Three years ago, an American president (Bill Clinton) was reluctant to spend more than five hours in Pakistan. In fact, he refused to publicly shake hands with General Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan. Today, an American president (George W Bush) has invited the coup-maker (whose name he couldn’t recall three years ago) to his presidential retreat in Camp David reserved for the chosen “friends” of America. How times have changed since 9/11.
If the blame for Pakistan’s international isolation following the 1999 Kargil misadventure and the coup can be laid at General Musharraf’s door, the fact is that the turnaround in Pakistan’s fortunes since 9/11 is a direct result of the general’s wise decision to change course on certain old, hurtful foreign policies. Specifically, the timely bailout from a disastrous pro-Taliban Afghan policy, coupled with an aggressive hunt for Al Qaeda terrorists, has endeared General Musharraf and Pakistan to the international community, especially to Washington. However, kudos is also due General Musharraf for daring to take one step back – abandoning the decade-long establishment policy of putting pre-conditions (Kashmir-first) for a peace dialogue with India – in the hope of leaping two steps forward (building confidence via a composite dialogue and offering to go mid-way for an enduring and realistic solution on Kashmir) with India.
However, it is also true that General Musharraf’s experiment with guided democracy at home hasn’t handed him the legitimacy he craves. Indeed, his cynical manipulation of “ground realities” (rigged referendum and discredited elections) to entrench himself in power has been at the cost of critical national institutions like the judiciary and the centrist two-party system. But that’s not all. The unprecedented rise of the religious right at the expense of the mainstream parties is a potential time bomb at the heart of the political system. This has policy reverberations at home and abroad. At home, it is undermining General Musharraf’s guided democracy and structured economic policies. Abroad, it is threatening to erode his new foreign policy initiatives vis-à-vis Afghanistan, India and America. The MMA is therefore the most menacing crack in the edifice that General Musharraf is trying to build. Does he realise this?
Yes and no. Old habits die hard. The mullahs have been in alliance with the military since the time of General Ziaul Haq, first as mujahideen allies in the fight against the Soviets; later against the anti-Pakistan regimes in Kabul; and then as jihadis in the fight against Indian oppressors in Kashmir. So it is difficult to overnight scuttle forces that have been an integral part of the military’s foreign policies. In the current circumstances, however, they are also an important adjunct to General Musharraf’s policy of keeping his two nemeses (Bhutto and Sharif) out of political reckoning. But the mullahs’ dogged resistance to General Musharraf as army chief and president is objectionable because it is not grounded in any democratic principles enshrined in religious politics. Instead, it emanates from their fear that his foreign policy innovations regarding Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, India, America and the Middle East will eventually diminish their role as an evergreen ally of the Pakistani establishment.
It is in this context that General Musharraf’s recent outbursts against the MMA’s religious politics, as well as his high profile two-week-long visit to the UK, USA, France and Germany, should be evaluated.
On the one hand, he is aghast at the anti-LFO and Islamisation policies of the MMA that are surefire recipes for political instability and economic disruption at home. On the other, he is telling the international community that he should not be pushed into making unilateral concessions to India and hasty compromises with the Northern Alliance-dominated regime in Kabul because a religious-cum-establishment backlash could drastically hurt both his and Pakistan’s prospects. Indeed, his frustration at a lack of sincere reciprocity from India, coupled with unfulfilled expectations of greater patience and generosity (military and economic) from the international community, are manifestations of his current problematic. He wants the MMA to accept him as both president and army chief in exchange for the material fruits of office in two provinces; but he doesn’t want the MMA to rock his negotiations with the international community, India and Afghanistan aimed at entrenching his bid for legitimacy and longevity.
In London, Washington, Paris and Berlin, General Musharraf will be thumped on the back for his help in the international war against Al Qaeda terrorism. Economic and military aid will also start flowing, partly as a reward for past deeds and partly as an incentive for doing more in the future. Three themes will dominate the advice of the international community: make peace with India, don’t destabilise Afghanistan, and roll back the tide of radical Islamism in nuclear-armed Pakistan. The longer General Musharraf prevaricates on these scores, caught between his soldierly instincts and his political vision, the greater the chances that his economic and political agendas will be dislocated and he will end up as the biggest loser of all. It is in this sense that General Pervez Musharraf, no less than Pakistan, truly stands at the crossroads. His promises of today must become the country’s commitments of tomorrow.