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2 Pakistan shakes off US
shackles By M K Bhadrakumar
The pervasive impression is that the
impending judgement by the Supreme Court regarding
the propriety of President General Pervez
Musharraf's re-election as president of Pakistan
for another term prompted the timing of his
decision to impose emergency rule last week. The
temptation to view the developments in Pakistan
through the prism of democracy is almost
irresistible.
But democracy is not even a
sub-theme in the current world of
realpolitik in Pakistan. At
best it forms a miniscule part of the story. What
emerges beyond doubt is that Musharraf's move
enjoys the support of the top brass of the
Pakistan armed forces. Significantly, he signed
the proclamation on emergency rule in his capacity
as the chief of army staff rather than as the
president. He has thereby signaled that the
Pakistan armed forces as a whole are backing his
move.
It is on occasions such as this that
the incomprehensible alchemy of the US-Pakistan
relationship fleetingly surfaces. Clearly, it
stands to reason that Musharraf took care to
consult Washington and Britain before announcing
his move. But what was the nature of these
consultations?
Musharraf spoke to British
Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Thursday, hardly
hours prior to the proclamation of emergency rule.
Britain was the prime mover of the
Musharraf-Benazir Bhutto rapprochement. Musharraf
kept in view the need to assuage British feelings.
Equally, Admiral William Fallon, commander
of the US Central Command, was on a visit to
Pakistan, and he actually happened to be in the
general headquarters of the Pakistan armed forces
in Rawalpindi when Musharraf was giving the final
touches to his proclamation on emergency rule. The
political symbolism was unmistakable.
US reluctantly acquiesces
Fallon did his best to "dissuade"
Musharraf from going ahead with his plan, but had
to ultimately give in. Fallon apparently warned
Musharraf that future American aid for his
beleaguered regime might be in jeopardy if the US
Congress took a negative view of the rollback of
civil liberties in Pakistan. If so, it is obvious
that Fallon failed to impress the tough Pakistani
top brass. Equally, Musharraf estimated Washington
has no choice but to support his regime for the
foreseeable future.
This wouldn't be the
first time that the generals in Rawalpindi have
done their homework as regards their corporate
interests and proceeded to set aside Washington's
unsolicited counsel. Time and again in Pakistan's
history it has appeared that the unequal
relationship between the US and Pakistan is far
from a one-dimensional tie-up. It would be a
mistake to regard Pakistan as a mindless American
proxy - which is part of the reason why China and
Russia have an abiding interest in that country.
A famous instance arose when, as the then
deputy secretary of state in the Bill Clinton
administration, Strobe Talbott, narrates in his
book Engaging India, his desperate pleas
with the Pakistani leadership not to emulate India
in exploding a nuclear device in 1998 were simply
ignored by the Pakistani generals.
A
decade earlier, another Pakistani military
strongman, General Zia ul-Haq, simply refused to
toe the US line to agree to an Afghan settlement
that Washington had worked out with Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev, which would have restored
Kabul's traditional neutrality in the geopolitics
of the region. Zia insisted Pakistan's influence
on a future regime in Kabul ought to be
predominant.
Thus, in retrospect, it turns
out that the former prime minister Bhutto's abrupt
departure for Dubai in the United Arab Emirates
last Thursday against the advice rendered by most
of her party leaders happened just in time when it
dawned on the US and Britain that despite their
strong urgings, the generals were hell-bent on the
imposition of emergency rule. The US and Britain
counseled her to get out of harm's way and quickly
leave the country.
The initial statements
of "regret" by the Western capitals, especially
Washington, need to be taken with a pinch of salt.
To be sure, the US policy toward Pakistan finds
itself in a cul-de-sac. Musharraf's move coincides
almost to the hour with the thundering speech by
President George W Bush at the Heritage
Foundation, a Washington-based think-tank, on
Thursday in which he blasted the US Congress for
failing to take his "war on terror" not seriously
enough, and he went on to compare Osama bin Laden
to Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin.
Addressing his neo-conservative acolytes,
Bush came back to his favorite theme that via his
"war on terror", he was actually waging a global
war for democracy and freedom. He compared
Islamist "plans to build a totalitarian Islamist
empire ... stretching from Europe to North Africa,
the Middle East and South East Asia" to the Third
Reich. He claimed that US-led campaigns have
"liberated 50 million people from the clutches of
tyranny" in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush said the
people in the Middle East are "looking to the
United States to stand up for them".
Alas,
we knew only a day later that just as Bush was
speaking, one of his staunchest allies in his pet
global war was squashing democracy and freedom.
The US doublespeak becomes all too apparent in the
mildly reproachful comment over Musharraf's move,
bordering on resignation, by the US spokesmen. It
indicates that Washington's dealings with the
Musharraf regime will continue and normal business
will resume once the dust has settled down.
Military ties intact The
statement by the Pentagon spokesman is
particularly important for the top brass of the
Pakistani armed forces. The spokesman said the
development "does not impact our military support
for Pakistan ... Pakistan is a very important ally
in the 'war on terror' and he [Secretary of
Defense Robert Gates] is closely following the
fast-moving developments there".
Traditionally, it is the opinion of the
Pentagon that matters most to the brass in
Rawalpindi - and not the perspectives of the State
Department or readings by the Central Intelligence
Agency. As long as the Pentagon's support remains
intact, as is the case presently, Rawalpindi will
be pleased, and Musharraf will continue to enjoy
the support of the corps commanders.
At
the moment, Musharraf is not looking much beyond
the endorsement of the emergency rule by the top
brass of the Pakistani armed forces. He doesn't
care for his popularity ratings in Pakistan. And,
conceivably, he wouldn't be particularly flustered
by the international reaction either. Musharraf
has assessed that the worsening situation in
Afghanistan leaves the US with hardly much choice
in the matter other than working with the regime
that he chooses to head.
Developments in
the western Afghan province of Farah (bordering
Iran) and the southern province of Kandahar have
taken a particularly serious turn lately. The US
failed to extract any increased troop commitments
at the recent North Atlantic Treaty Organization
defense ministers meeting. German Chancellor
Angela Merkel during her first-ever visit to Kabul
on Saturday flatly refused to deploy German troops
in the volatile southern provinces of Afghanistan.
The new government in Tokyo has cut back on
Japan's involvement by stopping refueling of US
ships servicing the war in Afghanistan. The new
government in Poland is reviewing its association
with Bush's war.
No need of US advice
Thus, Musharraf knows that the US
dependence on him is only likely to deepen in the
coming weeks. Besides, Musharraf has succeeded in
underscoring in Western capitals that he is the
anchor of "stability" in Pakistan. No matter the
actual ground reality, he has succeeded in
projecting a perceived threat from militants. (The
international community has no independent means
of verifying these threat perceptions either.)
To a degree, even the reaction by New
Delhi - a mild statement of "regret" and a pious
hope that "normalcy" will return soon - is an
acknowledgement that Musharraf has maintained an
overall climate of peace and tranquillity as well
as a degree of predictability in relations with
India. Western capitals are quite aware of the
extreme fluidity of the situation but are
literally forced to suspend their disbelief in
Musharraf's claim as the guardian of Pakistan's
stability. What choice do they have?
In
the short term, therefore, Musharraf doesn't have
to look over his shoulder any more or listen to
irritating Western hectoring
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