Pakistan's political hurricane
PAKISTAN AND its president, Pervez Musharraf, are passing through turbulence. The causes may be traced to clashes between religious extremists and civil society; conflicts with autonomous regions or with Afghanistan and India; and Musharraf's autocratic style of governing. But if policy makers in the Bush administration have learned anything from their past blunders, they will refrain from imposing their own parochial policy ideas upon countries about which they are egregiously ignorant.
The need for humility is particularly acute in Pakistan's case, and not only because intelligence specialists believe Osama bin Laden and Taliban fighters enjoy safe havens in the frontier provinces of Pakistan. Any American impulse to lecture Pakistanis -- or Musharraf in particular -- about democratization or counter terrorism must be tempered by a recognition that Pakistan is a nuclear weapons state.
Pakistan is a tinderbox, and Washington must not make wishful assumptions about it. Under previous civilian governments, and with obvious military complicity, the nuclear engineer A.Q. Khan perpetrated the most dangerous acts of proliferation. If the wrong forces come to power in Pakistan, President Bush's misreadings of Iraq, Iran, Syria, North Korea, and last summer's war in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah may seem minor mistakes by comparison.
Musharraf has provoked anger in several quarters: from lawyers appalled at his suspension of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry; from tribal members in Baluchistan furious at the army's killing of a revered leader; from some tribal leaders who resent a regional warlord who killed hundreds of pro-Taliban Uzbek militants with backing from the Pakistani military; and from moderate Muslims who worry that nothing has been done to punish Islamist radicals who recently kidnapped an alleged brothel owner and destroyed music and video stores in Islamabad.
Ideally, Musharraf would enlarge his base of support and choose between his roles of army chief and head of state. He could acquire greater legitimacy and reduce his reliance on extremists if he formed an electoral partnership with former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, with whom he has conducted on-again, off-again talks. With her help, Musharraf could seek re election by national and local legislators after fresh elections rather than choosing the less democratic option of asking the current legislatures to renew his presidential mandate.
But these are matters for Pakistanis to decide, without lectures from an administration that has been no more competent at promoting democratic change abroad than at coping with the aftermath of a hurricane.
