In the twilight of the Bush administration, the most recognizable ally in the U.S. war on terrorism has fallen. On August 18, ending weeks of speculation about his immediate future, Pervez Musharraf announced his resignation in a nationally broadcast address. “Everything I have done,” said Musharraf, “I have done with Pakistan in my heart.” Remaining largely calm and stoic, with only a hint of emotion near the end of his speech, the former general laid out what he believed to be his contributions to Pakistan in his nearly nine years of rule. Private broadcasters displayed people dancing on the streets as he made the announcement.
It is easy to forget that many in Pakistan celebrated his effortless removal of Nawaz Sharif in October 1999. Daily life for most was not dramatically altered by the coup, but the country was passing through one of its darkest periods. Pakistani soldiers had just been forced to make a humiliating retreat from Kargil, in Indian-controlled Kashmir, thanks largely to a covert invasion Musharraf devised that backfired. The country was also facing international isolation for its decision to become a nuclear power. The Commonwealth booted Pakistan from its ranks, and President Clinton largely spurned the country under Musharraf’s stewardship.
During those two years of international isolation, Musharraf appeared to have a golden opportunity to challenge the military and feudal stranglehold on his country. There were no conditional IMF loans to contend with, nor was Pakistan under the intense Western scrutiny it has faced since the September 11 attacks on the United States.
All of that changed after Al Qaeda crashed passenger planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Pervez Musharraf became the darling of the international community on matters of terrorism. It was a deft play by the dictator at a time when the United States was promoting its occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan as attempts to spread democracy. By opening the country’s border with Afghanistan to U.S. forces and its economy to foreign business, he effectively rehabilitated Pakistan from the ostracism it faced following the earlier nuclear weapons tests.
Foreign capital and military aid flowed into Pakistan, and the Bush administration lobbied Congress hard to ensure that U.S. support for his regime was not unduly tied to the usual oversight measures. The parallels with a previous Pakistani dictator fighting a previous war involving Afghanistan were ominously forgotten. Only now is the U.S. establishment querying the efficacy of investing in as unaccountable an entity as the Pakistani army.
But Musharraf was no Zia ul-Haq, the semi-literate, orthodox Muslim who fathered the most dangerous Islamic extremism in the world. Indeed Musharraf was a devoutly secular officer whose political realism had much to do with his training in the old Pakistani army that was modeled on the British Indian officer corp.
Relations with India did improve somewhat, as did the economy and public infrastructure. Musharraf also liberalized the country’s media rules enabling a plethora of private news channels to develop. That will perhaps be his greatest positive legacy. The tragic irony is that these very same private news channels sparked the beginning of his end. When they televised, often live, the brutality with which his regime repressed pro-democracy demonstrations throughout last year Musharraf was compelled to revoke all private broadcasting licenses.
His decision, starting from February 2007, to remove those judges considered a threat to his regime added further fuel to the fires of public disenchantment. Ordinary Pakistanis celebrated Musharraf’s removal of Prime Minister Sharif in 1999 because they were tired of the cronyism that condemned most to unending poverty. Ultimately, the public concluded Musharraf was very much the same.
The reaction to his dismissal of top judges came as a surprise to most observers. The judiciary in Pakistan, as in so many other countries, is not readily associated with activism and justice. But the dismissals demolished the pretence, hitherto carefully stage-managed through rigged elections and constitutional amendments, that he was a benevolent dictator.
A hasty reconciliation with his political rivals, the PPP’s Benazir Bhutto and Asif Zardari and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, led to an equally dramatic, but expected, defeat in the February legislative elections. All of a sudden Musharraf was a mere mortal, not the larger-than-life figure who had personally defied the extremists when he survived several assassination attempts.
Over the past few weeks it became increasingly apparent that the political establishment sacrificed Musharraf to maintain the status quo. The army and key political allies were quick to surmise that supporting Musharraf was no longer politically expedient. The Coalition government never formally impeached Musharraf, but Zardari claimed to have an extensive charge sheet alleging significant embezzlement of U.S. military aid. To the end Musharraf denied the charges.
Washington assisted these efforts in its standard euphemistic manner when it described the impeachment saga as an internal matter for Pakistan to resolve. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was quick to quash rumors that the former general would retire to the States. There is a chance the Saudis will extend him that privilege, much as they did both Nawaz Sharif and Idi Amin.
Discussions raged furiously in Islamabad over the past week as the Army and political parties wrangled over the terms of Musharraf’s exit. By last Thursday, Pakistan’s Independence Day, the army and government had concluded a quiet agreement not to challenge one another. During the official Independence Day celebrations Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani praised Army Chief Ashfaq Kiyani, himself also at the function along with the Army’s top brass, foreign diplomats, and press: “I want to assure you that Army Chief General Kayani is... highly professional and he is pro-democracy.”
President Musharraf opted not to attend. He instead held his own Independence Day celebrations surrounded mainly by family and diehard political supporters. It was a snub largely ignored by the foreign media, but perhaps the symbolism was all too obvious to report. As the post-Musharraf era emerges, the country will still be gripped by the same fundamental vices. Politics will be dominated by two parties and individuals who inspire little popular confidence. Ordinary Pakistanis are desperately poor, and many remain socially or economically under the control of large land and business holders, like Zardari and Sharif, who dominate civilian politics.
Nor will the military’s power change very much. Perhaps the one small consolation is that Musharraf’s resignation is the first time that formal, parliamentary proceedings have unseated a military head of state in Pakistan. He has been as bloodlessly removed as he was self-installed. The predominant fear in Washington is that Pakistan will lose its focus on the “war on terrorism” now that it is controlled not by one man but by numerous, competing centers of power. But even at his height, Musharraf appeared unwilling or incapable of challenging the elements within Pakistan’s army that have been nurturing militancy.
Complicating matters is the fact that the violence is not purely motivated by an extremist agenda. Years of neglect and marginalization of the largely tribal societies along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan have made them resentful and divided. Even now much of the conflict is fueled by regional disputes and rivalries that the Taliban and al-Qaeda have sought to exploit to their advantage. It is too soon to know if Musharraf’s resignation will have a positive impact on the situation but the early signals are not encouraging. This week alone a major suicide attack at an army facility has claimed at least 40 lives while clashes continue throughout the North Western Frontier Province.
Foreign Policy In Focus contributor Mustafa Qadri is a freelance journalist from Australia reporting from Pakistan. His articles can be read on his website.
