Columns of Your Choice 21st August 2008

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OPINION

America Is Better Off Without Musharraf

By HUSAIN HAQQANI
August 21, 2008; Page A13

Pervez Musharraf's resignation as president of Pakistan allows the country to move toward full democracy. Some in Washington view this as a threat -- the replacement of a reputedly stalwart ally in the war against terrorism with a democratic government responsive to the unpredictability of public opinion.
But with Mr. Musharraf gone, the United States need not take blame for his actions, particularly those unrelated to international cooperation in fighting terrorists. Mr. Musharraf's exit is not a loss. It is an opportunity to jump-start a much more durable and stable relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan as nations sharing democratic values.
In national elections on Feb. 18, the people of Pakistan spoke with an uncharacteristically unified voice, voting overwhelmingly for moderate, democratic political parties and rejecting not only Mr. Musharraf's political party, but those aligned with extremism and fanaticism. Less than 5% of the vote went to Islamist parties sympathetic to the Taliban.
The democratic coalition led by the party of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), was allowed to form a government, but Mr. Musharraf refused to step down as president or relinquish the lion's share of power within the government. His resignation this week under threat of impeachment has been celebrated by Pakistanis from all corners of the country.
Pakistan's greatest challenge now is to change its pattern of alternating between military strongmen and elected civilian governments that are ousted before their term is complete. The Pakistani military appears ready to join civilians in changing that pattern. Civilian elites who in the past have supported suspension of the constitution on grounds of alleged incompetence and corruption of elected officials may also have learned their lesson.
There is no shortcut to building democracy. Reforms pushed through governments installed by coups d'état have repeatedly failed to bring stability, and Mr. Musharraf's much-trumpeted economic achievements are in tatters at the end of his nine-year rule.
In the final analysis, Pakistan will only be as strong as its political system. Pakistan's democratic parties, most notably the current coalition partners PPP and the Pakistan Muslim League (N), must be given a chance to lay the foundations of lasting constitutional governance. Like all transitions, the transition from one-man rule to a pluralist system will be tough. But Pakistanis have proven their commitment to the democratic ideal after four failed military dictatorships in 60 years.
The U.S.'s primary concern in Pakistan remains the ongoing war against al Qaeda and the Taliban, mainly in the country's northwest region bordering Afghanistan. With Mr. Musharraf gone, the war against terror will in fact be pursued with much more vigor and much less political manipulation.
Anti-Americanism among Pakistan's people may ease, now that Washington is not seen as backing an unpopular strongman. That should make it easier for the elected government to fight terrorism without being accused of doing America's bidding in return for economic and military assistance.
The assumption that dealing with a single, authoritarian leader is the best way to do business with a foreign government is erroneous. In a nation of 160 million, the U.S. should not count on only one man as its ally. Those who are American allies by conviction and a shared belief in democracy, tolerance and free markets are bound to be better allies than an ally of convenience seeking only aid and political support.
The elected government of Pakistan can and will turn its attention to the immediate and critical problems of our nation -- inflation, a looming energy crisis, food shortages, an educational system that doesn't work, and a civil society that has been dismantled by dictatorship. And of course, above all, the people and government of Pakistan must contain and destroy the extremist insurgency which threatens the very soul of the nation.
With the mandate of the people behind it, the new Pakistani government can muster popular support to restore the writ of law to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), and to marginalize extremists all over the country.
As Joe Biden has argued, the U.S.-Pakistan relationship should no longer be "transactional," i.e., based largely on the "exchange of aid for services." An economically viable Pakistan is a stable Pakistan, and a stable Pakistan would be better positioned to end fanaticism in our region. Pakistanis have been encouraged by the recent, unanimous passage in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee of legislation introduced this month by Sens. Biden and Richard Lugar that would help build a U.S.-Pakistan relationship based not only on shared battle plans but shared values and shared economic and political interests.
Another critical piece of legislation that works toward that end is the Afghanistan and Pakistan Reconstruction Opportunity Zones Act of 2008. Introduced by Chris Van Hollen in the House and Maria Cantwell in the Senate, and supported by the Bush administration, it would encourage economic investment and local factories and businesses in Taliban-infested areas through favored trade relationships with the U.S. The Biden-Lugar legislation and the ROZs are important signals to the people of Pakistan that the U.S. is indeed a genuine partner, not just a military ally.
Pakistan has weathered a very difficult period in our national history -- a near-decade-long dictatorship, the spread of terrorism, an economic crisis and the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, our icon of democracy. But we have made it through. The Musharraf resignation is not anyone's loss; it could help turn Pakistan around and that would be the world's gain.
Mr. Haqqani is Pakistan's ambassador to the United States.

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Beyond Musharraf
By Ahmed Rashid
Tuesday, August 19, 2008; Page A13
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The resignation of President Pervez Musharraf yesterday after nine years in office is a major victory for Pakistan’s long-battered and still fragile democratic forces. But particularly given the meltdown the country has endured in recent weeks, there are still many obstacles to effective civilian governance. Although the United States will expect things to change in a hurry, they are unlikely to do so right away.

Three of Pakistan’s past four military rulers have been driven from power by popular movements, but the politicians who followed the military all failed to take advantage of the people’s desire for democracy and economic development and were eventually forced out by the military on charges of corruption and incompetence.
The most pressing issues today involve the long-standing tension of Pakistan’s politics and the relationship between the civilian government and the military. The government is led by the Pakistan People’s Party, now run by Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, but his party governs through a complex coalition of parties.
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The PPP’s main antagonist is former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, head of the Pakistan Muslim League-N, who never misses an opportunity to try to pull down the PPP, his longtime rival, rather than working with it to consolidate the few democratic gains the country has made.
Overthrown by Musharraf in a 1999 coup and humiliated by the army, Sharif rejects concessions to the army and offers no support to the war against Taliban extremists. Busy pandering to his right-wing supporters, he has little time for American demands.
Sharif believes that his popularity and the parliamentary seats he controls in the majority province of Punjab will eventually regain him the prime ministership.
In the next few days, internal coalition battles will continue as key questions arise, including where Musharraf should live, whether impeachment should proceed, how the senior judges Musharraf dismissed last November should be restored to their offices and who should become president.
Sharif is taking a hard line, while Zardari wants to move slowly and not confront the army by further humiliating Musharraf, a former army chief.
These power struggles within the coalition are magnified by the enormous mistrust that exists between the army and both parties. The army’s mistrust of the PPP has a nearly 40-year history, and the military dislikes Sharif.
In the past six months, the army and the coalition government have failed to work out a joint strategy to combat the Pakistani Taliban, which is swarming across northwestern Pakistan, or to prevent Taliban fighters from crossing the border and fighting in Afghanistan.
The army, which is not popular, wants the civilian government to take political responsibility for going after the extremists. Sharif has no intention of doing the army’s bidding, and Zardari has yet to hammer out a position that can garner coalition agreement. Meanwhile, the economy is in meltdown, with inflation running at 25 percent, but the government has not been able to lift investor confidence.
The mess that Musharraf leaves behind will haunt Pakistan and the world in the months ahead. The international community is likely to grow even more nervous about Pakistan as extremists become stronger and more audacious.
The government and the army are besieged by escalating U.S. and NATO threats that Pakistan must either help catch Osama bin Laden and do more to stop the Taliban’s offensives or face stepped-up U.S. bombing against the Taliban inside Pakistan.
Much of the fault for this situation lies with Musharraf’s aversion to democracy and his failure to capitalize on the opportunities offered by joining the Western alliance in the war against terrorism after Sept. 11. After the 2001 attacks, Musharraf received massive financial aid ($11.8 billion from Washington alone) and unstinting international political support — yet failed to use it for the common good.
He rigged his own reelection in 2002 and long disrupted attempts at a transition to a democracy. After millions of Pakistanis took to the streets last year, demanding the rule of law, Musharraf imposed a state of emergency. Under extreme public pressure, he was forced to rescind his measures and agreed to hold free and fair elections in February, in which his political supporters were trounced.
Meanwhile, Musharraf’s relationship with the West disintegrated as the Taliban gained ground in Afghanistan, using its bases in Pakistan. There was a Taliban blowback inside Pakistan as the Pakistani Pashtun tribesmen who protected bin Laden and the Afghan Taliban when they retreated to Pakistan in 2001 were themselves radicalized. They formed their own militias with their own agenda: to turn Pakistan into an Islamic Taliban-style state. In December, they assassinated the one person who could have pulled the country together — PPP leader Benazir Bhutto.
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Most Pakistanis see the coalition government as the country’s last chance for democracy, and they want it to work. The army, the government and the international community have to work together so that Pakistan can start tackling its real problems.
Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani journalist, is the author of “Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia.”