[R-G] Pakistan: A distraction from Washington's grand design

[Anthony Fenton]

Copyright 2007 Telegraph Group Limited
All Rights Reserved
The Daily Telegraph (LONDON)

September 11, 2007 Tuesday

SECTION: NEWS; INTERNATIONAL; Pg. 16

LENGTH: 566 words

HEADLINE: Analysis A distraction from Washington's grand design

BYLINE: Ahmed Rashid in Lahore

BODY:


NAWAZ SHARIF is not part of the American script for the war on terror  
and the future of Pakistan, written by mandarins in the US State  
Department. He is considered neither fish nor fowl, too close to the  
fundamentalist mullahs and too unpredictable.

The real script is to save the beleaguered Gen Pervez Musharraf, and  
involves another former prime minister in exile - the fragrant  
Daughter of the East, Benazir Bhutto. When in a few weeks' time she  
repeats yesterday's homecoming saga from London, she will be welcomed  
by the very police that manhandled Mr Sharif and she will be allowed  
to lead a procession to her home town.

That is because the West is desperate to bring her and Gen Musharraf  
into a loveless marriage so that the general can combat the  
terrorists and the lady play democracy. This, they hope, can keep the  
crumbling edifice of military rule going for a few more years or at  
least until Osama bin Laden is winkled out of his home in the tribal  
regions of North and South Waziristan.

And that is where the whole plan falls apart because in a country  
like Pakistan, a failing state hovering over the abyss, there are too  
many loose ends to tie up.

Ms Bhutto's popularity has plummeted since it became apparent that  
she is trying to cut a deal with the army. The more she is seen as  
part of some Bush game plan, the more she is mistrusted by a populace  
that hates the army as much as it hates the Americans.

Then there is the crumbling morale in the army. Two weeks ago US and  
Nato forces in Afghanistan were shocked to discover that 300  
Pakistani soldiers - their erstwhile partners in the war on terrorism  
- had surrendered to the Taliban in Waziristan without firing a shot.

Soldiers in the badlands controlled by the Taliban and al-Qa'eda are  
deserting or refusing to open fire. The White House is panic- 
stricken. That is because Gen Musharraf in his hubris has utterly  
failed to convince Pakistanis or the army that Pakistan has to fight  
not America's war, but its own war against ever-expanding extremism.

Pakistan's own Taliban are running wild in large parts of the  
country, beheading women, burning video shops, launching suicide  
bombers against army convoys and taking over law and order in towns  
just 100 miles from Islamabad.

On Sunday the Pakistani Taliban issued a letter warning legislators  
from the ruling Pakistan Muslim League that more than 300 suicide  
bombers were ready to kill them if they voted for another five-year  
stint for Gen Musharraf in the presidential elections.

The other loose cannon is the supreme court, which may well rule in  
the next few days that Mr Sharif has every right to return to  
Pakistan and that Gen Musharraf cannot stand as president and also  
remain army chief.

If that happens, Gen Musharraf's only course would be to impose  
martial law and dismiss the chief justice - which would almost  
certainly plunge Pakistan into an even deeper unknown.

The West would like to see an orderly transition to some kind of  
watered-down democracy headed by Gen Musharraf and Ms Bhutto, so that  
its two major concerns - persuading the army to confront the Taliban  
and keep its nuclear weapons under lock and key - are safeguarded.

However, that agenda looks increasingly at risk. By sending Mr Sharif  
into exile, Gen Musharraf and his Western allies have bought  
themselves a little time. But they may find that they have also  
speeded up the meltdown of Pakistan.