In his usually precise and lucid way, General Pervez Musharraf has outlined four main international perceptions that are damaging Pakistan’s image and credibility abroad. While he has refrained from explicitly admitting that the image may simply reflect unsound ground realities and bankrupt domestic policies, he has left no doubt in anyone’s mind that Pakistan needs to address these problems sufficiently in order to repair this negative image. Failure to address and resolve these issues could seriously impair Pakistan’s economic and political prospects in the first decade of the 21st century.
The first issue, of course, is nuclear proliferation. Pakistan is guilty as charged of proliferation. In the current international environment of fear and insecurity provoked by Al-Qaeda, Musharraf is also right in telling us that taking refuge behind emotional outbursts of nationalism, imagined notions of Islamic ummah and outdated concepts of state sovereignty will only make matters worse. Indeed, realpolitik demands that we don’t harp too much on the niceties of international law. Might is also right. We simply can’t afford to lecture the international community on morality or double standards. Therefore we must repair and limit the damage before the problem spins out of control. In other words, we must first come clean, then establish failsafe mechanisms to ensure that this sort of thing doesn’t happen again. Therefore to accuse General Musharraf of being an American “puppet or stooge” who is bent upon rolling back Pakistan’s nuclear programme just because he is telling us the harsh truth and acting to avert a brutal beating is stupidity or motivated dishonesty. Barring his stubborn refusal to hold army officers accountable, and some domestic media mishandling, he has securely drawn the international line in the sand between cowardly capitulation and foolhardy provocation.
The second issue is Islamic militancy and terror. Notwithstanding the injustice inflicted on some Muslim peoples, if anyone is fueling the theory of “clash of civilizations” it is Islamic extremists. Pakistan and its Islamists in particular seem to be host to the worst manifestations of ignorance, immoderation and terror. Therefore General Musharraf is right when he exhorts us to be moderate and enlightened, emphasizing peaceful coexistence rather than violent separateness. But he is wrong to ask our underdeveloped civil society to undertake ijtihad and debate in order to turn back the tide of radical political Islam. The fact is that the exhortation to ijma and ijtihad and reconstruction of the teachings of Islam began to fall on deaf Muslim ears many centuries ago. Certainly, there is no such tradition in sub-continental Islam which one can clutch in the face of this extremist onslaught. Radical political Islam in Pakistan is a direct outcome of the Pakistani military’s misplaced strategic priorities over at least three decades. It was thrust upon us by General Zia ul Haq and subsequent army chiefs have either sought to exploit it or conveniently looked the other way. Therefore General Musharraf will simply have to turn the tide back by the same sort of decree and brute force methods by which it was manufactured and nurtured by his predecessors in the first place.
The third issue is war or peace with India. Two new factors have changed the historical equation. First, the arrival of nuclear weapons in our hands has made the region less rather than more secure. It has encouraged us to undertake Kargil-like adventures and sponsor low-intensity conflict. But this strategy has not yielded Kashmir to us despite exacting a huge cost in men and materials and national security. Two, the deadly mix of radical Islam, international terrorists, military dictatorship and nuclear proliferators in Pakistan has put us on the spot and deprived us of any international sympathy in our raging conflict with democratic India. So we must embrace the doctrine of peace and compromise instead of war and inflexibility. General Musharraf is right to move in this direction and needs our full support. Allegations of any “sell-out” on his part are preposterous.
The last issue pertains to our perceived support for Taliban remnants which are said to be hiding in Pakistan’s borderlands and destabilizing the American sponsored Karzai regime in Kabul. Pakistan’s interest lies in securing a stable pro-Pakistan, Pashtun dominated government in Kabul. But until now, this requirement seemed lost on the Northern Alliance dominated Kabul government and its American supporters. However, political and ethnic equations are changing in Afghanistan and the more they change in the right direction the less Islamabad will be wont to support the remnants of the Taliban who have taken refuge in Pakistani territory. So General Musharraf is right in stressing that a stable and strong Karzai regime is in the long term interests of Pakistan. The sooner the perception is overturned that the military or ISI is protecting and nurturing the Taliban, the better. And this won’t happen by putting journalists in jail for trying to uncover the truth. It will happen only when the evidence is loud and clear that Pakistan is acting forcefully against the Taliban.
One of General Musharraf’s great qualities is his remarkable ability to blast his way out of trouble whenever it comes his way. If he could combine that with a bit of vision to change policy before trouble arrives in full force, we would all be better off.