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Tough times ahead for Perv
As anger over European cartoons satirizing the prophet Muhammad continued to roil the Muslim world, Pakistani protesters last week destroyed the most visible symbols of western consumer culture--American icons McDonald's, KFC, and Pizza Hut--as well as attacking banks, movie theaters, and government buildings. In the Afghan-border city of Peshawar, some 70,000 people clashed with police in the largest of the demonstrations in four cities, which authorities said were encouraged and directed by militant Islamist groups opposing Pakistan's U.S.-allied president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

The turmoil elevates the already high security concerns surrounding President Bush's scheduled visit here next week, and it highlights the political pressures on Musharraf from Islamists and others critical of his support for American antiterrorism efforts. Last week's protests--in Islamabad, Lahore, and Karachi as well as Peshawar--come on the heels of public outrage here over American drone airstrikes on al Qaeda terrorist redoubts inside Pakistan.

Further, there is an increasingly bloody fight with insurgents in southern Baluchistan province

as well as growing antigovernment sentiment in other regions along the Afghan border where Pakistani troops are conducting antiterrorist operations. Islamists and other political foes are decrying the lack of progress toward removing the Army from politics. Talks with India over the explosive issue of Kashmir seem to be stuck. And Washington is pressing Musharraf to drop a natural gas pipeline deal with Iran.

And yet, to call on Musharraf in his element--which is to say, in his British colonial-era mansion on the grounds of a walled military compound near here--is to see a man who looks at ease, even in good humor. After more than six years in power after a bloodless coup, Musharraf, 62, last week was keen to tout progress. "We have stabilized Pakistan," he told a group of reporters from news organizations that included U.S. News.

In one sense, he is right. The economy is growing at a brisk 7 percent per year, and foreign reserves are up dramatically from 2001--when the general cast his lot with a Bush administration incensed at Pakistani support for the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan and determined to knock them off. No combination of political opponents looks ready to replace him. But Musharraf's partnership with Washington has made governing this strategically pivotal nation of 162 million people almost diabolically difficult.

Several attacks by U.S. drone aircraft--especially one on January 13 that killed some al Qaeda leaders but not the targeted No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri--have also killed civilians and inflamed anti-American emotions. Pakistani officials say they weren't consulted in advance--a violation of their understanding with the Bush administration; U.S. officials have suggested otherwise. To some, the American strike smelled like a warning to Musharraf to step up his own military campaign against al Qaeda and the Taliban, who are said to be recruiting and training in Pakistan and launching attacks into Afghanistan from border sanctuaries. But to political foes, the attack made Musharraf look like a toady of the Americans. "It damages the president,"said Mushahid Hussain Sayed, a Pakistani senator who is allied with Musharraf. "So what's our status--friend, foe, or in between?"

Musharraf, in a meeting with a group of American journalists last week, said he had condemned the January 13 raid as a violation of Pakistani sovereignty. But he professed satisfaction with U.S. assurances that further strikes would take place only with prior consultation, and he praised current antiterrorism cooperation along the border. In what must be music to Bush administration ears, the Pakistani leader also acknowledged that some villagers were "harboring" terrorists. "They are guilty from all points of view," he said in last week's interview arranged by the East-West Center. Musharraf, who has said that five terrorists were among those killed on January 13, called al Qaeda's presence a more serious breach of Pakistani sovereignty than the U.S. missile strikes.

Unfortunately, the political fallout from the U.S. airstrikes appears to have undone most of the goodwill brought by American relief efforts after last October's devastating earthquake. And, for his part, Musharraf seemed to be walking a careful line when he criticized the cartoon-sparked violence but aligned himself with the sense of outrage over the depiction of the prophet Muhammad. "Even the most moderate Muslim will go into the street and talk against it," he said.

With parliamentary elections expected here next year, pressure is also building on Musharraf to remove his general's uniform--a promise that he made and then reneged on--if he intends to stay as president. The Bush administration has been pushing Musharraf to keep moving toward a restoration of full democracy--but not too hard. Says Stephen Cohen, a South Asia expert at the Brookings Institution, "Musharraf has persuaded them [the Bush administration] that he's the last bastion between them and Islamic chaos." Washington's jitters over a Pakistan without the general are barely concealed. Says a U.S. official, "The military, for good and bad, is a real force for stability in Pakistan." The general's civilian foes, added the official, are "feckless" and aspire to replace him "as a way to get money and power."

Critics insist that Washington is shortsighted in not backing democratic political parties and is alienating Pakistanis incensed at civilian deaths in the war on terrorism. "The military establishment in this country has never allowed political parties to grow and mature," argues Enver Beg, an opposition senator, who warns that if nothing changes, "this nation will go mad toward the West."

In a nation armed with nuclear weapons and constantly battling extremists, that is an outcome U.S. officials are hoping to avoid.
Posted by: Dan Darling 2006-02-19
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=143124