Paper no. 2177

19.03.2007

PAKISTAN’S MUSHARRAF GENERATED CRISIS: IMPLICATIONS FOR UNITED STATES AND INDIA 

By Dr. Subhash Kapila 

Introductory Observations 

Pakistan has always been in ferment and on the boil during the last seven and a half years of General Musharraf’s military regime.  The reasons have always been wrong and had much to do with General Musharraf’s megalomaniac self-delusions of his political importance and indispensability to the United States. 

Since the last one week, Pakistan’s law and order situation has turned volatile due to a constitutional crisis generated by General Musharraf’s politically calculated moves to remove the Chief Justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Chaudhary who was turning politically inconvenient for General Musharraf, the Pakistan Army and General Musharraf’s contrived re-election bid in the November 2007 General Elections. 

Historically, in the case of military regimes in Pakistan this is the first time that a Chief Justice of Pakistan has defied the dictates of the Pakistani Army Chief who sought to confront him in uniform and remove him unconstitutionally.  What we are witnessing in Pakistan today is an “institutional confrontation” between the Pakistan Army and the judiciary.  It has touched a raw nerve in Pakistan and is likely to snowball into a major confrontation where the masses are in favor of the Chief Justice and the legal fraternity.  This spark has all the potential to light up the tinderbox of suppressed public outrage against the Army rule in Pakistan. 

The Pakistani media profusely, and the international and Indian media rather sparingly,  in the first few days,have highlighted the widespread political protests against General Musharraf and the brutal force used by Pakistan’s state apparatus against these demonstrations.  What was on display was the exercise of raw brutal power by General Musharraf’s state apparatus on peaceful demonstrations by the Pakistani lawyers, joined by opposition luminaries and then ordinary people. 

Not shown by the US and Indian media were visuals of retired Pakistani Army Generals and the Former President of Pakistan Rafiq Tarar being manhandled.  Tellingly shown in the Gulf media was the manhandling and arrest of former Pakistani intelligence Czar and Director General ISI, General Hamid Gul. 

This paper does not intend to recount all the happenings of this crisis generated by General Musharraf, but focus on the significance of this crisis and particularly its implications for the United States and India. 

But before that, what needs to be said is that all these visuals emanating from Pakistan knock hollow the very foundations and premises on which the United States and India’s (in tandem) policies towards Pakistan were based since 9/11. 

This author has consistently questioned these policy approaches in dozens of papers on this website and argued that the restoration of democracy in Pakistan was a strategic imperative for the United States and India.  The most recent paper being: “Pakistan’s Restoration of Democracy Should be an Indian Strategic Imperative” (http://www.saag.org/papers22/paper2132.html) dated 12.02.2007.  However both the United States and India have persisted so far in their Musharraf-centric policies. 

In case of the United States, it was repeated over the years by this author that American Musharraf-centric policies were a repeat of the American Shah of Iran-centric policies of the 1960s and 1970s and could meet the same fate. 

The media visuals emanating from Pakistan in the last week patently belie the false impressions fostered by the US Administration and India’s Congress Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh that General Musharraf was a man with democratic instincts and he could be “trusted” and “relied” upon to do political business with.  

Musharraf-centric foreign policy rested on shaky foundations.  The people of Pakistan all along never considered General Musharraf as indispensable for Pakistan.  Obviously, the United States and India’s policy perceptions on Pakistan suffered from a “severe disconnect” with the prevalent mood in Pakistan. 

The events in Pakistan of the last one week substantiate this assertion.  In Pakistan, the “Ides of March have come but not yet gone”.  The future portents a turbulent period ahead and not without seismic shocks. 

This paper shall attempt to analyze the main theme under the following heads: 

  • General Musharraf’s Timing of Generating The Crisis Is Suspicious
  • Pakistan at the Turning Point: Defining Events Portend General Musharraf’s Exit
  • United States: Policy Implications of Musharraf's Exit
  • India: Policy Implications of Musharraf’s Exit

General Musharraf’s Timing of Generating The Crisis Is Suspicious 

General Musharraf generated the current crisis in Pakistan against the backdrop of US Vice President Dick Cheney’s “chastising” and “ultimatum” visit to Pakistan, a growing disillusionment in the US policy establishment of Musharraf’s strategic utility in the region, sectarian strife within Pakistan, a virtual mutiny within the Pakistan Army and his unscrupulous and undemocratic maneuvers to get re-elected fudgingly as President before November 2007 General Elections by the current Assemblies. 

With so many fronts to contend with the Pakistani military dictator with his Commando survival instincts should not have opened another front. 

That he did so, conscious that a volatile Pakistan could go up in flames, suggests only two things.  That, either General Musharraf had gone berserk drunk with the arrogance of his unquestioned power so far or General Musharraf had calculatedly sought to generate political unrest in Pakistan so as to continue in power and also to “reinvent” his “strategic indispensability” to US interests. 

This author is inclined to believe that it was the latter which is more truer.  This gets substantiated by a sneak preview given by former Premier and Head of Musharraf’s Muslim League, Chaudhary Shujaat when he asserted in the first week of March 2007 that: 

  • Pakistan’s General Elections could be cancelled/postponed in the event of political disturbances in Pakistan.
  • In the event of United States attacking Iran, then too, Pakistan’s General Elections could be postponed/ cancelled.

With an immediate US attack on Iran not likely on the cards, time creeping up for the General Elections and a politically inconvenient Chief Justice of Pakistan inclined towards judicial activism, the option of generating political disturbances in Pakistan to postpone elections was the only logical option open to General Musharraf. 

With his penchant for “Limited War” and “brinkmanship”, General Musharraf may have perceived that having generated political disturbances in Pakistan, he could “limit disturbances in extent and intensity” by use of  force of his State apparatus. 

For once, General Musharraf seems to have gone wrong.  Ayaz Amir, a noted columnist of the Pakistani newspaper Dawn has called this crisis as Musharraf’s “judicial Kargil” implying that it was as bad as the military misadventure that he launched against India in Kargil in 1999, underestimating the response of the then Government in India. 

Pakistan at the Turning Point: Defining Events Portend General Musharraf’s Exit 

Despite the damage control exercise launched by Musharraf post-March 9, by apologizing for the police brutalities and police ransacking of the Geo TV Station, the people in Pakistan are not buying Musharraf’s theory that all that has happened is a “conspiracy” against him. 

In Pakistan, people are pointing fingers that the entire series of events of engineering the exit of the Chief Justice and the brutalities that followed were done with Musharraf’s consent, connivance by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and master-minded by the National Security Adviser, Tariq Aziz. 

Incidentally, Tariq Aziz is the Pakistani key interlocutor with whom the present Indian Government’s National Security Advisor and the Special Envoy are conducting back channel diplomacy on Musharraf’s “out of box” proposals. 

In a further damage control exercise, to distance his person from the crisis generated by him, Musharraf can be expected to make PM Shaukat Aziz and the Law Minister as “fall guys”.  This is unlikely to dupe the Pakistani people for they are more aware than the Americans and Indians, that all state affairs in Pakistan are “micro-managed” by the General himself, singularly. 

Musharraf can also be expected to divide the opposition by luring away Benazir Bhutto and the PPP from the protests against him.  If Benazir Bhutto succumbs to Musharraf’s allurements, it would be politically suicidal for her.  In any case, the die has been cast and Pakistan is now set for change. 

Pakistan today has been brought to a turning point by Musharraf’s machinations, engineered to extend his longevity in power, and not to serve any Pakistani national interests. 

The defining events arising in this wake and portending Musharraf’s exit can best by depicted in terms of “freeze shots” rather than long amplifications.  These are: 

  • Crisis represents an “institutional confrontation” in Pakistan between General Musharraf as the Army Chief and the Constitutional Chief, the Chief Justice of Pakistan.
  • Popular support of Pakistani civil society and masses has been demonstrated in favor of Chief Justice and not Musharraf as the Pak Army ruler.
  • Crisis has generated wide and intense opposition to Musharraf regime, cutting across Pakistan’s political spectrum.  This is exemplified by widespread arrests of opposition leaders, heads of Rightist parties, arrest of former DG ISI General Hamid Gul and physical mishandling of retired Generals who had joined in the demonstrations at the Supreme Court.  Also detained was former President Rafiq Tarar.
  • Visuals of popular demonstrations in Pakistan cannot be dismissed this time as those of bearded Islamic fundamentalists as is the wont of Western media.  Visuals this time depict Western-dressed (black suits) and well educated strata of Pakistani society in predominance.  This is ominous as the civil society is out on the streets for the first time against Musharraf.
  • The defiance of Pakistan’s Chief Justice in not submitting to General Musharraf’s (dressed in military uniform) demand for resignation and his subsequent physical mishandling and shabby treatment has touched a raw nerve in Pakistan.  This symbolic but critical defiance has been the catalyst for what can develop into a political prairie fire in Pakistan.
  • For the first time in Musharraf’s military regime, this crisis offers a ‘Constitutional Issue” which now unites all Pakistani political parties to demand the exit of General Musharraf.  It cannot be dismissed as disturbances by disgruntled politicians.
  • Creditably for the Pakistani media especially Geo TV, the entire media has been hyper active in highlighting the brutal handling of the combined protest of Pakistan’s legal fraternity, the media, the civil society and the political parties.  The Pakistani media has refused to be cowed down by Musharraf’s military regime.

The ongoing crisis and political volatility in Pakistan not only creates grave political implications for Musharraf personally, but also policy implications for the United States and India. Both these nations had been following Musharraf-centric polices premised on the longevity of his power in Pakistan. 

United States: Policy Implications of Musharraf’s Exit 

United States policies towards Pakistan, under successive US Administrations, have suffered a fundamental structural deficiency. Polices towards Pakistan were devised on the premise that United States strategic interests in the region are best served by having a military regime in power. 

Reviewing this trend this author penned a paper in 2003 entitled. “United States Policy Predicaments in Pakistan” (http://www.saag.org/papers9/paper812.html). Three options were analyzed for USA.  Options I-Stable General Musharraf; Option II-Stable Pakistan Army and; Option III- Stable Democratic Pakistan Nation State.  

After detailed analysis of all three options, it was brought out that Option III would be the least attractive for USA until its civil and military bureaucracies changed their Cold War mindsets.           

This is what is exactly happening today. All statements emanating from Washington during this crisis and the visit of US Assistant Secretary of State Boucher to Islamabad during this crisis suggest that the United States even now would prefer to keep General Musharraf going in power in Pakistan. 

As a back-up to the above, should events spiral out of control leading to General Musharraf’s exit, for what ever reason, the United States would opt for Option II. Option II in this author’s paper postulated that United States would acquiesce to the removal of General Musharraf from power but would ensure that the hold of Pakistan Army on the Pakistan nation state continues.  

United States initial moves on Option II are already in play with leakages in Washington media that the United States foresees that on General Musharraf’s exit, the stepping in of General Hayat in power in Pakistan. 

And there in lies the major rub for US policy implications. Restoration of democracy in Pakistan following General Musharraf’s exit is nowhere on the US policy radar. Reading the ominous signs emerging from Pakistan, more markedly today, it can be said that United States policy approaches to Pakistan still suffer and will continue to suffer from a “severe disconnect” from Pakistani peoples aspirations. 

Reflected in my earlier papers was the reality that neither the United States political investments in Shah of Iran-centric polices nor the American profuse military investments in his Imperial Armed Forces could sustain the continuance of the Shah of Iran in power to serve US strategic interests.    

Regrettably, it seems that the above analogy is set to be repeated by the United States in Pakistan. 

India: The Policy Implications of Musharraf’s Exit  

India seems to have lost its independent policy towards Pakistan post 9/11 as thereafter both the BJP Government and more markedly the present Congress Government, have been taking cues from Washington in terms of policy approaches. 

India thereafter has followed in tandem with the United States, policy formulations which were Musharraf-centric in nature and content.  While United States Musharraf-centric policies served tactical American security interests, India’s Musharraf-centric policy did not serve any of India’s national security interests.   

On the contrary these polices demeaned India, with the Indian policy establishment reacting to every whim and fancy of Musharraf on contentious issues.  This knowing fully well that his hold on Pakistan was fragile and his longevity questionable.  India’s policy approaches towards Pakistan under the Congress Government smack of rank appeasement of the Pakistan military dictator. This has been constantly brought out ‘ad-nauseum’ by this author and especially in the last year on Bombay 7/11, the proposed Siachen sellout, the Havana Declaration and the persistent refrain from columnists and analysts close to the political establishment that Dr. Manmohan Singh should visit Pakistan with substantive concessions on Siachen so as to provide political backup for Musharraf’s continuance in power. 

The Indian Government to cover up its appeasement policies to sustain Musharraf in power cloaked them in a shroud of secrecy stating that diplomacy cannot be conducted in public view. It needs to learn from history that India’s national security issues cannot be politicized without adverse consequences. 

In terms of major policy implications, the options discussed in relation to the United States above, equally apply to India. India must discard its Musharraf-centric policy approaches and work pro-actively towards restoration of democracy in Pakistan as an Indian strategic imperative. This author’s paper quoted in the ‘Introduction’ analyzes the imperatives. 

India’s peace dialogue with Pakistan can continue but should be restricted only to CBMs which can alleviate the average Pakistani’s problems and contribute to their social betterment.  

Till this crisis reaches its logical conclusion and democracy is restored in Pakistan, the Indian Government should not enter into any dialogues with Pakistan’s military government / governments on politically contentious issues, namely Jammu & Kashmir, demilitarization, and Siachen, most importantly. The Iran-Pakistan-India energy pipelines should also be kept out of negotiations. 

In a narrower domestic context it is worth mentioning that dialogues with Pakistan’s military regimes is not likely to lead to any electoral gains for the party in power in India.  

The oft-repeated excuse by the Establishment in India, that it perforce has to carry out negotiations with the regime in power in Pakistan is a poor excuse. Then why did the same party in power in India remained disengaged from China for nearly a decade and a half after 1962. 

Diplomatic protocol has to be maintained but substantive diplomatic engagement and negotiations should take place only when India’s national security interests are served. Keeping Musharraf in power or engaging a follow-up military regime in power in Pakistan is not in India’s national security interests. 

Concluding Observations  

Pakistan has reached a turning point after nearly eight years of military rule by General Musharraf. News and visuals emanating from Pakistan in the on-going crisis generated by Musharraf suggest that Pakistan’s simmering discontent with Pakistan Army rule and Musharraf in particular has reached defining proportions which portend his exit.  Pakistani’s want Musharraf to go and the Pakistan Army to return to the barracks.  

Musharraf and the United States could delay his exit for their respective reasons, but Musharraf’s exit and demise of Pakistan Army’s political hold over Pakistan, is now inevitable. 

For far too long, the United States with India in tandem, have maintained the charade that Musharraf is the best bet for them in terms of being in power in Pakistan. Musharraf’s “enlightened moderation” has been given exaggerated prominence by both these countries. What is on display in this crisis is his “Unenlightened Immoderation and Despotism.” 

In this author’s paper on United States policy options on Pakistan, quoted above the last paragraph in the ‘Concluding Observations’ incorporated an assertion by John Norris, Special Adviser to the International Crisis Group which stated. “The world community should approach Pakistan and its problems with open eyes. Offering tacit support for quasi-military rule into the indefinite future may make it more difficult, not less, to tackle the foundations of Pakistan’s insecurity.” 

Pakistan’s foundations of its insecurity can best be tackled by truly civilian democratic governments in Pakistan. The United States has tremendous leverages to ensure restoration of democracy in Pakistan. For India, it is a strategic imperative. The present crisis in Pakistan offers an opportune moment for both USA and India to recast their Pakistan policy in consonance with the aspirations of the Pakistani people. 

(The author is an International Relations and Strategic Affairs analyst.  He is the Consultant, Strategic Affairs with South Asia Analysis Group.  Email:drsubhashkapila@yahoo.com) 

 

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