Tipping Point in Pakistan? Musharraf's Military Support Cracks

If you're a Pakistani strongman, it's not wonderful but it is survivable to lose the support of the judges and lawyers. But it's quite another to be challenged by your fellow former generals.

That's President Pervez Musharraf's current predicament, and if he doesn't do something about it, we are observing his political demise. With the steady Talibanization of the nation's northwest, the military brass will put its ultimate loyalty first -- to Pakistan's survival -- and force Musharraf out.

Carlotta Gall and Salman Masood of The New York Times weigh in with a piece today on a startlingly public demand for Musharraf's resignation by several hundred retired senior military officers. As a measure of the discontent, the retired generals among yesterday's protesters included Jamshed Gulzar Kiani, the former commander of the key Army corps in Rawalpindi.

Their outburst -- their third in two weeks -- is an important turn of events because of how the Pakistan military operates. This ultimate bedrock of Pakistani power is discreet and united. Serving and retired officers are an organic whole, sort of a society, listening to and advising each other. They regard themselves as Pakistan's fundament. When the officers decide the country's integrity is threatened, you get a government overturned.

That the retirees have gone public means that that military society has become disfunctional; Musharraf has stopped listening to the retirees. If he's stopped listening to the retirees, it's probably the same to one degree or another with serving officers.

So far, Pakistan's serving generals have been content to stay behind the scenes and allow Musharraf to rule unimpeded. But if the contagion spreads, and Musharraf can't keep his base on side, he is finished.

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Rights: Creative Commons

Echoes of Zia in Bhutto Assassination; A Reasonable Election Delay

The bungling of the post-mortem in the Benazir Bhutto assassination is eerily reminiscent of the aftermath 19 years ago to the death of the general who hanged her father, Zia ul-Haq. In the Zia case too, police and investigators corrupted the scene of death, a field where a C-130 carrying him and most of his top generals crashed, killing all of them. Likewise, there were widespread cries of coverup, including by the United States, which blocked a FBI investigation and carried away key forensic evidence.

I looked into the Zia investigation thoroughly during the 1990s, and was never satisfied with how it was handled. A joint U.S.-Pakistani military panel found cause for suspecting murder -- one theory was that a nerve gas was implanted in the cockpit that disabled the pilots -- and recommended that a fresh panel comprised of pathologists be formed to look into that angle. But the investigation was halted right there. I concluded that the various powers -- the new Army general Mirza Aslam Beg, the intelligence agencies, and especially the United States -- decided that, if it was murder, they were better off not to know by whom. For instance, one suspect was Moscow, which at the time was in the middle of withdrawing from Afghanistan; if Mikhail Gorbachev were accused of murder, the pullout could be scotched. Another suspect was India, and a new war could be threatened on the Subcontinent.

All of this makes me unsurprised that the Bhutto murder scene was compromised. As with the Zia case, it could be a simple matter of incompetence. Otherwise, the issues appear different -- there ought to be no reason why officialdom wouldn't want to identify the culprits. Unless of course they themselves suspect the possibility of perhaps low-level inside connivance.

CNN has thoughtfully posted the Bhutto post-mortem, which I pass along here. It also posted a story that includes new film of the moments of the killing.

Parliamentary elections: The word is that President Pervez Musharraf will postpone parliamentary elections. On one hand, holding the elections on time next week would have been a strong show of calm leadership on Musharraf's part. On the other, rioters appear to have destroyed all the electoral paperwork in a dozen or so Election Commission offices, and it needs to be reconstructed so Pakistanis can vote in those districts. As my former Wall Street Journal colleagues reported over the weekend, Musharraf's opponents are urging Pakistanis to take out their grief on him; they are likely to see something pernicious in a delay. But it seems to me that a few weeks to get the records in order is reasonable. The date for a new election will probably be the end of February or the beginning of March.

Pakistan's Playboy and the Oil King

Who Will Succeed Bhutto? The clearest thing amid all the chaos in Pakistan is that the country's most likely kingmaker won't be Pervez Musharraf, and it certainly won't be the United States. It will be Benazir Bhutto's 51-year-old husband, Asif Zardari. The roguish Zardari isn't very well known in the West, but in South Asia he's a celebrity, a charming former playboy who was imprisoned by Musharraf for corruption during Bhutto's terms as prime minister. I've interviewed Zardari, and he's got a natural feel for politics, and has his own magnetism, something lacking in most of the other people Bhutto surrounded herself with. I strongly doubt that he himself could lead the party because of his tainted past. But, given the sympathy factor, and the disarray engulfing Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party, he is likely to choose who does. Dark horse: remember the name Aitzaz Ahsan, who led the lawyer's uprising against Musharraf. He broke with Bhutto but could emerge from the pack, that is should Musharraf ever release him from prison.

Exxon in Russia: The American company may be undergoing the Shell treatment. Last year, Shell was forced by Gazprom to hand over control of the giant Sakhalin-II natural gas field – that is if it wanted to keep doing business in Russia. Now, Russia’s respected business newspaper Vedemosti says that the two giants of the world – Exxon and Gazprom – have held talks about Gazprom taking a stake in the American company’s Sakhalin-I project. This isn’t a shocking report – Vladimir Putin has made it clear that Russians, and not foreigners, will control the country’s energy resources. And it could simply be a trial balloon, as the Russians are prone to float. But it comes after Exxon’s tough-guy negotiating style in Russia and Kazakhstan, insisting that it will never buckle under to resource nationalism. And it’s clear that ultimately the company will have to retreat and compromise in both countries as its roster of possible new global reserves shrinks.

Benazir Bhutto's Legacy

I first met Benazir Bhutto at a political rally north of Karachi in November 1988. Three months earlier, Pakistan ruler Zia ul-Haq had died in a plane crash, setting up Pakistan's first contested elections in more than a decade. Zia had hanged her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and jailed her, which gave Benazir Bhutto the political potency of a martyr, and she was running hard on that image for election to Parliament.

It would be an immense understatement to say that Bhutto, then 36, was immensely popular at home in southern Sindh province, and with followers of her Pakistan People's Party across the country. These people treated her like a rock star, and she and her husband, Asif Zardari, behaved like they were. Bhutto, educated at Harvard and Oxford, promised to bring democracy and its fruits home, and a lot of people -- including much of the West -- believed her. I know that I did. I went on to meet her a few times in three years as the Pakistan-based Newsweek correspondent.

Nineteen years later, Bhutto had served two terms as prime minister. She was removed both times by the nation's strong president for alleged corruption and incompetence. To be fair, her political rival, Nawaz Sharif, was removed twice as prime minister in intervals with her during the 1990s on similar charges. And when Pervez Musharraf came to power in a coup in 1999, both were sent into exile.

As a candidate for prime minister again the last two months, Bhutto made the same promises of democracy. The vows had worn thin -- people knew that she had failed twice as prime minister to transcend her feudal roots. At heart and in behavior, she was imperious, and her strongest sense was one of self-entitlement.

But Bhutto's legacy, I think, is the hope she brought the country back in 1988. Young, beautiful, and confident, she promised to fearlessly take on those who would challenge democracy. And she continued to do so until the end.

NY Times: Wrongheaded on Pakistan

Wrong Way
Originally uploaded by flattop341

I am no basher of The New York Times editorial page, but its ostensibly pro-democratic position today on Pakistan would be amusing were it not so sad.

This issue -- whither Pakistan -- is central to the themes of democracy, security and oil usually discussed in the context of the Caspian region and Russia on this blog.

The Times supports a coalition of former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif as progress toward democracy. The newspaper supposes that this dual political front would be more democratic than Gen. Pervez Musharraf. To borrow one of The Times' own phrases, this is preposterously presumed. If the newspaper backed the head of the country's lawyers movement -- Aitzaz Ahsan -- it would be on far more solid ground, in my opinion. Instead, it reaches for Pakistan's tired, failed past.

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Rights: Creative Commons

Who Said Musharraf Was a Democrat?

Prediction: Unless he's forced out by his military cohorts pre-emptively, Pervez Musharraf will retire as Army chief, take the oath of office for another five-year term, this time technically as a civilian president, and hold parliamentary elections as planned Jan. 8th.

The hullabaloo over Musharraf's declaration of emergency in Pakistan has been both amusing and absurd. When did Musharraf say he was a democrat? When he seized power in a coup? When he forced political feudals Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif into exile? When he manipulated parliamentary elections and installed a hand-picked prime minister?

The United States and the rest of the West is behind Musharraf for one reason: to try to contain the germination of jihadis. The democracy agenda was always a subtext.

One thing is sure. Were Musharraf to fall in the current crisis, it would not signal the advent of democracy. The Army would remain Pakistan's primary political force, and insist on continued dominant influence given the country's precarious security problem in the West.

I personally would be more impressed with Bhutto and Sharif's expressions of dismay if they demonstrated that they are not all about selfish aspirations, and passed their respective mantles on to untainted party colleagues. For instance, Bhutto could anoint Aitzaz Ahsan, the leader of the pro-democracy lawyer's movement.

Short of such selflessness, Pakistan remains a snake pit. And the West might curb its sanctimony over Musharraf's alleged perfidy regarding who he was.

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Rights: Creative Commons

Rivalry of Dictators

No world leader, genuinely elected or not, is wholly free of self-proclaimed omniscience, but it's an especially interesting time to observe the autocrats afflicted with this delusion.

They are playing a strong hand, and it's not at all clear that their ostensibly democratic opponents have right on their side.

In Pakistan, it's now two decades since the first time Benazir Bhutto treated us to the spectacle of her massive popularity -- supporters lining the streets in Lahore, Karachi and elsewhere as she decries military dictators.

Only now we have the benefit of her decade of active politics (1989-1999). Bhutto is no democrat. As prime minister and out-of-power opposition leader, she compiled a record of intolerance of dissent, failure to attack the tax-free land-owning feudalism that's Pakistan's core problem, and pocket-lining corruption.

What's really going on in Pakistan is a contest between two dictators. In my view, Pervez Musharraf is more likable if only because he at least doesn't pretend interest in sharing power. He's a man who, though he came to power in a coup, is under fire by people claiming surprise by his declaration of emergency rule on the eve of a possible Supreme Court decision invalidating his right to remain president another five years.

In Georgia, which actually is a comparative democracy, Mikheil Saakashvili has out-smarted street-bound opponents by declaring a snap presidential election in January. These suspicious demonstrations, financed by Boris Berezovsky's former business partner, Badri Patarkatsishvili, now must turn to straight-forward campaigning.

While I was in California on my book tour the last two days, academic experts told me that Saakashvili's reaction to the demonstrations -- sending out police with batons and tear gas -- has ruined Georgia's chances to join NATO and the European Union.

But I think that case is premature. Saakashvili has chipped away at the opprobrium by inviting as many election monitors as anyone wishes to send.

If Saakashvili were more mature and less imperious, he would have avoided this crisis entirely by courting opponents.

But -- like autocratic brethren from Russia to Azerbaijan, from Kazakhstan to Pakistan, and Armenia to Uzbekistan -- Saakashvili isn't an intellectually modest man.

On the plus side, all these countries actually do have a deep bench of politicians, technocrats and businessmen entirely qualified to step into the executive chair. If the autocrats were truly wise, they would court and cultivate them.

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Rights: Creative Commons

Pakistan: It's About Power, Not Terrorism

For six years, the West has turned to Pakistan's General Musharraf to maintain stability in the world's laboratory of extremist Islamic terror. Events in Pakistan have rippled west and northwest to Afghanistan and Central Asia, to Europe all the way to Great Britain, and throughout the Middle East.

Now, Musharraf appears to be on the political ropes, with one of his main adversaries about to arrive at Islamabad Airport, and the other right behind him.

So should the West worry? The answer is yes and no -- for those worried about Pakistan itself, politics is about to revert to its venal and stormy norm; but nothing is likely to change in the national security sphere.

In a piece just filed on line, my friend Zahid Hussain of The Times of London says that Musharraf will try to defuse the arrival tomorrow (Monday) of Nawaz Sharif in Pakistan by putting him right back on a military plane to Saudi Arabia. Here is the first paragraph of Zahid's piece: Pakistani authorities are expected to deport Nawaz Sharif, the exiled former Prime Minister, back to Saudi Arabia as soon as he returns to Pakistan tomorrow in a bid to topple President Pervez Musharraf. Read story

Steve's comment: There is very little chance that Musharraf will salvage his position; he will have to step out of politics, opening the way for a political rematch between the country's pair of two-time prime ministers -- Sharif and Benazir Bhutto.

So much for the experiment with political reform that Musharraf claimed to be initiating with his 1999 coup against Sharif after the then-prime minister effectively almost murdered him and a planeload of passengers by refusing an airliner carrying them landing rights in the country.

The current degree of absurdity is illustrated by the industrialist Sharif's almost unchallenged depiction of himself as a fighter for democratic ideals. Few seem to recall Sharif's political beginnings as a 1980s creation of the ISI, the country's intelligence agency. Having lost favor with the Army since that impolite treatment of Musharraf in 1999, he is now painting himself as a man of the people.

Politics aside, Pakistan's bulwark of stability -- the Army -- will certainly salvage itself, with or without Musharraf (I think without). Washington and the rest of the West will continue to have their partner, to the degree Pakistan has been one, in fighting the al Qaeda radicals using Waziristan as a base.

The Dealmaking General

Former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has granted a slew of media interviews claiming that increasingly isolated General Musharraf has agreed to resign from the military in order to run again as president next month. The upshot: With the media blast, Bhutto is trying to force Musharraf to honor the pact she says they struck. But if he has nodded to such a deal, and abides by it, he has opened the door to a fresh catfight among Pakistan’s vile senior political elite.

Here is the first paragraph of the FT story: General Pervez Musharraf has reached an agreement with exiled opposition leader Benazir Bhutto under which he will resign as military chief in exchange for her party’s support for his re-election as president. Read story

Steve's comment: According to the news accounts, Bhutto, who was twice prime minister before being forced to leave the country following Musharraf's 1999 coup, squeezed several key concessions from Musharraf: The constitution would be changed so she could run for prime minister again; corruption charges would be dropped against her and some of her political followers; and he would step down by the end of the year as chief of the Army.

According to Bhutto, the idea is that Musharraf would then be free to run again for a five-year term for elections expected next month.

No one is defending Musharraf from criticism -- he has plenty to apologize for in terms of his performance in office. But his dealmaking is cynical to the extreme in his effort to retain political power.

Quite apart from Bhutto's competence, the problem with his horse-trading is that the Supreme Court has agreed to allow the country's other exiled former two-time prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, to return home.

And Musharraf apparently hasn't included Sharif in the deal. So expect more political turmoil among politicians with absolutely no respect for the person in office -- unless it happens to be they themselves. Here is Zahid Hussain's take on the topic.

The General's Bungled Opportunity in Pakistan

Pakistan seems headed for even worse trouble than seemed possible last week. Now both of its discredited former prime ministers seem poised to return from exile. The upshot: This perpetually strategic country is again unable to break its cycle of corruption and politics-of-entitlement.


Here is the first paragraph of The AP story: The party of exiled former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ruled out reconciliation with Pakistan's embattled military leader after a court said he can return home before upcoming elections. Read rest of story

Steve's comment: Sharif and his constant rival, Benazir Bhutto, both seem to see blood in the water, and a chance to grab back the power they lost when Gen. Musharraf seized control in 1999. Both are enjoying portraying the democrat.

Of course, neither is anything of the kind. Both represent crooked politics, crooked business, bribes and madness for power. That their respective parties have failed to grow up and find someone new after eight years in the wilderness demonstrates their own bankruptness.

Musharraf is ultimately at fault. Eight years after promising his country a new way, he failed to cultivate any civilian politician to replace him in the event of just the situation he now faces. Because of that, he, too, resembles the same old generals of Pakistan's past, who seized power and could imagine no one else sitting in their seat.

Without fail, Pakistan with regularity has found itself at the vortex of world events since its birth in 1947. It seems genetically strategic. So its politics cannot be ignored. As to what those politics will ultimately be this time, all bets are off.

One thing seems sure. Musharraf appears to be hanging on to power by a slender reed. Zahid Hussain of the Times of London has this typically incisive analysis of Musharraf's predicament.

Naked Bankruptcy in Pakistan

The lead story in The New York Times today is that the Bush administration is pushing Pakistan's Gen. Musharraf to share power with former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. A mistake six years in the making, the White House has failed to finesse Musharraf into cultivating concrete political alternatives to himself with whom he could live. The upshot: yet again, Pakistan is faced with a stark choice for leadership: A corrupt feudal, a corrupt businessman, the religious opposition, or a General.

The first paragraph of the NYT piece: The Bush administration, struggling to find a way to keep Gen. Pervez Musharraf in power amid a deepening political crisis in Pakistan, is quietly prodding him to share authority with a longtime rival as a way of broadening his base, according to American and Pakistani officials. Read rest of story

The synthesis of the proposed deal between Musharraf and Bhutto was reported three weeks ago by Zahid Hussain, my friend and the author of the first-rate Frontline Pakistan. According to Zahid, "under the agreement, the military leader would be granted another five-year term as president, while Ms Bhutto, twice prime minister of Pakistan, would be allowed to return in September to contest parliamentary elections, exonerated of corruption charges made against her. However, the talks appeared to have stalled over General Musharraf’s insistence that he should be allowed to retain his dual role as army chief and president." Read story

Steve's comment: Bhutto is famously a Harvard- and Oxford-trained political scientist and orator. Based on that background, in addition to the huge political following she inherited from her father, the West has had huge hopes for what she could bring the country. Yet in her two terms as prime minister during the late 1980s and the 1990s, she proved one thing -- an elite education is not guaranteed to take the arrogance out of a feudal.

In short, Bhutto has dictatorship and corruption in her DNA -- she is a beautiful speaker, and a terrible national leader. That Musharraf is trying to make a deal with her reflects his own political desperation, and his willingness to compromise his principles.

The leader whom Musharraf ousted -- industrialist Nawaz Sharif -- is a deceptively talented power accumulator who as prime minister proved himself to be a corrupt would-be dictator.

The sad thing is that Pakistan is absolutely replete with ultra-talented and brilliant economists, political scientists, lawyers and so on. That Washington is getting behind the power-sharing idea reflects utter bankruptcy. The United States should not be in the business of encouraging the perpetuation of the rule of Pakistan's landowning class.