Supporting Musharraf Fuels Crisis in Pakistan

The neo-conservative wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have consumed not only lives and resources from both Iraq and the United States, but also attention, distracting observers from the real frontlines of the War on Terror. While confused, knee-jerk calls emanate from the American right wing to invade Iran, Pakistan has already emerged as the latest theater. The Bush White House has characteristically failed to support democracy in the country, with potentially grave results.

American presidents have walked this road before but we appear to have forgotten where it leads. The Iranian revolution of 1979 transformed U.S. foreign policy, demonstrating the counter-productivity of claiming to promote democracy while impeding it. Today, it is in Pakistan that American support for a secular, pro-business dictator has helped precipitate a fundamentalist backlash coinciding with a secular legitimacy crisis – and this time, nuclear weapons hang in the balance.

Like many other countries (including pre-invasion Iraq), Pakistan is ruled by a "friendly" military dictator supported by America. Unlike most others, it holds a nuclear arsenal and confronts both a violent domestic insurgency and a constitutional crossroads. General-President Pervez Musharraf holds tenuous control, embattled by not only religious extremists critical of his ties with President George W. Bush, but also democracy activists committed to ending military rule.

Calls for democracy should resound in the United States, especially since the purported reason for embracing Musharraf has proven futile: he has failed to stop (and in fact, has lost ground to) al-Qaeda. Despite pledging internationally to fight terrorism, Musharraf turned a largely blind eye to terrorists in Pakistan, choosing instead to maintain a longstanding alliance between the country’s religious ideologues and its military that left the remnants of al-Qaeda free to re-establish themselves along the Afghan border.

The White House appears blind to Pakistan's significance, despite spending $600 billion in Iraq on projects unrelated to U.S. security interests. American diplomatic leverage could easily promote Pakistan's democracy – and help restore America's standing in other Muslim countries – both more effectively and at no cost.

Musharraf v. Democracy

All year, Musharraf has dueled the country's increasingly assertive Supreme Court. A legal cloud over his candidacy for the Presidency (which he initially seized in a 1999 coup) inspired mounting concerns about prolonged military rule. A secular mass movement emerged, demanding democracy and boycotting recent elections that Musharraf won with reportedly over 90% of the vote. Meanwhile, the country's military – prodded by the White House after al-Qaeda resurfaced in northwestern Pakistan – engaged jihadi militants along the Afghan border.

Musharraf's legal position is tenuous. Having already violated a prior promise to hang up his uniform by 2004 as required by law, he won a new term ending in 2012, while once again promising to retire from the military.

Shortly before the recent elections, which The Economist described as "[u]nrepresentative, rigged and at gunpoint," Pakistan's Supreme Court declined to rule on a challenge to Musharraf's candidacy, effectively standing aside. However, the Court has yet to rule on further challenges, which it plans to hear starting in mid-October. Pakistan's constitutional crisis started with the judiciary this spring, when Musharraf suspended – before the Supreme Court reinstated – Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry. Dramatic intervening events have included marches by lawyers and other democracy activists, a mounting frontier insurgency, periodic urban violence, and the emergence of two former Prime Ministers from exile.

Bhutto Returns

Benazir Bhutto, the center-left leader whose father was assassinated in a 1979 coup, has discussed a U.S.-backed power sharing arrangement with Musharraf this fall. While parts of the deal remain unresolved, Musharraf waived the corruption charges that led to Bhutto's self-imposed exile since 1999, clearing the way for her return.

Despite death threats from pro-Taliban militants, and Musharraf's requests that she delay her return until the Supreme Court rules, Bhutto remains committed to returning to Pakistan – the day after the Supreme Court begins hearing the next round of legal challenges to Musharraf's candidacy.

More important than Bhutto's return, however, are Musharraf's oversteps that have opened the door. Former center-right leader Nawaz Sharif, whom Musharraf deposed in 1999, returned from exile last month – but Musharraf detained and deported him again, while jailing thousands of his supporters.

Meanwhile, a violent insurgency erupted. This summer, Musharraf ordered an attack on the Lal Masjid, a mosque within walking distance of his residence. The battle lasted several days and left hundreds dead. Militants, involving many al-Qaeda operatives ousted from Afghanistan five years ago, have fought Pakistan's army to a standstill on the western border, and bin Laden's most recent statement called for a mass uprising against Musharraf.

The situation is volatile. Given Pakistan's nuclear weapons capabilities, the stakes are enormous, for Pakistanis and the entire world.

Assaulting the Rule of Law

While claiming to support democracy abroad, the White House has embraced Musharraf, presenting him as a critical ally despite his repeated subversion of democracy (and failure to stop al-Qaeda). His career repudiates the Rule of Law: he seized power in a coup, twice exiled the elected Prime Minister, jailed his supporters and has hinted at threats to impose martial law if challenged by the Supreme Court.

Yet Musharraf's various assaults on democracy were recently dismissed by Bush Administration officials as "a pending legal matter." He appears emboldened by U.S. support. After the Supreme Court stepped aside prior to the recent elections, police beat lawyers opposed to military rule – as well as journalists simply trying to cover the story – with rocks and metal-tipped batons.

His supporters note that Musharraf has presided over an improved economy that has expanded Pakistan's middle class. However, the American commitment remains (at least overtly) to democracy, not economic expansion. The tension between the two values, and Washington's preference among them, has not gone unnoticed by international observers.

Supporting Musharraf renders U.S. diplomatic claims to support democracy disingenuous. Lawyer and human rights activist Asma Jahangir characterizes the Musharraf regime as "a naked dictatorship." According to sports-icon-turned-legislator Imran Khan, "Musharraf has never had any legal authority, but now he has lost all moral authority in Pakistan. He's hanging in there through the help of the United States."

Nor are Pakistanis the only ones affected, since impeding democracy in Muslim countries encourages terrorism elsewhere: U.S. support for Muslim autocrats (such as the Saudi ruling family) was specifically cited by Osama bin-Laden as a motive for the 9-11 attacks.

Musharraf's aspiring successors are hardly unblemished. International observers long accused both Bhutto and Sharif of pervasive corruption within their administrations, and Musharraf accused Chief Justice Chaudhry of nepotism when suspending him this spring.

An Untarnished New Voice

In contrast, Khan remains untarnished. While lacking the political stature of the former Prime Ministers, he is a liberal member of Parliament, a national sports hero and a political visionary. Imagine John Edwards with Michael Jordan's basketball career. An aspiring legislator in Khan's party insists that, despite Pakistan's history, "Politics should not be a family business."

None of Pakistan's other leaders is transparent, including Musharraf: he sacked Chaudhry following court rulings supporting people "disappeared" by state intelligence services, and reversing the sale of a state-owned business to military leaders – who control much of the country's assets – at a pittance. Acts of judicial independence in a country known for its corruption and military rule, the rulings represented a stand for transparency that America should embrace.

Instead, Musharraf continues to strong-arm his political opposition under cover from Washington. He attempted to intimidate both the judiciary and the press, and during the resulting crisis, announced elections with only two weeks notice, denying opposition candidates a chance to mount campaigns while also jailing their supporters, particularly from Sharif's party.

Were its commitment to democracy sincere, the United States would abandon the dictator, however friendly, and address Pakistan's radical factions by supporting their natural nemesis: the secular opposition to military rule.

Embracing Musharraf's opposition also serves American interests, for three reasons. First, unlike bombing Afghanistan or Iraq, it would be welcomed: over 60% of Pakistanis opposed military rule in a recent poll. Second, principled support for democracy would answer concerns about U.S. hegemony and undermine terrorist recruitment. Finally, Musharraf has failed to stop or even slow al-Qaeda, which has re-established itself in northwestern Pakistan despite his promises to hold the Afghan border while NATO troops rebuilt Afghanistan.

A Road Well Traveled

Specifically, the international community should insist that Musharraf release jailed opposition leaders and commit to fair elections going forward observed by international monitors. Like invading Iraq, the Administration's announced preference – here, helping the friendly dictator entrench himself – may seem easy at first. As in Iraq, as well as in Iran, the situation would deteriorate over the long-term.

While Musharraf won a landslide victory in elections earlier this month, the result was marred by an opposition boycott amidst allegations of widespread unfairness. His legitimacy crisis will continue escalate unless until Pakistanis perceive the nation’s political process as genuinely democratic. Without a clear mandate stemming from free, fair, and regularly scheduled elections, Musharraf (or any other candidate preferred by the White House) will confront millions of fundamentalists bent on enhancing their influence and turning Pakistan against its Western allies.

Some will seek electoral gains to build on the Jamaat-e-Islami party's 20% stake in the nation's legislature. Others, like jihadis in Waziristan or the country's urban centers, will seek power through terrorism, assassination or coup.

In 1979, resisting U.S. support for another secular, autocratic leader friendly to western economic interests, an alliance of secular progressive and Muslim fundamentalist Iranians overthrew the Shah. The resulting theocracy has served as Washington's nemesis for the past 30 years. Today, the Bush White House rattles swords at the mere prospect of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons. But it unwittingly repeats errors of the past, encouraging instability in Pakistan by supporting a "friendly" autocracy over meaningful democracy in a Muslim country, one which already holds nuclear weapons and stands poised to follow in Iran's footsteps.

If militants emboldened by Musharraf's entrenchment assassinate him or bring the Waziristan insurgency to the country's urban centers, they could gain control over Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. That scenario is both imminently possible and catastrophic. India or Israel could be targeted by a first strike, and North Korea – with whom Pakistani nuclear scientists under Musharraf have exchanged information before – would receive technology, if not weapons themselves.

Supporting Musharraf increases the risks of Americans landing in the cross-hairs of terrorists wielding nuclear weapons. Bush crying wolf before led to a quagmire in Iraq, but the threat of nuclear-armed militants in Pakistan is real. The United States should address it by supporting real democracy – rather than a dictatorship, however seemingly benevolent. The alternative risks a replay of the Iranian revolution, with even higher stakes.