Musharraf faces up to an
emergency By Syed Saleem
Shahzad
KARACHI - With Admiral William J
Fallon, US commander of CENTCOM, due in Pakistan
on Thursday to finalize collaboration on pressing
issues concerning the "war on terror" in Pakistan
and Afghanistan, besides addressing the tension
over Iran, top decision-makers in Islamabad are in
a quandary. The issue is whether Pakistan can
afford to take bold steps in the "war on terror"
without taking extraordinary steps to solidify the
regime of President General Pervez Musharraf.
The matter is one of extreme urgency.
Almost the entire North-West Frontier Province
(NWFP) and Federally Administered Tribal
Areas have revolted against
the state of Pakistan in favor of the Taliban. And
polls conducted by US institutions suggest the
hunt for al-Qaeda is extremely unpopular in
Pakistan, which also faces wave after wave of
suicide attacks in its bigger cities.
The
Pakistani Taliban have refused offers of a
ceasefire in North Waziristan and South
Waziristan, and are extending their engagement of
Pakistani troops in the Swat Valley in NWFP where
Pakistani troops face attacks from all sides,
including the local population.
A local
television station has shown footage of people
collecting money for what they call the
"mujahideen". The station reported that at one
place in the Swat Valley, people collected Rs1.5
million (about US$24,500) in just three hours.
Such popular support for the militancy forces
Islamabad to question whether it should continue
this losing battle, or launch a full-scale war
against terror.
However - and this is
crucial - should Musharraf decide on the latter
approach, he would need to do so under special
powers, such as martial law or a state of
emergency.
Asia Times Online contacts
confirm that in the past three days Musharraf has
held several high-level meetings that included all
four provincial chief ministers. The discussions
centered on the issue of extraordinary powers. The
same issue was raised with the policy planning
section of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League.
Former premier Benazir Bhutto, who at the
last minute canceled plans to travel to the United
Arab Emirates, where she had spent years in exile,
urged the government on Wednesday not to impose a
state of emergency.
A senior security
official speaking to Asia Times Online on
condition of anonymity, said, "Major surgeries are
essential in cases like Lal Masjid [a militant
mosque in Islamabad], but such extraordinary
events need extraordinary powers. If the courts
intervene in such matters, the security forces
will stop working and nobody will be able to stop
the march of the Taliban into the bigger cities of
Pakistan."
The official continued, "This
is a major crossroads in the 'war on terror' at
which Washington will have to approve an
all-powerful government, even at the cost of
democracy. Otherwise it can say goodbye to
Pakistan as a 'war on terror' ally as it
[Pakistan] would simply not be able to get
results."
The massive engagement of the
Pakistani armed forces in the Swat Valley has
disrupted controls along the Durand Line that
separates Pakistan and Afghanistan, with the
result that in a matter of weeks, hundreds of
fresh fighters have reached southeastern
Afghanistan to bolster the Taliban-led insurgency
from Jalalabad to Khost.
In this respect,
Fallon's visit to Pakistan is significant as
Washington wants Pakistan to stop this flow of
precious Taliban assets from the Swat Valley
before the US entertains the idea of a new theater
in Iran. (King Abdullah of Jordan is also expected
in Pakistan soon, as is US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice.)
This returns Pakistan
to the dilemma described above, of whether to go
for all-out war, and if so, how to go about it as
the country's judiciary has over the past several
months steadfastly blocked any high-handed
government moves. Even the results of last month's
presidential elections, which Musharraf won, are
under judicial review.
And a full frontal
war would be unpopular among the masses, where
Musharraf's standing is already low. The US-based
World Public Opinion (WPO) revealed in a recent
poll that fewer than half of urban Pakistanis
support attacking al-Qaeda and cracking down on
fundamentalists, and Pakistanis overwhelmingly
rejected the idea of permitting foreign troops to
attack al-Qaeda on Pakistani territory.
WPO reported that four out of five
Pakistanis said their government should not allow
US or other foreign troops to enter Pakistan to
pursue and capture al-Qaeda fighters. And three
out of four opposed allowing foreign troops to
attack Taliban insurgents based in Pakistan. The
findings also reveal that a majority of urban
Pakistanis believed their government's decision to
attack militants based in the Lal Masjid (Red
Mosque) in July was a mistake.
A suicide
attack on Tuesday, meanwhile, in a highly
sensitive military zone, sent a strong warning to
the government of the militants' strength. The
bomber set off explosives about a kilometer from
Musharraf's offices in Rawalpindi, killing seven
people, including himself, and injuring at least
14 others.
And clearly there is more to
come. On Thursday, a suicide bomber attacked a bus
carrying Pakistan Air Force employees, killing at
least five people and wounding about 40, the
military confirmed. The incident took place near
Sargodha, a city in eastern Punjab province.
Against this backdrop, Musharraf has to
decide whether Pakistan can afford to ditch
democracy in the fight against terror, or whether
Pakistan safeguards democracy and closes its
theater of the "war on terror".
Syed
Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan
Bureau Chief. He can be reached at
saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com
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2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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