The US & others working with Pakistan

[SWJED]

26 August Washington Post news analysis - Pakistan's Awkward Balancing Act on Islamic Militant Groups by Pamela Constable.

For the past five years, Pakistan has pursued a risky, two-sided policy toward Islamic militancy, positioning itself as a major ally in the Western-led war against global terrorism while reportedly allowing homegrown Muslim insurgent groups to meddle in neighboring India and Afghanistan.

Now, two high-profile cases of terrorism -- a day of gruesome, sophisticated train bombings in India in mid-July and a plot foiled this month to blow up planes leaving Britain for the United States -- have cast a new spotlight on Pakistan's ambiguous, often starkly contradictory roles as both a source and suppressor of Islamic violence, according to Pakistani and foreign experts.

Moreover, increasing evidence of links between international attacks and groups long tolerated or nurtured in Pakistan, including the Taliban and Kashmiri separatists, are making it difficult for the military-led government here to reconcile its policy of courting religious groups at home while touting its anti-terrorist credentials abroad...

The basic problem for Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, is that he is trying to please two irreconcilable groups. Abroad, the leader of this impoverished Muslim country is frantically competing with arch-rival India, a predominantly Hindu country, for American political approval and economic ties. To that end, he has worked hard to prove himself as a staunch anti-terrorism ally.

But at home, where he hopes to win election in 2007 after eight years as a self-appointed military ruler, Musharraf needs to appease Pakistan's Islamic parties to counter strong opposition from its secular ones. He also needs to keep alive the Kashmiri and Taliban insurgencies on Pakistan's borders to counter fears within military ranks that India, which has developed close ties with the Kabul government, is pressuring its smaller rival on two flanks...

Until recently, Musharraf had handled this balancing act with some success, Pakistani and foreign experts said. He formally banned several radical Islamic groups while quietly allowing them to survive. He sent thousands of troops to the Afghan border while Taliban insurgents continued to slip back and forth. Meanwhile, his security forces arrested more than 700 terrorism suspects, earning Western gratitude instead of pressure to get tougher on homegrown violence.

But this summer, a drumbeat of terrorist violence and plotting in India, Britain and Afghanistan have begun to blur the distinction between regional and international Islamic violence. Pakistan, which has a large intelligence apparatus, is now in the awkward position of denying any knowledge of local militants' links to bombings in India and Afghanistan, while claiming credit for exposing their alleged roles in the London airliner plot...

Islamabad's fragile new alliance with the West has developed only since 2001, when Musharraf renounced the Taliban and embraced the anti-terrorist cause. The U.S.-Pakistan relationship has been strained both by Musharraf's foot-dragging on democratic reforms and by India's high-profile rapprochement with Washington, including a controversial new nuclear energy agreement.

Analysts said the Musharraf government may now be playing up its role in foiling the London plot in order to reinforce its importance as a strategic Western ally.

Some observers suggested that in different ways, both Pakistan and India are using the terrorist threat to bolster their competing relations with the West. Just as Pakistan, the regional underdog, may be exaggerating its role as a terror-fighter, they noted, India, the aspirant to global influence, may be exaggerating its role as a victim of terror.

Others suggest that U.S. policy in the Middle East is making it difficult for Muslim countries such as Pakistan to remain peaceful and in control of large, impoverished populations who increasingly turn to religion and identify with the struggles of Muslims in other countries.

But critics said Pakistan's problems with Islamic violence cannot be resolved as long as the military remains in power. In an unusual move last month, a diverse group of senior former civilian and military officials wrote an open letter to Musharraf, warning that the country is becoming dangerously polarized and that a uniformed presidency only exacerbates the problem by politicizing the armed forces. The only solution, the group wrote, is a transition to a "complete and authentic democracy."

[Ray]

It is to massage the ego of Pakistan that it is the front line ally.

Musharraf is incongruous in the sphere of Pakistani politics and has been forced by fate into the high office since he had to undertake the coup or else he would be facing court-martial, which was what the Prime Minister Sharif had lined up for him on return from Sri Lanka.

Ever since then, he has had to play the role of a juggler, both internally and externally. The powerful forces at home that were aligned against him forced him to devise the strategy to show his "prowess" as the saviour by showing positive results taht so far was eluding Pakistan and thereby making himself acceptable both internally and in the international field.

It was evident that without the US assistance and US permission, no external funds would be available to salvage the bankrupt Pakistan or get rid of the danger of being labelled a rogue state, given the fact that all terrorist acts had its root in Pakistan.

Thus, Musharaf had no option but to align himself personally to the US policies. However, to keep himself current with the Islamists, he, every now and then had to indicate his pride as a Pakistani (condemning US air strikes within NWFP, but ensuring that the PAF is not scrambled and mauled or thus upsetting the US) and as also as a Moslem (by proclaiming the greatness of Islam, and to please the US, with a touch of moderation). He spoke against the madrassas to please the US and yet did nothing to change the status quo except for some cosmetic actions nor did he expel the foreign madrassa students inspite of vehement assertions of doing so with immediate effect.

He started the dialogue with India to keep this image of being larger than life! He is yet to match his pious platitudes with the actions against crossborder terrorism. But then, he is a master at jugglery!

To ensure his survival in Pakistan, he, with Machiavellian cunning divided the formidable opposition with bribes or threats of opening up cases of corruption (which was endemic in Pakistani politics) and cobbled up what is know as the "KIngs Party" and has clung on to his uniform (Post of Chief of the Army) since that alone is his mainstay for staying in power.

He has also killed a formidable rival, the Balochi leader Akhbar Khan Bugti and even though currently there is riots practically all over Pakistan, he will survive. He will buy up the trouble creator leaders as he has always done.

In short, he has been a politician par excellence even if not a great military commander.

It must also be mentioned that the Pakistani politicians as a group are not pro US. Even during the catastrophic earthquake that hit Kashmir, the Pakistani Senators were up in arms in the National Assembly claiming that the US and NATO assistance was basically aimed at spying on Pakistan! Even in a catastrophe, instead of being grateful and singleminded in allievating the woes, the Pakistani politicians vectored on to the sinister!

That Pakistan is not at all concerned about containing the Taliban is ever so evident. Pakistan has deployed 80,000 troops in the area along the Afghan border and yet it cannot control either the cross border terrorist movement, nor can they rid the Taliban based within or even nab a AQ operative worth the name! If they can find and kill the Balochi leader, Akhbar Khan Bugti (Musharraf was single minded in getting him since it is said that he was the mastermind behind one of the assassination attempts on Musahrraf) and who was surrounded by his own people and in his own state, then the claims that the Taliban and AQ are difficult to find and kill is too slim an excuse to believe.

To be frank, Musharraf cannot be seen that he is against the "real" defenders of Islam - the Taliban, AQ and Osama! If he does it, he shall hang by the nearest pole and he has no intentions to adorn a tree! Being the master at chicanery, he is playing the fool with the Hudood Law, wherein claiming that it is against Islam and yet ensuring that there is confusion and preventing the amendment being passed. Something on the lines of Pontius Pilate!

To please the US, on and oft a Taliban leader is caught and is always the fourth important person in AQ hierarchy! The US also plays ball since it help to keep this charade going as it is better to have a reluctant ally rather than an active foe on the Afghanistan border skewing up the works in Afghanistan at a time when the focus and the effort is totally being consumed in Iraq!

It is not that there is not a bigger game plan that the US is at. As per some Pakistani commentators, the US is neck deep in the Balochistan issue since the TAP oil and gas pipeline is planned to travel through via Afghanistan and Balochistan to the port of Gwadar. Indeed, if Balochistan declares independence with covert US help or through the "good offfices" of India, the border along Balochistan and FATA would be neutralised and Afghanistan would be in a better position to put its house in order so that the pipeline fructifies! If this happens, then the importance of Pakistan will fade as far as the US strategy is concerned and so it is a question of survival for Musharraf to ensure that Balochistan is calmed, but the terrorist threat to Afghanistan kept alive! An independent Balochistan would also be worth the while for the US because Iran will be boxed from both the flanks.

The port of Gwadar is an important issue in the US strategic map. China is assisting Pakistan in developing this port and will be using it as a listening post into US activities in the Middle East as also be able to interfere with the same when it positions some naval effort there. It will also give teeth to the Chinese strategy of "String of Pearls". Already the Chinese have naval facilities in the Myanmar Coco Islands in the Bay of Bengal. These two naval facilities of Coco Island and Gwadar will compensate for the weakness of the Chinese Navy of not being a blue water navy to protect its interests in the Indian Ocean, which is very critical since the seaway transport oil to China.

[Stu-6]

Pakistan is a long term liability but we have few other good options. Being overly supportive of non-representative governments especially those with large dissident populations is a risky strategy. If these governments collapse the likely result is government that’s powerbase revolves around confronting the outside power that supported the earlier regime, e.g. Iran. The possibility of a similar situation in Pakistan is very real, made more so by the divides with in the existing power structure.

[Mike in Hilo]

That Pakistan's (democratically elected) politicians are not pro-US is perhaps an understatement...Ms. Constable's implicit endorsement of the elected government alternative to Musharraf is as disappointing in its shortness of memory as it is predictable. The US seems to me to be appropriately cautious in not pushing too hard for Musharraf to democratize immediately.

During my tenure in Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto's government (first woman PM and darling of US liberals) was ebullient in publicly hailing the creation of the "Islamabad-Tehran-Beijing Axis." Progress was made in nuclear weapons development and AQ Khan flourished. The government was worryingly pro-Saddam before and during the Gulf War, until those final days when it became certain that he would lose. The electoral process served as a mechanism by which the entrenched family dynasties of landowning "feudal lords" (an appellation of unusual honesty for Pakistani politics) could cynically maintain their hold on the country while ensuring that the masses remained steeped in ignorance and powerless poverty. Furthermore, our media consistently err in forgetting that Islamic Law was introduced into Pakistan by Ms Bhutto's democratically elected, "leftist" father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and not by General Zia, who ousted him....

As for the prime minister ousted by Musharraf, Nawaz Sharif, the perennial opponent of Ms Bhutto in a series of national elections, his government was steadfast in its support of the Taleban in Afghanistan....

[Stu-6]

Over the long term I think anti-US democracies can be better than pro-US dictators. If a dictatorship is unresponsive to the population then a resistance too it will develop, if the US overtly supports the dictator this can have the effect of empowering the resistance since they can now cast the dictator as being a foreign lackey. This allows the resistance to cast their struggle in terms of us against the alien power and appeal to nationalistic instincts. If the resistance comes to power or gains significant influence a strongly anti-US policy will soon develop.

[Ray]

Worse than a Mistake
By Frederic Grare

Page 1 of 1
Posted August 2006
How Pervez Musharraf is endangering himself, Pakistan, and the war on terror.

GENERAL CONFUSION: Musharraf is causing problems for himself and his allies.
General confusion: Musharraf is causing problems for himself and his allies.

Guang Niu/Getty Images

The Bush administration does not know it yet, but Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf may have just outlived his usefulness. He has already failed to confront the Taliban fighters who have made Pakistan a staging area for their attacks in Afghanistan. He has delayed and postponed promises to shore up his country’s democratic freedoms. He has even walked away from symbolic pledges to remove his own military uniform. And last weekend, the Pakistani strongman may have finally tipped the scales too far. On his orders, Pakistani security forces killed Nawab Akbar Bugti, the tribal leader and former governor of Baluchistan. The elimination of the leader of one Pakistan’s most strategically important border regions threatens the country’s territorial integrity, the war on terror, and Musharraf’s own political future. In one deft stroke, Musharraf has made himself an ally no longer worth the effort.

On August 26, Bugti was killed by Pakistani forces in a firefight close to his mountain hide-out. For 60 years, Bugti was a Baluchi nationalist leader and a key figure in the various insurgencies that have gripped Pakistan’s largest and most mineral-rich province. The Baluchis feel they are exploited by a central government they view as a colonial vehicle for Pakistan’s most populous region, the Punjab. They want more political autonomy and a greater share of their region's lucrative gas revenues.

Bugti commanded a sizable force, and he has long been a thorn in Islamabad’s side. But, unlike other leaders in Pakistan’s unruly border areas, he always deployed his forces with politics in mind and an eye on the future. Just last year, he proposed, albeit unsuccessfully, a compromise peace based on a proposal from Pakistan’s Muslim League leadership. His own stature, combined with the fact that he was in charge of the tribe controlling most of Baluchistan's natural gas reserves, made him unacceptable to the military leadership—even though he was Islamabad’s most credible partner for peace in the region.

Some argue that because the insurgency is essentially tribal, the removal of this tribal leader cuts the head off the snake. But that is a fundamental misreading of the insurgency. A prolonged, low-intensity conflict is now likely. With Bugti’s death, the insurgency will be led by far more radical elements, many of whom, including the largest tribe in Baluchistan, the Marri, will settle for nothing less than independence.

Baluchistan’s strategic location, bordering Iran, Afghanistan, and the Arabian Sea, as well as its wealth of minerals and hydrocarbons, means that Baluchi independence will always be unacceptable to Islamabad. So, the army will be ordered to redouble its efforts to crush the insurgency. But the military will struggle to control a province representing some 43 percent of the country’s territory. More forces will likely be redeployed to the region from the Afghan border. Such a move will further thin the army’s presence along the Afghan border and weaken the help it can offer NATO in the fight against the Taliban and al Qaeda remnants.

Indeed, the army is already paving the way for a drawdown from the Afghan border, which would free up soldiers for Baluchistan. The Pakistani press reported several days ago that a truce is being negotiated with the Taliban in the frontier area of Waziristan. Such a move would result in the army's withdrawal from all border posts and effectively allow the Taliban to cross the border at will.

If the consequences of Bugti’s death on the ground are still difficult to predict, some of them are already apparent in the political arena. Every political party, even Musharraf’s own political allies, has condemned the killing. The division between the civilian leadership and the military is widening—a frightening trend in any country where the military has such a stranglehold on political life. If this rift continues to widen, the Pakistani military might demand that Musharraf, who is still simultaneously—although unconstitutionally—the army’s chief of staff, choose between his two positions.

The killing of Bugti has exposed a Pakistani president both unable to fulfill his commitments in the war on terror and only able to act decisively against his own people. Musharraf’s actions have reversed decades’ worth of slow progress toward national integration. Reporting restrictions will guarantee that we will not hear much from Baluchistan in the coming months. But the next thing we hear might well be an explosion that reverberates as far as Washington.

Frederic Grare is a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/c...?story_id=3578

Pakistan will survive. But will be weak.

[Ray]

Musharraf's Dangerous Highwire Act
Tim Lister | Bio | 30 Aug 2006
World Politics Watch Exclusive

Pervez Musharraf is no stranger to a welter of competing pressures -- domestic and external. His government remains under international pressure to root out al Qaeda and Taliban elements in frontier areas; Pakistan's Islamic parties are well-organized and growing in influence; separatists in Baluchistan are making parts of the province ungovernable just as the government tries to exploit its mineral and hydrocarbon potential. Pakistan's political institutions are weak and Islamic extremists have several times tried to assassinate the General. Set against these problems, there is one shaft of light. Pakistan's economy is now one of the fastest growing in Asia -- thanks largely to a government of technocrats that is pursuing privatization and foreign investment.

Amid these pressures, Western governments (and India) continue the clamor for more aggressive action from Pakistan in the "War on Terror." It's a clamor that's understandable -- but counter-productive.

War on Terrorism

In her provocative piece for World Politics Watch earlier this month, Bridget Johnson asked whether conflict in the Middle East would push Musharraf to abandon his "fine line" between a liberal state and a theocracy and maybe "stop offering any bit of comfort or shelter to Islamofascist elements." Setting aside the fashionable term of "Islamofascist," the choice is simplistic; there is a gulf between a theocracy and a liberal state, not a fine line. Ms. Johnson suggests that "if [Musharraf] uses the lives he has left to seriously quash radical Islam in Pakistan, he may leave a significant mark on the region." Indeed he might -- he might set off the sort of sectarian war in Pakistan that has engulfed Iraq, plunging a nuclear-armed state into chaos, with consequences well beyond its own borders. Radical Islam can't simply be quashed, by mobilizing a couple of battalions. Addressing Pakistan's manifold problems also has to take account of incendiary Sunni/Shia relations (Iraq, anyone?) and the vital role of the army as the only functioning national institution.

There is no doubting that Musharraf needs the West and needs to show the international community that he is serious in containing Islamic extremists in Pakistan, whether home-grown or of the multinational al Qaeda variety. The 9/11 Commission and others have legitimately complained that Pakistan remains a breeding ground for terrorism. Offering solutions is more problematic.

It is not as though Musharraf's government is doing nothing -- especially against al Qaeda militants. The army has lost scores of soldiers in remote and rugged Waziristan pursuing foreign fighters. Pakistan has tracked down plenty of important al Qaeda figures -- including Abu Zubaida, Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Khalid Sheik Mohammed. Altogether it has probably arrested some 700 people allegedly linked to al Qaeda. There is also evidence of a new drive against Taliban leaders who have long gone unhindered in using the rugged territory of Baluchistan as a rear base for operations across the border. A recent raid on a hospital in Quetta netted several Taliban operatives, and a Taliban commander, Mullah Hamdullah, was also arrested.

But an overly aggressive pursuit of Islamic radicals might backfire with disastrous consequences. Trying to eradicate (as opposed to contain) militants in Waziristan and tribal areas is not feasible; it could also exacerbate ethnic tensions and cause dissension in an overstretched military. The government suffered a popular backlash after the abortive U.S. missile strike earlier this year on the border village of Damadola, which missed its intended target -- al Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri -- but killed several civilians. Recently, a more subtle approach has taken hold, to try to peel away tribal leaders from foreign elements while using Special Forces to target the latter more precisely rather than risking civilian casualties. A similar state of affairs exists in Baluchistan, home to more than 200,000 Afghan refugees, smuggling routes, grinding poverty and hardline madrassas. It is truly the wild west, where eradicating support for the Taliban is a pipe dream among a well-entrenched network of Sunni Deobandi groups.

Some might describe the government's less than whole-hearted approach as appeasement; others as a prudent cost-benefit analysis. That analysis includes two elements of self-interest. Pakistan had close ties to the Taliban while it ruled Afghanistan and retains some influence over events there by allowing the organization to survive as a thorn in the Karzai government's side. (Not that Pakistani officials would ever admit to such realpolitik.) Musharraf is also aware that if western financial aid and credits are to continue, it is the ongoing nature of the struggle that preserves his and Pakistan's strategic "currency." Since 9/11, America has dismissed $1.5 billion in debt and provided Pakistan with more than $3 billion in military assistance. Its strategic value -- and status as a nuclear power -- helps to preserve Pakistan's primitive parity with India. A similar dynamic informs negotiations with India. Musharraf wants to be seen to be making progress, but not too fast. Important constituencies at home would not tolerate compromise on Kashmir, and as a "process" the relationship attracts greater attention and financial help from the West.

Home-Grown Trouble

Musharraf's action against Pakistani Islamist groups has been less consistent than operations against al Qaeda and fellow travelers. His government has taken highly visible initiatives against radical Islamic groups -- especially after the 2001 attack on India's Parliament and the July 2005 attacks in London. But these crackdowns are not sustained. For example, the order that foreign students at madrassas leave Pakistan in the wake of the London attacks in July 2005 has been defied by many of the schools and quietly dropped. There are probably still several hundred foreign students at the religious schools. One group, Lashkar-e-Taibam, has been outlawed (and also is on the U.S. State Department's list of terrorist organizations) and held responsible for several attacks on India. But it has adopted a "shell" as a charitable organization (Jawaat ud Dawa) and it maintains - openly -- a large compound near Lahore.

A broader sweep against groups like Lashkar would be possible, but unlikely to bear fruit. Their memberships are fluid and dispersed among Pakistan's teeming cities and remoter corners. They include some adherents who want to liberate Kashmir and others who migrate to a broader jihad. Some enjoy protection from powerful elements of military intelligence (ISI) as a stick with which to beat India. Mass arrests could have the effect of radicalizing opposition to Musharraf's regime, like poking a stick into a wasps' nest. Instead, the government's policy has been to target individuals with known links to terrorist acts or plots -- such as the murder of Daniel Pearl or the London subway attacks. This month Pakistani al Qaeda suspects were detained in Karachi in connection with a suicide bomb attack against a U.S. diplomat earlier this year. Not pursuing these groups and their sympathizers wholesale is designed to keep social peace in a country that is a sectarian and religious cauldron. A virulent Sunni purism retains its grip in the grimy towns of southern Punjab, stoked by firebrand preachers who have persuaded more than a few to become al Qaeda's foot soldiers. Pakistan's deep-seated religious culture won't be changed overnight. (The democratic experiment in Iraq may be instructive in this respect.) Witness the timidity with which the Musharraf government has approached the reform of Islamic laws on rape and marriage, which constitute abhorrent discrimination against women.

It's important to distinguish between underground Islamist groups like Jaish e Mohammed and Lashkar e Taiba and the "mainstream" Islamist opposition, represented by the Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA). By western standards, the MMA is extremely conservative -- but it does represent the values of many Pakistanis. It has benefited from Musharraf's assault on the old "dynastic" parties, led by Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, who both probably would face criminal charges should they return home. As Bhutto's PPP and Sharif's PML(N) have suffered, so the Islamic opposition alliance continues to grow in influence. It doubled its vote in the 2002 elections, and now has more parliamentary seats than Sharif's party. Once promoted by Musharraf as a counterweight to the other parties, the MMA has won a majority in North West Frontier Province and is already introducing legislation based on Sharia law. Now it decries Musharraf as a "creature" of Washington and coordinates anti-American protests whenever the opportunity arises.

The popularity of the MMA -- like that of Hezbollah and Hamas -- has as much to do with its role as a social welfare provider as its politics. Its grassroots presence fills a vacuum left by the state. In Lahore, for example, the MMA has converted old movie sets into a clinic and hospital. (The symbolism is not lost on its leaders.)

But does the MMA seriously threaten Musharraf? Bridget Johnson asks: "Will the people go for a hardline regime?" The reality of Pakistani politics is that they won't have the option. The military is the only functional entity and Musharraf's command of it appears as secure as anything in Pakistan can be. Pakistanis joke: "Most countries have an army; here the army has a country." The MMA may burn effigies of Musharraf, but venting on the streets and making decisions in Islamabad are poles apart.

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