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Does the US pursue a flawed policy toward Pakistan?

Harun ur Rashid
IN May 1991, while campaigning for another shot at the top political job, former prime minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi, was assassinated by a suicide bomber, and there was an international outpouring of grief. Similarly, in recent weeks, the assassination of former prime minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto, brought out deep expressions of anguish and sorrow across the world.
But there is a difference. Rajiv Gandhi's death did not rock the political stability in India, while Bhutto's killing has plunged Pakistan into unprecendented political chaos and instability. The reason for the difference is simple; while one country practises democracy, the other doesnot.
Benazir Bhutto's death in a shooting and suicide bombing stoked fears of political meltdown as the nation struggled to contain Islamic militant violence. Pakistan has never been more important for the US than it is right now, because there is an appre-hension that nuclear-armed Pakistan may eventually fall into the hands of militant Islamists.
The death of Benazir Bhutto not only ruins the delicate diplomatic effort the Bush administration pursued in the past year to have in place a power-sharing government between President Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto, but also reveals an ill-conceived US policy towards Pakistan
President Musharraf became dictatorial over the years with the support of the US, and his greed for power is unbelievable. He had to dismiss the chief justice and about 40 judges of the higher courts on November 3 under the guise of emergency to retain his power.
President Musharrafs political life-line depends not on events in Pakistan but what happens in Afghanistan, where the US-led "war on terrorism" has been continuing since 2001. The more trouble occurs in Afghanistan, the more American support increases for Musharraf. This is a reality that President Musharraf understands very well. He had seen how American ignored Pakistan once Soviet soldiers left Afghanistan in 1989.
Since Musharraf aligned with the US in the war on terrorism, Pakistan received more than $10 billion dollars from the US. With that money, Pakistan's economy got stronger, so also the army's influence in the country. But terrorism has increased within Pakistan. The New York Times recently reported that the Pakistan military had diverted half of this assistance for use against India (Pakistan has leamt from experience that the US does not monitor its assistance).
Similar things happened when General Zia ul Haq came into power through a coup in 1977. He survived politically because of events in Afghanistan when, in 1979, the Soviet
Union occupied the country. The US was hell bent to oust the Soviet Union from strategically located Afghanistan, and General Zia ul Haq was the man to assist the US to wage a Mujeheddin war against the Soviet soldiers by enlisting Islamic militants led by Osama Bin Laden.
At that time, US had been oblivious of the fact under President Haq's regime (1979-1988), Pakistan had tilted towards an Islamist country with Shariah courts and enactment of controversial laws for women that enhanced gender inequality. It was this regime that gave roots to Talebans in Pakistan.
The US made the same mistake in the '50s, when it supported "the wrong horse” in Iran, the Shah, instead of Dr. Mossadegh who attempted to restore democracy in Iran in 1953. The consequences have resulted in the development of current confrontational relations between the US and Iran, that have injected volatility in tlie region.
Why did the US policy fail? The US bombed Afghanistan, routed some camps, chased bin Laden to the border with Pakistan, then moved on to Iraq - the wrong war against the wrong enemy -- leaving the nourishment flowing from Islamabad to the extremists.
Bhutto's advice after 9/11 to the US was straightforward, and not followed. "Islamabad," she said, "is the jugular vein of Kabul. Clean up Islamabad and the Afghan (al-
Qa'ida) camps start falling like dominoes."
Instead, the US looked to Pervez Musharraf and accepted at face value his strongman guarantees that he would crack down on extremism. After eight years of Musharrafs rule, terrorism has increased in Pakistan, and democratic norms, such as free media, independence of judiciary and independent state institutions, have disappeared totally.
During Musharraf s rule, the US ignored the fact that Jamaat ul Islam (JUT), and other Islamist parties had formed an alliance (MMA) and increased their influence in the 2002 election and ruled two out of four provinces, including Balochistan. Some say Musharraf allowed Islamist militant groups flourish within Pakistan-Afghanistan border areas.
The Bush administration continued to ignore other political players in Pakistan to restore stability and democratic rule in the country, until last year. Nawaz Sharif, a former prime minister was believed to have fallen foul with the US administration because he was perceived as an Islamist
The Bush administration conveniently forgot that in 1999 Sharif cooperated with the US in defusing tension in Kashmir, in what was known as "Kargill war." This infuriated the army in Pakistan and the result according to many analysts of South Asia, was the coup in October 1999 by the army chiefMusharraf.
The US administration does not
appear to realise that, in developing countries, especially in South Asia, political parties are much more about strong, powerful individuals, or individuals with powerful family’s name, than about the parties themselves. Nawaz Sharif will continue to be an important political player in Pakistan because his family has extensive business in the Punjab, the largest province in Pakistan, where 60% of its population lives. For the US to have ignored Sharif appears to be a political blunder in Pakistan.
The Bush administration appears to have disregarded the fact that there is a substantial, moderate middle class that is important force for progress, and the backbone of democracy in Pakistan. They have been agitating against Musharrafs dictatatorial rule for a long time.
The Bush administration did not take any interest in the chief of the lawyers' movement, and a forceful critic of Musharraf s government, Cambridge-educated and articulate lawyer, Aitzaz Ahsan, who was jailed on November 3 after the emergency was declared. He was the lawyer for the dismissed Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry at the Supreme Court
The anti-Musharraf movement is not only a courageous movement but also signal to the US that Musharraf is deeply unpopular and the US should not back him. By totally backing Musharraf, the US has become unpopular with the middle class and civil society in Pakistan The US has failed to sense that public opinion is moving against Musharraf.
The US has failed to realise that Pakistan under Pervez Musharraf suffers a political void and is. at the same time, the emergent centre of Islamist fundamentalism globally. When terrorist acts happened in Madrid or London, they were linked to Pakistan. Some US analysts belive that the centre of gravity of Islamist
fundamentalism is shifting from the Arab world to Pakistan.
In a report on Bhutto's assassination, the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, a research think-tank, called upon the Bush administration to recognise Musharraf as a "serious liability, seen as complicit in the death of a popular politician" Bhutto, although President .Musharraf, on January 4th in a 90-minute meeting with foreign correspondents in Islamabad, strongly rejected assertions that he had'blood on his hands' over Benazir Bhutto's assassination, and denied that the country's powerful military and intelligence agencies were behind the murder
Pakistan has become a dangerous and violent country under eight years rule of President Musharraf. Miliary coups, ngged elections, and bitter political battles have impeded stabilisation of the country. Weak or failed states are the source of many of the world's most serious problems, from poverty to drugs to terrorism. Pakistan's turmoil has injected uncertainty and tension in South Asia.
Foreign policy analysts say that if there is one thing that Butto’s assassination has made clear, it is the inability of the Bush administration to influence internal political affairs in Pakistan towards democracy and stability. The Bush administration's approach towards Pakistan lacks credibility, purpose and competence.
Deficit in genuine democracy is the root of all political problems in Pakistan. Mere resurgent economy cannot replace the urge for freedom and liberty of human beings. US President Woodraw Wilson once said: "The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty." These words hold true for Pakistan today.
Bamster Harun ur Rashid is former Bangladesh Ambassador to the UN. Geneva