Pakistani politics (catch all)

[Rex Brynen]

Does Musharraf face risk of a coup?
By M Ilyas Khan
BBC News, Karachi
Monday, 5 November 2007, 17:52 GMT

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was forced to dismiss rumours circulating on Monday that he had been placed under house arrest, just two days after he declared emergency rule.

So far, coups in Pakistan have been against civilian governments
As things stand, there is little reason to believe that Gen Musharraf, who is both president and head of the army, is in imminent danger of being removed from office by force.

[davidbfpo]

The (London) Daily Telegraph, under this title Pakistan: the world's most dangerous country, has this column:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...06/wpak306.xml

JCustis - the interests of the USA may not be met by Pakistan today, neither the USA or the wider Western interest can afford to see this dangerous country lost.

BBC Radio 4 has just had a small item on what happens to Pakistan's nuclear weapons and contingency plans to ensure they do not fall into untrustworthy hands.

Here the press are reporting the parliamentary elections will take place in January 2008, partly as external pressure is exerted.

davidbfpo

[davidbfpo]

Stephen Cohen is an acknowledged expert commentator on Pakistan, particularly it's army and has written an excellent review:

http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/20...tan_cohen.aspx

davidbfpo

[tequila]

Cohen's analysis is, if anything, too optimistic. He still holds that a voluntary, distinguished retirement is a possibility with Musharraf. If that was the case, there would have been no need for declaration of a state of emergency. Musharraf appears to have convinced himself that the country cannot survive without himself at the helm.

The U.S. should dissociate itself from him posthaste. Clinging to Musharraf will only ensure that Pakistani public opinion of the U.S. goes down with him. One perhaps one could argue that it couldn't possibly sink any further, but my reading of history tells me that things can always be worse, especially in Pakistan.

The massive crackdown on the lawyers' movement appears to be having an effect, but I wonder if events may turn nasty in Rawalpindi:

Angry protests by thousands of lawyers in Lahore and other cities on Monday demonstrated the first organized resistance to the emergency rule imposed by the Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf. But the abrupt arrests of many of them threatened to weaken their challenge.

The real test of whether the opposition to General Musharraf will prevail appears to be several days off: The leader of the biggest opposition political party, Benazir Bhutto, has pledged to lead a major protest rally on Friday in Rawalpindi, the garrison city adjacent to Islamabad, the capital.


The Musharraf government’s resolve to silence its fiercest opponents was evident in the strength of the crackdown by baton-wielding police officers who pummeled lawyers and then hauled them by the legs and arms into police wagons in Lahore.
At one point, lawyers and police officers clashed in a pitched battle, with lawyers standing on the roof of the High Court throwing stones at the police below, and the police hurling them back. Some of the lawyers were bleeding from the head, and some passed out in clouds of tear gas.


It was the second time this year that Pakistan’s lawyers emerged as the vanguard of resistance to the government. In the spring, the lawyers mounted big rallies in major cities when General Musharraf tried to dismiss the chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who has now been fired.


How long the lawyers can keep up their revolt now without the support of opposition political parties, which so far have been lying low, remains in question ...

[davidbfpo]

Found on the independent RUSI website, a London "think tank" (they have other roles) and well connected to the Ministry of Defence, Foriegn & Commonwealth Office and Whitehall generally, a new review of the position:

http://www.rusi.org/research/studies...473826483022F/

There are other comments on recent developments in the region.

davidbfpo

[Norfolk]

From the International Herald Tribune and the Associated Press, 18 November:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/...a/pakistan.php

Quote:

Scores killed in sectarian violence in Pakistan

International Herald Tribune, The Associated Press
Published: November 18, 2007

ISLAMABAD: Fierce battles between Sunni and Shiite Muslims in Pakistan's volatile northwest have left 91 people dead, officials said Sunday, despite the imposition of a state of emergency justified in part by the need to quell sectarian unrest.

Combatants used mortars and other heavy weapons in the Shiite-majority town of Parachinar late Saturday and early Sunday, an intelligence official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Continuing to defy the United States, Pakistan's president, General Pervez Musharraf, declined to tell a senior American envoy when he would lift a two-week-old state of emergency, Pakistani and western officials said.

In a two-hour, face-to-face meeting Saturday with Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, who urged the president to end the emergency, Musharraf said he would do so when security improves in the country.

Negroponte is the United States' second highest ranking diplomat.

In a news conference before he left Pakistan on Sunday, Negroponte said it would take time to determine whether the U.S. message had an impact.

"In diplomacy, as you know, we don't get instant replies," he said. "I'm sure the president is seriously considering the exchange we had."

The military said Sunday it would send soldiers to control the outbreak of violence in Parachinar. In a statement, the military said 91 people, including 11 security personnel, had been killed over the weekend.

The violence began Friday when gunmen attacked a Sunni mosque. Sunni militiamen retaliated by attacking Shiites, the police said.

Separately on Sunday, a passenger train was attacked near Peshawar, the capital of North-West Frontier Province, killing one passenger and injuring three, The Associated Press reported, quoting a railway official.

-Unquote

The article goes on to describe Negroponte's meeting with the Pak Army's 2i/c, both alone once and at least twice in the company of Gen. Musharraf. It seems quite plain that the U.S. is very much attempting to shore up the Pakistani Government's position, and that position is clearly deteriorating at an accelerated, and accelerating, pace.

[tequila]

Michael O'Hanlon and Fred Kagan provide a good primer on what not to do in Pakistan.

I'd like to figure out what planet these gentlemen are living on nowadays. It must be the same place from which they intend to bring in the thousands of extra American troops and "moderate Muslim" forces they will use to invade Pakistan.

And people actually mocked Obama for saying something far less insane.