Pakistan at the mercy of marching lawyers
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - Pakistan is engulfed in its own version of the Long March, and just
as that pivotal event changed the face of China in the mid-1930s, Pakistan's
political landscape could be significantly altered, as could that of its
neighbor Afghanistan.
Thousands of black-suited lawyers gathered in Karachi on Monday for the
beginning of a country-wide protest that is scheduled to finish outside
parliament in the capital Islamabad on Thursday.
The protests began as a move to have more than 40 members of the judiciary,
sacked by President Pervez Musharraf last year, reinstated, but have evolved
into a direct challenge to Musharraf's position and into antagonism towards his
backer, the United
States. The driving force behind the protests is the country's premier Islamic
party, the Jamaat-e-Islami, and the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz group)of
former premier Nawaz Sharif.
At the same time, the stage is set for militants to exploit the political
uncertainty through targeted attacks, even though they have signed a number of
peace agreements with the government.
The ramifications of a deteriorating security situation and political turmoil
are serious for Pakistan, which acts as a hub in the "war on terror" for both
the Taliban-led forces in Afghanistan and the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) forces opposing them.
The bottom line for the protests is to rid the country of all American assets,
including Musharraf, the liberal and secular government headed by the Pakistan
People's Party-led (PPP)coalition, and the Chief of Army Ataff, General Ashfaq
Parvez Kiani.
An embodiment of the protest movement can be found in retired
Lieutenant-General Jamshed Gulzar Kiyani, a former Corps Commander in
Rawalpindi, once comrade of Musharraf and a known anti-American officer. Even
before September 11, 2002, he was opposed to efforts to capture al-Qaeda leader
Osama bin Laden (see Osama
bin Laden: The thorn in Pakistan's flesh Asia Times Online, August 22,
2001) and he was subsequently sidelined on American demand. He has summed up
the reasons for the anti-Musharraf move as complicity by Musharraf in the "war
on terror"; his handing over of Muslims to the US in exchange for dollars; for
orchestrating the massacre at the radical Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) in Islamabad
last year; the detention of the father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program,
Abdul Qadeer Khan, on accusations he masterminded Pakistan's nuclear
proliferation; the misadventure of the Kargil operation in 1999, when Pakistan
moved into Indian territory; and taking the country into the American camp.
The move to oust Musharraf and reduce American influence was started by
Islamist sections in the armed forces when retired Squadron Leader Khalid
Khawaja and a long-time friend of Bin Laden recently filed an application to
register a police case against Musharraf over the Lal Masjid incident. The
court has accepted the petition for hearing and Khalid Khawaja believes that
once Musharraf steps down as president, the application will be activated and
he will stand trial.
Last week, Musharraf tried to defend his case in front of the media and called
such demands by ex-military officials as a violation of military traditions and
discipline.
At the same time, military chief Kiani, considered to be Washington's most
trusted man after Musharraf, is clearly unable to position himself in favor of
the "war on terror" and he seems completely overwhelmed by the emerging
anti-American trends in the military. These have frozen all anti-Taliban
operations in the tribal areas and, despite NATO's complaint that the military
is actively facilitating cross-border movement of the Taliban, Kiani has been
unable to do anything about it.
In sum, the military is ineffective, the PPP's government is unable, given the
pressure coming from the streets, to protect US interests, while the icon of
American interests, the office of the president, is completely under siege.
On Monday, Musharraf received another body blow when retired Lieutenant-General
Moinuddin Haiderone, one of his long-time personal friends, a former corps
commander and interior minister in Musharraf's cabinet, said in a television
interview that Musharraf made solitary decisions and kept his colleagues in the
dark.
"We were told that Pakistan's airfields were only given to American aircraft
for refueling [after 9/11 for raids into Afghanistan] and other non-combatant
purposes, but then CENTCOM [US Central Command] released information that US
aircraft had carried out [56,000] sorties for combat operations in Afghanistan.
We were completely in the dark in the cabinet and after the release of that
information by CENTCOM it was very embarrassing for us," Moinuddin said.
"I think 500 to 600 people were handed over to the Americans, but as Interior
Minister I was neither informed nor involved - in those operations the ISI
[Inter-Services Intelligence] was single-handedly involved in the arrests,"
Moinuddin said, implying that everything was directly handled by the president
through the ISI.
All of this means trouble for the US on its South Asia war theater.
Militants see their chance
With Pakistan mired in a massive power and economic crisis, al-Qaeda sees its
opportunity to destabilize the country through militancy. This accounts for the
recent spate of al-Qaeda-backed violence, notably the suicide car bomb attack
on the Danish Embassy in Islamabad this month that killed at least eight
people. The garrison town of Rawalpindi - Islamabad's twin city - is expected
to come under attack.
And the violence is likely to spread in tandem with the lawyers' movement in
the coming days. Indeed, on Monday, at the start of the protest march,
militants attacked a police convoy in North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). The
convoy was guarding the recently released Sufi Muhammad, the leader of a
pro-Taliban group. A Taliban spokesman confirmed they had carried out the
attack against the police. The Taliban's peace treaties are now just pieces of
paper.
And all the time al-Qaeda is waiting patiently for the right time to make
another major strike to further its broader strategic advantage, as it did
after the assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto in Islamabad last
December 27. Following her death, the country was plunged into deep uncertainty
and al-Qaeda unleashed a series of attacks on security forces.
Al-Qaeda paused briefly during the parliamentary elections in February, but
then killed Lieutenant-General Mushtaq Beg, the army's head of medical corps,
near military headquarters in Rawalpindi.
These were not indiscriminate acts of violence; the aim was to boost the
Taliban-led resistance in Afghanistan and the Pakistani Taliban on the border
areas.
And indeed, with the pride and arrogance of a conqueror, two months ago the
Pakistani Taliban dished out their demands to the newly elected coalition of
secular and liberal parties that formed the government - the very people who
were meant to ferment popular political support for the "war on terror".
The demands included the release of many of their key men, the withdrawal of
Pakistani troops from the tribal areas and guarantee easy movement to cross
into Afghanistan. They also demanded monetary compensation for the Taliban's
losses in recent battles.
In the Swat Valley in NWFP, the Pakistani Taliban dished out a different set of
demands to the secular provincial government, which openly opposes the Islamic
way of life. They called for the release of all their men held captive, in
addition to the enforcement of Islamic law in the Swat Valley.
With the humility of a loser, Pakistan submitted to all of the demands: all
high-profile Taliban and al-Qaeda members were released, security forces were
withdrawn and the Taliban were given large sums of money.
All the same time, the al-Qaeda leadership sitting somewhere in the mountains
between Pakistan and Afghanistan did not view the fulfillment of these demands
as anything special. Since 2006, the Taliban have won similar concessions, but
they have always been short-lived, lasting only months before American pressure
forced Pakistan to resume military operations against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
The American pressure was two-pronged: the US threatened to end or curtail its
multi-billion-dollar aid program, including military aid, and also threatened
to take matters into its own hands and intervene directly in Pakistan territory
against militants. Thus, Pakistan's military cooperation in the "war on terror"
was not out of conviction but because of its vulnerability.
Given this, al-Qaeda analyzed two broader scenarios that could change the
regional dynamics in favor of the Taliban-led resistance.
Firstly, if the Taliban were to gain the advantage over NATO troops in
Afghanistan, Pakistan would gravitate towards the Taliban, their natural
regional ally, and Islamabad's cooperation with NATO would be even weaker.
Alternatively, if Pakistan could be squeezed enough by al-Qaeda's chaos
tactics, it would likely become at least neutral, if not an active supporter of
the Taliban resistance.
However, these two scenarios are conditional and dependent on other factors.
For instance, the Taliban gaining the advantage against NATO depends on
Pakistan. If the Taliban are given uninterrupted access to cross the border,
their chances of success are greater, less so if the border is blocked.
Similarly, al-Qaeda's chaos tactics can only work if a restive political or
social environment exists because al-Qaeda is not big enough to operate as a
stand-alone force; it is only capable of exploiting troubled situations.
Bhutto's assassination is a case in point.
Taliban on the move
In the past two months of peace deals, the Taliban have successfully completed
the launch of operations into Afghanistan, with some estimates of as many as
40,000 men crossing the border, the biggest since the Taliban were ousted in
2001.
The impact is visible. Even in a province like Ghazni, the Taliban have been
able to capture districts and in Wardak province they have taken Afghan
soldiers captive. Except for a few district headquarters, the entire Helmand
province is in Taliban hands. And in the provinces of Kunar, Nooristan and
Khost, the Taliban have acquired a strategic depth against NATO forces and many
towns and villages near the border have been captured. This means the Taliban
can easily mobilize resources for daily attacks on NATO troops and those of the
Afghan National Army.
The Afghan front will heat up even further as NATO can be expected to strike
back hard against the Taliban. NATO wants to place the Taliban between a rock
and a hard place, that is, between NATO troops on the Afghan side and Pakistani
forces on the other. In the past few weeks, top American military commanders
have visited Islamabad to discuss this strategy with army chief Kiani.
The Taliban will counter this by spreading their troops and seeking engagement
on many fronts - they have opened up an unlikely front in eastern Nangarhar
province. And for al-Qaeda, Rawalpindi, the military headquarters, and
neighboring Islamabad, the federal capital, are the "choke points" to strangle
Pakistan's cooperation in the "war on terror" through selective suicide
attacks. This will blunt one side of the pincer movement against the Taliban as
well as encourage Islamic-minded officers in the military to assert their
anti-American views.
The lawyer-led protests will provide al-Qaeda with the perfect opportunity to
strike, further raising the political and security temperature in the already
simmering country. Economic woes add to this potent brew. A deepening power
crisis could end in riots in the southern port city of Karachi. The Pakistani
rupee is at its lowest against the US dollar in the history of the country and
the Karachi Stock Exchange is at its lowest in nine months.
Pakistan's march is indeed going to be a long and arduous one.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can
be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com
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