[R-P] "Can Musharraf Survive?"

[Julio Fernández Baraibar]

Está en inglés y no lo voy a traducir. Su autor es Immanuel Wallerstein, un 
muy buen observador de la política internacional y una interesante cabeza en 
el páramo intelectual yanqui.
Básicamente sostiene que Musharraf, el presidente militar pakistaní, 
atraviesa un momento verdaderamente crucial. Los norteamericanos lo 
consideran blando con los "jihadistas", estos lo consideran un títere yanqui 
y la clase media urbana quiere la vuelta a un régimen civil.
El New York Times publica hoy una declaraciones del senador Barack Obama, 
precandidato a la presidencia por los demócratas, donde se pone el traje de 
halcón en relación a Afganistán y a Musharraf. Todo ello como respuesta a la 
dulce Hillary Clinton quien acuso de tener una política internacional 
"ingenua" a Obama, debido a unas declaraciones de éste donde afirmó que él 
se reuniría con los dirigentes de Irán, Cuba, Siria, Norcorea y Venezuela 
sin ningún tipo de precondiciones durante el primer año de su mandato.
La noticia es de mucha utilidad para aquellos que piensan que con los 
demócratas cambiará la política internacional yanqui.
Para quien lea inglés aquí está el artículo

Julio Fernández Baraibar
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Skype: julio.fernandez.baraibar
Visite mis blogs: http://fernandezbaraibar.blogspot.com
http://jfernandezbaraibar.blogspot.com

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Commentary No. 214, August 1, 2007

"Can Musharraf Survive?"


Poor Pervez Musharraf! He is not very popular, and is under pressure from 
just
about everybody. Yet he labors on, seeking to maintain his equilibrium, and 
his
power, while sitting on top of a seething volcano. He has in fact done 
better
than one might have thought possible.

To start the story at the beginning, we have to remember the origins of the
state of Pakistan. The principal nationalist movement in colonial India was 
the
Indian National Congress, led by Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. 
Mohammed
Ali Jinnah, a secular lawyer of Muslim origin, was an active member. But he
increasingly came to feel that Muslims as a group (one might say as an 
ethnic
group) were relegated to a second-class citizenship. He joined the Muslim
League, a movement seeking autonomy/independence for a "Muslim" region. In
1934, Jinnah became its president, and in the final negotiations with the
British for the independence of India, he succeeded in obtaining an 
independent
and separate status for Pakistan.

On August 14, 1947, when Pakistan became an independent state, it consisted 
of
several provinces in the northwest of colonial India and a Bengali province 
in
the northeast, quite distant from the western sector. On August 11 of that
year, Jinnah made an inaugural speech before the about-to-be legislative 
body
of Pakistan, calling for an "inclusive and pluralist democracy," which would
guarantee equal rights for all its citizens of whatever religion or ethnic
group. Not only was the Muslim League essentially a modernist secular
nationalist movement, but the armed forces that would be established drew 
its
personnel from the old British military forces in India, and its officer 
corps
was equally secular for the most part.

As we know, independence for India and Pakistan resulted immediately in
terrible inter-group violence and, among other things, a struggle for the
control of Kashmir. The net outcome of that initial struggle was not only a 
de
facto (and to this day contested) partition of Kashmir but also a transfer 
of
populations, such that Pakistan became overwhelmingly Muslim. In 2007, its
population numbers 165 million, which makes Pakistan the sixth most populous
state in the world, and one whose birthrate is among the highest. This
population is today 97% Muslim, of which 20% are Shi'a.

The political history of Pakistan has been tumultuous. Its relations with 
its
principal neighbor, India, have always been tenuous and conflictual. The
eastern part of Pakistan seceded in 1971, with Indian encouragement, to 
become
the state of Bangladesh. The first military coup occurred in 1958. Civilian
rule, under a largely secular, urban party led by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was
restored in 1972, only to be overthrown again five years later. The coup was
led by Gen. Zia ul-Haq who was a quite pious Muslim and installed sharia as 
the
law of the land. He also had the country renamed the Islamic Republic of
Pakistan. Civilian rule was restored years later under the aegis of Bhutto's
daughter, Benazir Bhutto, who then ceded place to Nawaz Sharif. In 1999, 
Sharif
sought to arrest his chief of staff, one Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who 
succeeded
in having Sharif arrested instead and being himself placed at the head of 
the
government. He was proclaimed president in 2001, and elected to that post in
2002.

To make sense of this back and forth, we have to identify the principal
political actors inside Pakistan and its geopolitical alliances. To start 
with
the latter, Pakistan's biggest concern has always been India, and therefore
logically it sought the support of two states whose relations were reserved
towards India throughout the Cold War - the United States and China. These 
two
states considered Indian foreign policy too close to that of the Soviet 
Union.
The India-Pakistan military strains led both to refuse to sign the nuclear
non-proliferation treaty and to develop nuclear weapons, much to the chagrin 
of
the United States.

Internally, the situation in 2007 is quite different from that in 1947.
Islamism as a political force has become extremely strong and permeates 
large
sectors of the armed forces. Islamists are unhappy about Pakistan's links 
with
the United States, especially during the last five years. The urban, secular
forces would like to force out Musharraf (as well as the armed forces) from
political power and have recently shown their strength in their successful
support of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court whom Musharraf had tried 
to
fire. The armed forces, while Islamist, do not really want to cede their 
role
to jihadist elements like al-Qaeda, and therefore attempt to play a bridge 
role
- appeasing but trying to contain the jihadist forces.

When the United States was supporting jihadists in Afghanistan in the 1980s,
its strongest ally was Pakistan, and in particular the intelligence units of
the armed forces, the ISI. In the 1990s, the ISI helped the Taliban come to
power in Afghanistan. Hence, the ISI was quite unhappy when the United 
States
overthrew the Taliban and has not been very cooperative with regard to
Afghanistan, something about which Afghanistan's current president, Hamid
Karzai, complains to this day.

It seems quite clear that, when Osama bin Laden launched the attack against 
the
United States on September 11, 2001, one of his major objectives, if not his
principal one, was to bring down the regimes in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. 
Why
and how so? Bin Laden considered the regimes in both countries too
accommodating to the United States behind their ambiguous language on 
Islamism.
He expected the United States to put pressure on the Musharraf regime to 
engage
his homegrown Islamists totally. Bin Laden's theory was that, if it did so,
Musharraf's regime would fall.

Musharraf has resisted this pressure (as has Saudi Arabia), agreeing with 
bin
Laden that it was politically suicidal to do what the United States wanted 
him
to do. On the other hand, he had to keep the United States relatively happy
lest Pakistan lose the crucial economic and military support of the United
States. So, every once in a while, he throws a bone to the United States, as 
in
the recent assault on the Red Mosque, a stronghold of Islamists. But he is
careful not to go further.

And this contradiction is what brings us to where we are today. The 
jihadists
are well installed in the so-called northwest frontier areas (which have 
always
been de facto autonomous) and Musharraf does not dare to take real action
against them. The jihadists denounce Musharraf for being too pro-American. 
The
United States, on the other hand, considers him far too accommodating to the
jihadists. The United States keeps mumbling about direct action. But the 
United
States cannot really turn against Musharraf entirely, lest an even worse 
regime
succeed his. Meanwhile, the urban secular classes are pressing a weakened
Musharraf to step down and give way to a truly civilian regime.

Musharraf's key support, indeed sole support, remains the army. But as long 
as
the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continue, Islamist political strength
continues to grow. And Pakistan has many nuclear weapons. Should the 
Islamists
come to unrestrained power, this would pose a real geopolitical threat to 
the
United States, unlike the invented one of Saddam Hussein.

by Immanuel Wallerstein