Saturday, November 10, 2007

Pakistan

General Musharraf of Pakistan is a military dictator who refuses to wear mufti so that he can run for election as a simple civilian. In order to retain his position as Chief of the Army as well as President he has tried to subvert the Pakistani legal system and has declared martial law and suspended the constitution. Friday he had Benazir Bhutto, the populist leader of the Pakistan People's Party, detained temporarily. The excuse was that her life was in danger from suicide bombers, but we all know that, since they already tried to blow her up, killing 130 people, the day she returned to Pakistan. He also expelled another rival opposition leader, Nawaz Sharif, whom he overthrew in a military coup in 1999. This all stinks of anti-democratic maneuvering, although Musharraf insists that he is merely postponing the election for President.
But, on the other hand, Gen. Musharraf is a hero of the war on terrorism, one of the best allies of the USA and of George Bush. After 9/11 when the chips were down, Musharraf read the tea leaves and decided to switch course and cooperate with the US. Since then he has been a staunch ally, and has pursued al Qaeda throughout Pakistan, even in the lawless tribal regions near the Afghani border.
Under his command a new Center for Anti-Terrorism was founded in Pakistan, separate from the suspect Pakistan secret intelligence service known as ISI. This CAT has arrested over 500 al Qaeda suspects, many of them high members of the organization, such as Faraj al Libi, who was third in al Qaeda, and Naim nur Khan, who has a Masters degree in computers and was their head of communications. Both of these terrorists were arrested with computers, lap tops and cell phones, and a great deal of information has been gleaned from their interrogations that has been shared with British and American allies. Both of these terrorists seem to have temporarily disappeared, Pakistan says that they were to be handed over to the US, and the US says it never received them. They were probably candidates for "extraordinary rendition."
Among those they also arrested were Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the killer of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street journalist, whom he trapped, kidnapped and eventually beheaded. They also arrested Kelfand al Ghani who was the mastermind behind two unsuccessful plots to assassinate Musharraf, both of which narrowly missed, but killed others. Ghani was captured in a classic deception when he went to meet a mole who had infiltrated al Qaeda. Musharraf is an ally that the West desperately needs to retain.
So there is a dilemma, support Musharraf because he is a valued ally in the war on terror, or oppose him because he is an anti-democratic military dictator. This was the same dilemma the US faced during the cold war with the USSR.
In confronting this dilemma, while the US and the UN call for Musharraf to return to democratic norms, one must be realistic. Pakistan is a dangerous country, where the support for Islamist extremism runs deep and hatred of the USA is high. The only guarantor of Pakistan as an ally of the West in its struggle with Islamic terrorism is the Pakistan Army, that is large, tough and professional. It will likely follow Musharraf's orders, but if he is replaced in elections, and for example Bhutto was elected in his place, even though she is Westernized, the Army would probably ignore her, and the Islamists would eat her for breakfast.
Then there would likely be a civil war in Pakistan that would almost certainly result in the overthrow of democracy and the installation of an extremist Taliban style Islamic dictatorship.
Is this what we want? Ask yourself what happened when the do-gooders decided that the Shah of Iran was a cruel dictator and shouldn't be supported. Pres. Carter withdrew support for him and allowed Ayatollah Khomeini to take over in Iran, and it was the worst mistake in modern US history. When in a war, it pays to be expedient. We are in a war now, and Musharraf is our ally. Everything else is uncertain.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home