Page 2 of
2 The Sharif factor comes into
play By M K Bhadrakumar
best for Pakistan's political
stability. The military has successfully thwarted
Washington from imposing Bhutto on the regime. An
IJI-type ruling alliance would serve the military
perfectly well at this juncture.
Regional implications The
regional and international implications are going
to be far-reaching. If the US strategy, under the
garb of creating a "truly
democratic" regime in
Pakistan, was to create a troika in Islamabad that
would be amenable to its manipulation, things
haven't quite worked as expected. Pakistan's army
will remain the dominant force in the country's
national life. But the US would have to continue
to renegotiate Pakistan's cooperation for the "war
on terror".
The new army chief shares
Musharraf's basic outlook and, more important,
shares Musharraf's limitations in partnering with
the US against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
Washington cannot afford to damage its equations
with the Pakistani military by threatening to cut
off aid. Don't even threaten violation of
Pakistan's territorial integrity by US Special
Forces. The US would do well not to push the
military unwillingly into clashes with their own
tribesmen, either.
The US will be
compelled to factor in with greater sensitivity
the Pakistani military's adversarial stance with
regard to India, which also includes its
widespread resentment about the inconstancy of
American friendship and, more recently, the
perceived US tilt toward India as its preferred
strategic partner in the region. At some point,
Washington might well be compelled to review its
refusal to enter into nuclear cooperation with
Pakistan on the pattern of its proposed deal with
India.
India on guard Any
diminution of Washington's ability to influence
Pakistan's Kashmir policy or its covert
trans-border activities aimed at bleeding India
would cause uneasiness in Delhi. In recent years,
Delhi drew comfort imagining Washington
effectively kept the Musharraf regime in check
from raising tensions with India. There is even a
body of opinion among security analysts in Delhi
that continued, open-ended American military
presence in Afghanistan is a good thing as it
makes Musharraf more forthcoming in dealing with
India. To them, the "war on terror" in Afghanistan
is of importance as the Americans shackle the
Pakistani military.
Delhi would also take
note that for the first time, a former chief of
the ISI, the agency that calibrates tensions with
India, has risen to the top of the military. Kiani
has had extensive experience in dealing with India
in various capacities - as director general of
military operations during the standoff with its
neighbor following the December 2001 terrorist
attack on the Parliament in New Delhi, as general
officer commanding the Pakistani army's 12
divisions based in Muzaffarabad, which is the
staging ground for the insurgency in Jammu and
Kashmir, and as ISI chief.
The Taliban
will gain To be sure, the hardening of the
power structure in Islamabad is taking place at a
time when some sort of a power-sharing arrangement
with the Taliban is on the cards in Afghanistan.
One could disregard the international
policy think-tank Senlis Council's latest
assessment that the Taliban have a permanent
presence in 54% of Afghanistan, controlling "vast
swaths of unchallenged territory, including rural
ones, some district centers, and important road
arteries"; or its assertion that the insurgency is
exercising "a significant amount of psychological
control, gaining more and more political
legitimacy in the minds of the Afghan people".
Even then, it is difficult to quarrel with the
assertion by the reputed London-based group that
"the question now appears to be not if the Taliban
will return to Kabul, but when ... and in what
form. The oft-stated aim of reaching the city in
2008 appears more viable than ever."
Therefore, if a democratically elected
IJI-type representative government assumes power
in Islamabad at the present juncture, that would
work greatly in the Taliban's favor. Such a
government would include political leaders who
have had extensive dealings with the Taliban in
the 1990s. Equally, such a government might not
see eye-to-eye with the US's way of conducting the
"war on terror" in Afghanistan or with the overall
American approach that "there is almost no problem
across the region that can't be resolved by
bombing" (to quote a British commentator).
The shift in Islamabad may prove
particularly crucial at a time when there are
signs that President Hamid Karzai himself might be
beginning to wonder in his own way if there could
be an Afghan solution to the war. Karzai must
surely begin to weigh the high probability that
the next government in Islamabad would be rooted
in Islamic nationalism. The US (or the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization) would lack the
capacity to block any political accommodation that
such a representative civilian government in
Islamabad might seek with the Taliban, be it at
the local or at the national level. In sum, the
political developments in Islamabad in the coming
weeks could well accelerate the return of the
Taliban to Kabul. Karzai would be sensing that
already.
Saudi motivation
Conceivably, Saudi Arabia's insistence on
Sharif's return was at least partly motivated by
its skepticism over the efficacy of the democracy
project choreographed by the George W Bush
administration for Pakistan. The Saudis, with
their prodigious memory, would recollect what
another democracy project by the Jimmy Carter
administration led to in neighboring Iran - the
Islamic revolution of 1979.
Besides, Saudi
Arabia feels disillusioned by the bloody mess that
the Bush administration's "war on terror" has
created in the region. The criticality of the
Afghan situation is worrisome as Saudi
national-security concerns are directly affected.
Riyadh estimates that the time may have come to
seek an Islamic solution to the crisis. (Turkey's
Islamist President Abdullah Gul will be arriving
in Islamabad on Tuesday within a few weeks of
Saudi King Abdullah's visit to Ankara.)
Saudi influence will be predominant on any
IJI-type government in Islamabad. The Saudi
calculation would be to work toward a political
accommodation of the Taliban as a step in the
direction of isolating the radical elements, which
have gained ascendancy in the Afghanistan-Pakistan
border regions.
US must rethink
strategy In sum, the Bush administration's
ill-conceived scheme to bring about a transitional
partnership between the Pakistani military and the
"political center" has floundered. The US pursued
its partnership project even when it became
apparent that the military wouldn't cohabit with
Bhutto. The result was a near impasse.
The
Saudis stepped in at that point and a new
transition strategy attuned to Pakistani realities
has begun to unfold. Much as the Pakistani
military understands the strategic imperative of
keeping a working relationship with the US and
realizes that anything else would be catastrophic
for Pakistan's interests, it is also incumbent on
Washington to reconcile that there are limits
beyond which it cannot push the general
headquarters in Rawalpindi.
Equally,
Washington must accept that Islamic nationalism is
a permanent feature of Pakistani national life.
The West cannot impose its clones on Pakistan's
democratic life. There is a high probability that
Nawaz Sharif may turn out to be the future of
Pakistan.
Indeed, there were past
occasions when Washington was much less than fair
in its attitude toward Sharif. Washington's
weakness for Bhutto is legion. Alright, Sharif's
entire university education might have been
restricted to Lahore and he might not be
networking with highflying think-tankers in
Washington; he might not have shared his
toothbrush with Peter Galbraith or wasn't on
first-name terms with Zalmay Khalilzad, the
high-profile US ambassador.
Sharif might
not have thought it important enough to hire
talented public relations firms to burnish his
"image" in the US media. But, even then, the Bush
administration should not remain sulking that
Sharif wasn't its choice for leading Pakistan's
democratic transition. Life must move on. Besides,
it is the Pakistani people's choice that should
matter.
Robert Oakley, who served in the
Ronald Reagan administration as the National
Security Council's Pakistan hand during the Afghan
jihad in the 1980s and subsequently served as
ambassador in Islamabad, wrote that Washington
must prepare to come to terms with Sharif's
leadership of Pakistan. "He [Sharif] commands a
strong following and, most important, has
traditionally been strongly supported by the
Pakistani military and intelligence services,"
Oakley concluded.
Oakley suggested that
Washington should facilitate discussions between
the military and civilian leaders on appointing a
senior civilian to serve as interim president,
replacing Musharraf. "An interim president could
then prepare for truly free and fair elections and
a return to the rule of law." In essence, he
advocates an alibi for Washington to reconcile
with Sharif. But unfortunately, that would also be
an alibi for continued American intervention in
Pakistan's internal affairs.
M K
Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the
Indian Foreign Service for over 29 years, with
postings including India's ambassador to
Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001).
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