| Submit your comments on this article |
| India-Pakistan |
| The alternatives to Musharraf (as Pakistan's leader) |
| 2007-11-28 |
| Stanley Kurtz on why the State Department's agitation for Musharraf's removal is likely to lead to negative outcomes for American interests: I’ve commented on Daniel Markey’s piece in the FP debate over America’s stance toward Musharraf. Now a word on Husain Haqqani’s brief for abandoning Musharraf. Haqqani is a former Pakistani ambassador, who has worked under both Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif. At the moment, Haqqani seems to be a partisan of Benazir Bhutto. As with most arguments for abandoning Musharraf, Haqqani has little to say about the alternatives. Benazir Bhutto talks a good anti-Islamist game, but she would have almost no ability to push the army in that direction. Bhutto had no power over the army when she was in power before, and would have even less now, given her certain efforts to replace retired officers with her own supporters at the head of Pakistan’s economic institutions. Despite — really because of — Bhutto’s being a Western educated woman, she never took on the country’s Islamists. Bhutto was under suspicion from the start, and had to prove that a female secularist would not freeze out the country’s traditionalists. Musharraf was actually far better placed to pare back Islamist power, and made efforts in that direction even before 9/11. And as I note in my post on Daniel Markey's piece, abandoning Musharraf is even more likely to hand power to Islamist-leaning Nawaz Sharif than to Bhutto. The biggest problem with Haqqani’s piece is what he bills as his main point. According to Haqqani, the U.S. is the key to the vicious circle that prevents Pakistan from becoming a "normal" democratic country. It’s true, Haqqani concedes, that the military is the most important institution in the country–the only institution that really works. That’s why America supports and works through Pakistan’s army. But Haqqani claims that the army only remains the paramount institution in Pakistan because of American backing. If only we’d abandon our support for it, Pakistan would have a chance to become a true democracy. This is nonsense. America has been more than happy to support democratic governments throughout the world. The pre-eminence of the army in Pakistan is an indigenous Pakistani phenomenon, going back to the earliest years of the state. When Islamist rioted in favor of tough blasphemy laws in 1953, civilian leaders were paralyzed. The army not only put down the violence, it stepped in to govern successfully in a number of areas where civilians had been unable to act. Thus began a long-term evolution toward military rule in Pakistan. Meanwhile, in post-partition India, which had been joined with what later become Pakistan under British rule, political evolution went in a very different direction. British-inflected democracy took root in India, but not in Pakistan. Internal social and cultural differences have vastly more to do with this divergence than American military aid. Haqqani is playing on American ignorance about Pakistan’s past, and our tendency to blame ourselves for all facets of political development in foreign countries, to undercut his political rivals at home. |
| Posted by:Zhang Fei |
| #2 SharifÂ’s return is an example of how a strategy based on elections, in the absence of a genuinely liberal democratic political culture, can backfire ... Unfortunately, in a fundamentally illiberal political culture, "democracy" (I use quotes because genuine liberal democracy requires so much more than mere elections) can easily be turned against us. As McZoid so succinctly put it in Monday's thread about Rowan Williams: I don't want jihadis to vote; I want them to die. Running around playing pin the |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-11-28 20:31 |
| #1 More from Stan Kurtz: Foreign Policy magazine posts dueling op-eds on the question, "Should the U.S. Abandon Pervez Musharraf?" IÂ’m firmly with Daniel Markey on the "No" side. Yesterday, I argued that the return of Nawaz Sharif spells serious trouble for the United States. Sharif has a history of cooperation with Islamist parties, and even came close to making Sharia the law of the land just before Musharraf ousted him in a coup. According to Markey, if Musharraf goes, and an a-political general takes over, MusharrafÂ’s political party (really a wing of SharifÂ’s old party) will collapse and move back to Sharif. Having combined his current supporters with MusharrafÂ’s voters, Sharif would leave Benazir Bhutto in the dust. And according to Markey: Having opposed Musharraf from his exile in Saudi Arabia and Britain, Sharif has felt little love from Washington since 9/11. In his desperation to return to power, he has courted the entire spectrum of PakistanÂ’s political leaders, including the Islamists. His center-right base of support now has a stronger anti-American, anti-Western streak than in the past. SharifÂ’s constituents have little interest in implementing policies designed to tackle the deeper roots of extremism and militancy in Pakistani society or in building sustainable democratic institutions. In other words, as I argued yesterday, despite his current rhetoric, designed to manipulate the West, neither Sharif nor his supporters believe in liberal democracy. If you think itÂ’s tough to get MusharrafÂ’s army to fight Islamists in PakistanÂ’s northwest, wait till Nawaz Sharif takes power. Although Sharif would have only limited ability to command the army, he could potentially link up with Islamist sympathizers in the military to expand his control. Who knows, Sharif might even try to expand his popular base by openly distancing himself from the army's U.S. backed efforts against the Islamists. SharifÂ’s return is an example of how a strategy based on elections, in the absence of a genuinely liberal democratic political culture, can backfire. The West is focused on PakistanÂ’s protesting lawyers, its English language media, and an at least semi-plausible (but in fact overly optimistic) image of Benazir Bhutto. On the other hand, the Saudis understand the traditionalist and/or Islamist leanings of the vast majority of the Pakistani people. Once the West forced Musharraf to bring back Benazir Bhutto (in a plausible effort to bolster the legitimacy of military rule), the Saudis made a point of releasing Sharif. Unfortunately, in a fundamentally illiberal political culture, "democracy" (I use quotes because genuine liberal democracy requires so much more than mere elections) can easily be turned against us. Markey is right. If we abandon Musharraf, there is a serious risk that Sharif could be the beneficiary, resulting in a much less pro-Western and a much more Islamist-friendly Pakistan. A direct takeover of Pakistan by the Taliban may be unlikely, but control of the country by an increasingly Islamist-leaning mainstream politician like Sharif is all too possible. For now, Musharraf is our best bulwark against that scenario. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2007-11-28 14:10 |