Asia Times: Pakistan's army lays a political smokescreen


	April 2, 2002	atimes.com

India/Pakistan

Pakistan's army lays a political smokescreen
By Ehsan Ahrari

The news coming out of Pakistan states that its ruler, President General Pervez Musharraf, is about to announce that he will ask his countrymen through a referendum to approve his decision to extend his rule for five more years.

Such a decision only prolongs the saga of Pakistan, where for more than half of the 55 years of its existence military dictators have ruled the roost. The dark side of the authoritarian culture under which militaries of the world operate becomes even darker in societies that have only passing familiarity with having a democratic government. Pakistan certainly tops the list of such societies.

But in order to have a relatively complete picture of the domestic reality of the troubled nation, one has to remember that it is just beginning to suffer the deleterious consequences of the United States' two military operations - Enduring Freedom and Anaconda. Even though the Bush administration did not even flinch about declaring both operations as unqualified successes, the evidence on the ground is not so unambiguous.

More to the point, it is the direct consequence of those military operations that seem to be dragging Pakistan toward an era of turbulence, the immediate evidence of which is the resurgence of the Kalashnikov culture of the 1990s - that is, a culture where the Islamists, small arms dealers, drug traders, Shi'ite-phobes and India-haters appear to be regrouping. Except this time, the escaped al-Qaeda and the Taliban elements from Afghanistan, who know nothing else but how to create chaos in the name of carrying out jihad, are also joining the preceding groups.

The immediate response of Musharraf's regime is to increase the span of military rule over Pakistan, instead of ending it in October 2002 as he is required to by a Supreme Court ruling that followed the bloodless coup in 1999. There is little doubt that he has sought and received tacit support of the Bush administration. The European Union (EU), whose leadership role on all issues of global concern has been noticed only by its sustained absence, is also unlikely to object.

The most urgent need for Pakistan is to become a stable, moderate Islamic democracy. (No, the phrase "Islamic democracy" is not an oxymoron.) But for democracy to have any chance, the evolution of a civic society is a vital precondition. And civic societies do not fully evolve under authoritarian military rule, whose survival relies on prolongation; everything else becomes only tangential in its significance. Military dictatorships also view with askance, if not downright contempt, civic society where all sorts of groups are not only vibrant but do not think twice before challenging the thrusts and directions of various public policies.

Despite these contradictions, civic society in Pakistan has survived the prolonged military rule; however, it seems to be coming under renewed siege with the news of the regrouping of the obscurantist Islamist forces from neighboring Afghanistan.

But is it possible for Pakistan to evolve as a democracy at a time when the jihadi-Kalashnikov nexus is also becoming powerful and rampant? An answer to this question is further complicated when one considers the role of the Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI - Pakistan's infamous intelligence service) in this dark and evolving intrigue. No one but those very close to Musharraf may discuss this issue with any authority, but even they are reportedly indulging in a lot of not only "doublespeak" but also "multiplespeak". For everyone else, the role of the ISI is covered under a heavy fog of speculation and counterspeculation.

My own sources from Pakistan state that it is a grave mistake to view the ISI as a "state within a state". They claim that the Pakistani army is the chief culprit in every activity that it attributes to rogue elements of the ISI. However, the army seems to have successfully persuaded the Bush administration that the rogue elements are a force all to themselves, and have been increasingly challenging the forces of moderation inside Pakistan, read Musharraf. The cumulative outcome of the preceding is that he has emerged as the "darling" of the West, my sources claim.

If this interpretation is indeed correct, and I tend to lean toward it as tenable, then we might be witnessing a sad repetition of history in Pakistan. Another dictator - Zia ul-Haq - deepened the tentacles of his rule in previous decades by using the United States' resolve to defeat the Soviet communist occupiers of Afghanistan, and by misallocating American economic and materiel aid to strengthen his grip on power. When the United States succeeded in its mission, Pakistan was left alone to deal with the powerful chaos emanating from the expulsion of the communist tyrants, and Pakistanis to suffer under Zia's dictatorship. His rule ended only when forces still unknown mysteriously eliminated him.

In 2002, on the contrary, the United States and the West promise to help rebuild Pakistan, but by not objecting to the impending prolongation of the military rule in that country, they have become parties to the seemingly unending Catch-22 for Pakistan.

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