voter registration lists. "The protests we have seen so far could pale in comparison to the protests that could follow a rigged election," warns Benazir Bhutto, the leader of Pakistan's most popular opposition party who served twice as prime minister.
Up to now, U.S. support for Musharraf has been steady. For one thing, U.S. officials praise Musharraf for facilitating some of the most important captures of al Qaeda leaders, including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Musharraf has long portrayed himself as a bulwark against Islamic extremism in a tumultuous country, a claim that many now question. "We feel the present military regime has played up the threat of an Islamist takeover to frighten the international community into supporting a military regime," says Bhutto, who is trying to return to Pakistan from exile in London. "It has doled out, spoonful by spoonful, support for the war on terror, but that support has been very little, and we have seen large parts of Pakistan come under the sway of religious parties and the Taliban."
Reassess. Some U.S. officials are also reassessing Musharraf's performance. U.S. intelligence agencies warn that al Qaeda and the Taliban have reconstituted safe havens in the badlands of western Pakistan. "I haven't seen anything since 9/11 that suggests this guy will do stuff of his own volition that's in our interests," says a U.S. official. "He always does the bare minimum." For example, despite Musharraf's pledges to crack down on radical religious schools, U.S.and British officials have had to point out specific madrasahs that were producing graduates primed for jihadist acts.
Even more serious, Pakistan's vast tribal regions have largely been ceded to religious extremists and Taliban elements (box, Page 26). Musharraf is growing increasingly dependent on the country's religious parties for support. Many Pakistanis point to his reluctance to crack down on a radical mosque in the normally placid capital of Islamabad where fundamentalists have been mounting a vigilante campaign for the past six months to impose strict Islamic law. Followers of Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, have occupied government buildings and kidnapped police officers and alleged prostitutes. The crisis came to a head last week when militants and police clashed in battles that killed at least 19 people. Afterward, security forces caught the mosque's leader, Maulana Abdul Aziz, trying to flee in a woman's burka and high heels and paraded him on television. More than 1,000 students have surrendered, but the footage of Aziz, still clad in women's clothing, enraged his supporters, and a group of die-hards remained holed up in the mosque.
Pakistani security forces have been treading carefully, in part because a bloody crackdown could further weaken Musharraf's standing. But the spectacle of nightly gun battles and a prolonged siege in Islamabad has been unsettling for western governments, which harbor a perpetual fear that Pakistan's arsenal of nuclear weapons could fall into the hands of radical groups. Pakistan's security forces have a long history of cooperation with Islamic extremists who operate in Kashmir (against the Indian government) and Afghanistan (including the Taliban). But this latest crisis has also been unsettling for Pakistan's generals, who have always viewed themselves as the main guarantor of the country's stability. "The military uses the Islamist groups to its advantage, but they would never give them the initiative to set military policy," says Hasan-Askari Rizvi, a visiting Pakistani scholar at Johns Hopkins University.
At least in the short term, most observers expect Musharraf to find some way to remain in power, which will comfort U.S. officials uneasy about who might replace him. So far, the Bush administration has conspicuously declined to lay out specific criteria to ensure a fair election. Many analysts believe Musharraf will end up forging an alliance with Bhutto. But there is little sign that he is ready to make that compromise. "We have kept the doors of dialogue open, but we have been very disappointed by the lack of any concrete progress toward having a level playing field for all political parties," says Bhutto. "With elections around the corner, we certainly feel time is running out."
With Aamir Latif and Philip Smucker in Pakistan
This story appears in the July 16, 2007 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.