Does the West need Musharraf?
**Ahmed Rashid, guest journalist and writer on Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia, reflects on the West’s relationship with Gen Musharraf. **
As the international community, particularly the US and Britain continue to make statements in favour of beleaguered Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, the issue of how relevant he still is for the West’s agenda in the region becomes critical.
Protests against Gen Musharraf multiply and he appears to be losing control in several areas of the country and facing dwindling public support.
Since 11 September, 2001, he has always appeared as the ‘can-do’ authoritarian general who can deliver on the demands placed by the Western alliance.
He has delivered hundreds of al-Qaeda prisoners to the US, positioned 80,000 troops on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border to stop Taleban incursions and made peace with India.
However he has also failed to deliver on many counts, for example, by allowing the Taleban leadership to resettle in the city of Quetta and by carrying out controversial peace deals with tribal extremists on the border, while allowing Islamic extremists to go unchallenged at home as they spread ideas of jihad and Sharia law.
Open threats
Some Western diplomats now believe that this two track policy has been Gen Musharraf’s way of showing to the West that he is indispensable but that he faces many threats.
Such is the case with the mullahs of the Red Mosque in Islamabad, who are openly threatening the government with jihad and suicide attacks, while being closely tied to the military’s main intelligence service, the ISI.
Until now the West has not worried about this, as long as Gen Musharraf kept Pakistan under control and concentrated on the West’s primary agenda of catching al-Qaeda leaders.
The US may like to see free and fair elections in Pakistan, but not at the cost of Gen Musharraf departing the scene or plunging Pakistan’s support - no matter how lukewarm the role is - in the war on terrorism into uncertainty.
So far the West has also accepted Gen Musharraf’s plea that democracy in Pakistan must be tailored to local conditions - in short what he accepts as democracy and keeps him in power rather than the global norm of democracy.
The US State Department fully backs Musharraf’s views on democracy.
“The direction that Gen Musharraf set for Pakistan is a good one, and we are supporting that,”’ said Richard Boucher, Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia last month.
Yet the West’s dependency on Gen Musharraf may have little relevance now if he is losing control of Pakistan and refusing to take on the extremists any longer - be they inside Pakistan or on its borders.
Nato and US military officers have long argued that Gen Musharraf is double dealing with the Taleban, causing Western military forces in Afghanistan major headaches.
Running amok
Some of the biggest problems facing the current government appear to have been created by it, or by its allies.
In the past the judiciary in Pakistan has been a pliant group. But faced with the prospect of Gen Musharraf enjoying indefinite one-man rule, they have turned against him.
Meanwhile the army’s allies, such as the Pakistani and Afghan Taleban, which have been fostered by the ISI since 9/11, have turned against their creator, creating havoc along the border. Other extremist groups have been growing in influence across the North West Frontier Province and Punjab.
Meanwhile in the country’s commercial capital, Karachi, Gen Musharraf’s most loyal political allies, the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), have been at the centre of controversy after more than 40 people were killed in clashes in mid-May that many people believe were instigated by the MQM.
Finally Pakistani liberal and professional groups, long viewed by the US as potential allies of Gen Musharraf and the US led war on terror, are rapidly turning anti-American, as Washington is increasingly seen as Gen Musharraf’s only visible prop.
‘Close relationship’
“We have a very close relationship with President Musharraf,” an unabashed Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns said on 23 May in Washington.
In Washington his principle backer is the office of Vice President Dick Cheney which has enormous influence over Condoleezza Rice and the State Department.
Last winter, when Richard Boucher was set to hold a State Department seminar on Pakistan’s future, he was forced to cancel the event by Mr Cheney’s office, apparently because it may have been taken as a signal that US support for Gen Musharraf was declining.
Ironically it is the CIA and the Defense Department - the traditional supporters of the Pakistan army - which are now keen on changing policy towards Pakistan, and encouraging a greater role for civilian politicians.
A key concern in Washington and other capitals is that unless an acceptable alternative to Gen Musharraf appears, Western governments fear the unknown more than they do the known, no matter how discredited he may be.
Only long term Western support for a genuine democratic process can secure the growth and development of new politicians but so far that has been pointedly lacking.
The West must start considering how the army and the next civilian government can work together, rather than continuing to back a single individual against all odds.
*Ahmed Rashid is a Pakistani journalist based in Lahore. He is the author of three books including Taliban and, most recently, Jihad. He has covered Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia for the past 25 years and also writes for the Far Eastern Economic Review, the Daily Telegraph and The Wall Street Journal. *