Pakistan's crisis and ours
PAKISTAN is suffering through many crises at once. Front and center is a political power struggle that illustrates the continuing tension in Pakistan between democratic structures and a vulnerability to military rule. Simultaneously, the state is confronting violence from Islamist extremists that extends into Islamabad, the capital; clashes in the Pushtun tribal areas between the military and local forces hosting the Afghan Taliban and Al Qaeda; a nationalist rebellion in Baluchistan; the lingering conflict with India over Kashmir; and simmering popular resentment at Musharraf's alliance with the United States.
Because Pakistan has become an indispensable partner in the fight against jihadist terrorism and because it is a nuclear power, Washington cannot be indifferent to the outcome of Pakistan's political and security crises. But the Bush administration must be careful to distinguish immediate concerns about Musharraf's fate from America's long-term interest in a stable democratic Pakistan.
It is true, as Musharraf and his backers like to recall, that the civilian governments of the two exiled former prime ministers, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, were stained by corruption. It is also true that Islamist forces have flourished under military dictatorships.
Under present conditions, open US support for Musharraf only inflames popular indignation against America as a backer of military rule. At the same time, it paints him as the pawn of a superpower that many Pakistanis have come to regard either as a flighty ally or as hostile to Muslims. Justified or not, those views must be taken into consideration as the administration weighs its policy options for a Pakistan in crisis.
Quietly, Washington ought to welcome what Musharraf's lawyer told the Pakistani Supreme Court this week: that the general will relinquish his post as army chief of staff if he wins a presidential election that is to be conducted before Oct. 15 by the current Parliament and provincial assemblies. This gesture is a belated concession to Pakistani legal norms, and it will hardly satisfy critics who say Musharraf is still violating the Constitution by running for a third term. These critics also complain that he disregarded a Supreme Court ruling in his treatment of Sharif, the exiled leader of a major political party. When the former prime minister flew into Islamabad a week ago, Musharraf deported him back to Saudi Arabia.
The more Musharraf bows to the democratic will of the public and to constitutional rules affirmed by an independent judiciary, the better for Pakistan and for long-term US interests. The United States should place itself on the side of democratic legitimacy in Pakistan, not on the side of a general willing to bend the rules to stay in power.
