TITLE OF THE ARTICLE:-         SITUATION IN PAKISTAN AND ITS IMPLICATIONS  10/4/1998
By Kazi Anwarul Masud, (a career diplomat who served as Bangladesh ambassador to Germany, Vietnam, Republic of Korea and Thailand. During his over three decades of diplomatic career he served in Europe, Middle East, Far East and South and South East Asia. Since his retirement from active diplomatic service he has authored two books­ISSUES OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICS and BANGLADESH CRISIS. A widely traveled person Mr. Masud is married and has two children).

INTRODUCTION

The dramatic events recently witnessed in Pakistan were not unexpected yet the virulence and the counterproductive moves by the Musharraf government were surprising. Beside the US, the events are disturbing to Pakistan’s neighbors who want a stable Pakistan and a peaceful region to bring success to the socio-economic plans of the SAARC region. Turbulence in Pakistan, naturally, would slowdown the process. Presumably the state of emergency was imposed due to judicial activism that was considered as impinging upon the authority of the executive and also impairing the fight against the growing militancy in the northern areas of the country. Stephen Cohen, perhaps the most preeminent analyst the US has on South Asia has described “Musharraf’s recent coup against his own government­and the coup was what it was­was in good part a result of American pressure on him to hold free and fair elections as well as actions of the supreme court that suddenly began to challenge the military’s dominant position and a dramatic increase in terrorist violence against the Pakistani military itself”. Political theorists could describe the moves as aotogolpe or self-inflicted Presidential coup d’état that the world had seen in Peru, Guatemala, Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus. The task of democratic theorists, writes scholars from Canadian Carleton University, from Thomas Hobbes to Rousseau to Jorgen Habermas and John Rawls has been to show how political freedom achieved by the reconciliation of consent and obligation among citizens of a polity through the institutions and practices of democratic rule. Incidents in Pakistan­if political turbulence can be termed as such­go against the grains of minimalist theory of democracy i.e. electoral democracy and certainly against the maximalist versions that would include both deliberative and liberal democracy.
HISTORY OF MILITARY RULE

One can take comfort in the fact that for most of the political life of independent Pakistan since 1947 the country has been ruled either directly or indirectly by the military. But such an argument would be facile when in the twenty first century the global leaders have banded together to provide a definition of sovereignty that is significantly different from the one the world has been accustomed to since the Treaty of Westphalia and written down in the UN charter that was described by John Foster Dulles as a pre-atomic document. Sovereignty can now be enjoyed by ensuring the fundamental rights of the citizens and cannot be dictated by Stephen Cohen’s description of Pakistani rulers as “moderate oligarchy” consisting of chosen elites from the military, industrialists, bureaucrats, and judiciary. The diktats handed down by the oligarchs may have given some infrastructural developments to its economy but as Cohen told the US foreign relations committee in July last year “in recent years virtually all segments of Pakistani opinion have turned anti-American. President Musharraf has not moved towards restoring real democracy, Pakistan has been the worst proliferator of advanced nuclear and missile technology, and the country continues to harbor­partially involuntarily­extremists and terrorists whose dedicated mission is to attack the United States and Pakistan’s neighbors”.
DETERMINANTS OF DOMESTIC POLICY

Unfortunately Pakistan’s domestic politics remains shaped by its security and foreign policy concerns. Despite the liberation of Bangladesh that threw cold water on the two nation theory i.e. Hindus and Muslims cannot coexist as one entity Pakistan continues to be driven by a pathological fear of being attacked by a Hindu India notwithstanding Indian reassurance time and again that such a thing will not come to pass, and should it be so as a segment of Indian society may still harbor the dream of akhand bharat, given Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal it would amount to committing hara-kiri by India. Besides, in the twenty first century, barring driving out the Taliban’s from Afghanistan with the approval of the UNSC and regime change in Iraq at considerable political and economic cost to the US, physical conquest of territories even by interventionists with firm belief in the responsibility to prevent and the responsibility to protect is a far cry in real politic. However much the Indian menace is trumpeted it is Pakistan’s fractured polity that has brought the military to forefront of governance again and again. Very recently a scholar from Brookings institution concluded that at the moment there was virtually no support for a massive operation against Taliban sympathizers in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. The Pushtuns­an overwhelming majority in NWFP – view any military action against their ethnic kin as solely a function of the American influence rather than an internal security necessity. It is also believed that some members of Pakistani army and its intelligence wing still maintain ties with militant groups, including Taliban’s, as a hedge against abandonment by the US. How else would one explain the red mosque episode in the middle of the capital so soon after the judiciary crisis triggered by President Musharraf’s first sacking of Chief Justice Ifthikar Ahmed Choudhury and so close to the intelligence headquarters? The incident demonstrates incompetence of the Musharraf government and/or deliberate attempt to divert public attention from more pressing issues.
Some people believe that military is a fact of life in Pakistan and there can be no durable government without its backing. Apparently Benazir Bhutto believed that power sharing with the military was the only way to bring back civilian rule in the country. But the declaration of emergency, though modified by governmental assurances that elections would be held, was reassurance. Besides the military’s coherence was being questioned. Eighteen per cent of the Pakistan army is of Pushtun origin coupled with the dislike of Punjabi domination by the three provinces and FATA like the dislike of Serbia by the constituent units of pre-breakup Yugoslavia. Ultimately complete civilian rule with the total consent of the people along with devolution of power may bring back Pakistan to an even keel. A disturbed Pakistan will not serve the interest of peace and tranquility in the region and beyond.
The crisis revolving lal masjid in Islamabad though insignificant militarily because the militant leaders Aziz and ghazi were “traditional clerics and not jihadist” brings anew the question of Islamic extremism in Pakistan.  Musharraf’s Religious affairs minister Ejajul Huq described the militants as being “far more dangerous and harmful than al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives” while President Musharraf claimed that the militants belonged to Jaish-e-Mohammed and al-Qaeda. Musharraf himself was a target of assassination attempt when the aircraft carrying him was fired upon (the attempt was described by Delhi-based South Asia intelligence review as at best ludicrous, with no significant danger to the President at any time) and his regime continues to face challenge, the latest being the London meeting of all parties conference that accused   Musharraf regime of bringing  “Pakistan to the edge of a precipice, leading to strife, chaos and the threat of disintegration”.

Daniel Markey (of the council of foreign relations) in an article (foreign affairs- July/August 2007) suggested that the choice facing the US “between supporting Pakistan’s army and promoting democracy has always been a false one. Both are necessary. Only by helping to empower civilians and earning the trust of the army at the same time will the united states successfully prosecute the long war against extremism and militancy”. It has been argued in favor of Daniel Markey’s premises that societies like that of Pakistan burdened with the attributes of   tribalism   preclude fairness and justice to the people. Added to this feudalistic character of the society is the constant fear of Hindu India overrunning smaller (but nuclear) Pakistan.   It has been suggested that the Pakistan army and ISI’s retention of ties with the militants and Taliban sympathizers have been done as a hedge against abandonment by the US in case of an indo-pack conflict.  Besides given the Pakistan army and ISI’s long standing relationship with the Islamists they were never serious about fighting terrorists. Despite common belief that the Taliban’s are still present in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and that Osama bin laden and Ayman al-Zwahiri are living in the Afghanistan Pakistan border region, some South Asian experts advise that the US administration should broaden its relations with the army as a constant in the power politics of Pakistan and even if a civilian government were to come to power it will have to negotiate its perilous relationship with the army. Ayesha Siddiqa writes in her book Military Inc. That “the military’s power allows it to define its economic interests and exploit public and private resources, a behavior that increases the organization’s appetite for power”. Siddiqa’s contention is strengthened by the belief that Pakistan military will not accept any dilution of power, however tainted some elements of the army remain of Islamism extremism and jihadist ideology.  The future of Pakistan would be better served by a choice between the military and the democrats and not the military and the mullahs as constantly propagated by the vested quarters.
French political analyst Frederic Grare has debunked the fear of the west, particularly of the us, that an overthrow of Pakistani President Parvez Musharraf, his replacement by an Islamist regime and consequent control of nuclear weapons as “myth of an Islamic threat” deliberately propagated by the Pakistan army to continue its stranglehold on Pakistani state power. He argues that an Islamist threat is neither great nor autonomous as it is not thought to be nor the Islamist has no possibility of capturing power through free and fair elections. Historically the Islamic political parties got between 5-8% of popular votes except in 2002 elections when they garnered about twelve percent votes by forming an alliance with other Islamic parties called muttahida majlis amal (MMA) and formed government in NWFP and Baluchistan. This has been possible mainly because of the support of the army that has remained the most dominant and coherent force in Pakistan since the inception of the country. Ironically the founder of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, was an “Westernized Muslim with Victorian manners and a secular outlook” whose promise for a liberal and secular polity, albeit in total contradistinction of his two nation theory claiming that the Hindus and the Muslims could never live together, was rejected by the Pakistan army almost immediately after independence of the country from British rule.  One should recall that MMA emerged from the Pak-Afghan defense council, a coalition of 26 Islamic organizations established in december2000 to protest the decision of the UN to withdraw from Taliban dominated Afghanistan. The council fell apart after the fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. In January 20002 six of the parties, namely jamiat ulema-i-islam fazlur faction, jamiat ulemai samiul huq faction, jamiat ulemai Pakistan, the jamiat islami , jamiat-ul- hadith and tehrik e islami formed MMA to fight the elections in December 2002. The elections were held the clear understanding that power would not be transferred to the civilians because the legal framework order (LFO) that was issued before the elections clearly provided that the President would have the power to dissolve the national assembly.  The apparent rise of the Islamists in the elections gave a false impression to the international community of the rise of Islamic extremism that only the army as a cohesive force in the country could keep in check. Besides the generals’ conviction that army rule was necessary to thwart Indian domination led to successive military coups subordinating all state institutions including the judiciary which had to sanctify abrogation of successive constitutions by enunciating the “doctrine of necessity”.
Return of Benazir

It is not clear yet how far Benazir Bhutto’s return to Pakistan could have affected President Musharraf as his credibility   has been going down in the eyes of the Pakistanis. His recent re-election to the presidency while still retaining the post of army chief that was being contested in the Pakistani supreme court would detract legitimacy regardless of the judgment because of his election by the pro-Musharraf legislators whose term of office was going to end in the very near future and also his promise that he would quit his army post before seeking re-election had not been kept. But then Benazir Bhutto’s proposed alliance with the military was a recognition of the fact that ever since the birth of Pakistan army has effectively ruled the country and remains, in the words of Daniel Markey (foreign affairs-July/August 2007) “Pakistan’s strongest government institution and the only one that can possibly deal with immediate threats of violence and militancy… the real problem with pushing for a rapid democratic transition is that genuine civilian democracy in Pakistan is an unrealistic aspiration in the near term”. Markey’s observation had been given a macabre touch of reality by the bomb attack on Ms Bhutto’s arrival motorcade in which more than one hundred people were killed. Though Benazir herself had escaped death the violent incident reflected the fact that violence remains an integral part of politics in Pakistan and that her popularity triggered the incident by those who felt her presence would marginalize their influence in Pakistani politics. Benazir herself in an interview with wolf Blitzer of CNN only a few days back before her return to Pakistan spoke of threat against her life and of the distinct possibility of violence. In order to understand the violent opposition to her return one must recognize the existential gender inequality in Pakistani society that is basically patrimonial and patrilineal. Besides Islamist governments who follow strict Islamic laws in regulating the day-to-day life of the people rule two of the four provinces of Pakistan. In a country where “honor” killing (killing of women for allegedly bringing dishonor to the family) go unpunished and girls are married off at a very young age the very idea of acceptance of a female prime minister in the country is very difficult to accept despite the fact that Benazir Bhutto was twice elected to that position of power. According to Frederic Grare “the unacceptability of Benazir Bhutto and her husband asif zardari to the military is well known”. In Pakistani society as in many underdeveloped societies in Asia and Africa violence against women is pervasive and often practiced in the name of religion. In politics though South Asia has had female prime ministers in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka acceptance of females in politics as elsewhere is not easy. They are usually regarded as “property” of the male gender in the sense that father rules her destiny before marriage, husband after marriage, and her own children in her old age. That the situation is changing for the better is not debatable. But these societies have miles to go to ensure gender equality and to bring about general awareness about violence against women. It may be fallacious to conclude that the violence triggered by Benazir’s return was only because she was a woman.
EMERGING IDEOLOGICAL DIVIDE
The recent events show the emergence of an ideological divide in Pakistani politics. The close coordination between the mullahs and the military that has been the hall mark of Pakistani politics since the days of General Ziaul Huq in ruling the country may be experiencing underground fracture. It is possible that the mullahs through violence are trying to impress upon the military that they should not be regarded as to be easily expendable.
The crisis in Pakistan had further deepened with the demand of Benazir Bhutto for President Musharraf to step down from his office, her threat not to participate in the January 2008 elections, and her internment. 
President Bush’s positive attitude regarding the unfolding drama in Pakistan and reported us plans to prevent Pakistan’s nuclear weapons from falling into wrong hands coupled with us democratic lawmakers’ concern about President Musharraf’s orders to law enforcing agencies to quell opposition movement and their conclusion that “it is increasingly clear that the administration’s policy has served neither the needs or the people of Pakistan nor security interest of our country” is worrying developments in South Asia.
IMPLICATIONS FOR NEIGHBORING STATES
It would be dangerous for the subcontinent if the events in Pakistan were to lead it to state failure because the first victims of such a situation are inevitably the immediate neighbors. The world is witnessing the pressure now being borne by Chad, itself a poor country, because of the refugees streaming from Darfur to escape the genocide that is going on the area. Rwanda and Srebrenica aside the situation in Ivory Coast, DR Congo, Liberia and Somalia should be lessons enough for the fast developing globalized world of the features of weak or failed states, defined by William Olsen, as those facing serious “internal problems that threaten their continued coherence” or “significant internal challenges to their political order”. Former British foreign secretary jack straw termed a failed state as one when (a) it unable to control its territory and guarantee security to its citizens; (b) to maintain rule of law, promote human rights, and provide effective governance; and (c) to deliver public goods to the people in the shape of education, health, economic growth etc.) Parts of the picturesque state of swat has gone under the control of the forces of mauling fibula, a firebrand Taliban sympathizer and his people have hoisted their known flags atop government buildings in defiance of the central government in Islamabad. A Western journalist working in Pakistan has written a horrifying account of beheading of “criminals, drug pushers bootleggers, and extortionists” executed for running “dens of inequity” amidst public applause that “the Taliban’s have done the job that the enlightened moderates refused to do. May Allah provide us with leaders like mullah Omar”. The applauding crowd, according to the journalist, was not Afghan or mujahedeen’s but “young men from Pakistani seminary and school students as well as jobless tribesmen” calling themselves Pakistani Taliban’s who constitute the de facto political leaders in north and South Waziristan. Pakistan today is paying the price of myopic us-Pakistani policy of building up of the Taliban’s with men, money and materials to fight the soviet invaders in Afghanistan who even after the expulsion of the Taliban rulers from Afghanistan still remain a formidable force being allied with al-Qaeda and Islamists from central Asia and Chechnya in the federally administered tribal area (fata) described by deputy secretary of state John Negroponte as the secure hideout from which “al-Qaeda radiates to its affiliates in the middle east, north Africa and Europe”. In this matrix one must also recognize the aspiration of some for an independent Pashtunistan consisting of fata, and the Pashtun areas of Afghanistan and NWFP and parts of Baluchistan. Whether such irredentist aspirations are to be taken seriously the fact remains that Pakistani nationalism based only on religion has failed since 1947 to forge a strong nationalistic fervor cutting across tribal, ethnic and linguistic barriers dividing the country into many regions. It is said that Punjabi language and not Urdu is the state language of Pakistan. Understandably veteran journalist Robert Kaplan as a Yugoslavia in the making and he sees the fight over Kashmir as obscuring “the core issue in South Asia: the institutional meltdown in Pakistan. And as was true of Yugoslavia, it is the bewildering complexity of ethnic and religious divisions that makes Pakistan so fragile’. The constitution of a country by different ethnic and linguistic groups do not necessarily give rise to “identity politics” based on group interest seen as superior to the interest that would serve the greater interest of the people as a whole. As it is Pakistan is bedeviled by religious sectarian conflict. The Sunnis are divided into two groups­one following Deobandi School and the other Barelvi school of thought. Deobandis are anti-Shia and want the Shias to be declared as infidels and demand constitutional amendment to that effect. The ethnic-religious divide among the people has been taken full advantage of by Pakistani military by promoting Islamism political parties in order to marginalize moderate political forces. The six-party combine of Muttahida Mulish-e-Amal has been the main beneficiary and whose crucial support enabled the passing of the seventeenth amendment to the constitution enabling an indirectly elected President who “represents the unity of the republic” giving him power an elected prime minister and national parliament, to dismiss provincial government’s and legislatures, and to appoint service chiefs and governors. The immediate causes of the unstable situation in Pakistan are declaration of the emergency against international advice, the sacking of chief justice ifthikar ahmed choudhury (now number of the judges are gone due their refusal to take oath under provisional constitutional order), and President Musharraf’s reneging on his reported understanding with Benazir Bhutto for power sharing. Benazir has ruled out talks with Musharraf and has threatened to boycott the coming elections accusing him of suspending emergency, suspending constitution, and oppressing judiciary.  Since the terrorist attacks of 9/11 the Western interest in Pakistan continues to remain as a bulwark against Islamic extremism and consequently President Bush’s advice to Musharraf to hold elections soonest possible and lift the state of emergency. While leading South Asian analyst Stephen Cohen considers Pakistan as “a case study of negatives­a state seemingly incapable of establishing normal political system, supporting radical Islamic Taliban, and mounting jihadi operations into India while its own economic and political systems were collapsing and internal religious and ethnic based violence were rising dramatically” (the nation and state of Pakistan) Hussein Haqqani (of Carnegie foundation) sees Pakistan’s weakness being embedded in disproportionate focus on ideology, military capability and external alliance since the country’s inception in 1947and Ashley Tellis ( also of Carnegie foundation) considers “Pakistan is clearly both part of the problem and the solution to the threat of  terrorism facing the united states”.
It is believed that a marriage of sort be solemnized between the army and the moderate political elements as soon as possible to pave the way to complete civilianization of political authority in Pakistan. Sooner the dichotomy between Pakistan­the state­that is for the Pakistanis to decide and Pakistan­the nation –as giving sanctuary to aggrieved Muslims in the outside world be solved once for all. Pakistan cannot play the role of mother to Muslims elsewhere and must control its jihadist and extremist Islamists regardless of their political importance domestically. The Americans should heed Leon Haader’s (of Cato institute) warning to Washington to view Pakistan “as a reluctant supporter of us goals at best and as a potential long term problem at worst”. In the ultimate analysis condemnation of Pakistan’s present political course being followed would be counterproductive and all should help Pakistan so that peace and security of the region and the world are not put in jeopardy.
IS PAKISTAN A DEPENDABLE ALLY?
Frankly, barring few exception (e.g. India) one could argue that countries like Pakistan where literacy rate in barely 30-50%, education reform is in shambles, banned sectarian and jihadi groups supported by a network of mosques and madrasas operate openly primarily due to the military government’s dependence on the Islamist political parties combine with consequent increased influence of al-Qaeda followers liberal democracy further adding to the attributes of electoral democracy can not be successfully practiced. It is not enough that contestation to fill political offices are ex ante uncertain, post-facto irreversible, and that elections are repeatable. It is necessary for democracy to be successful political equilibrium must exist in the society and “social coordination” in the form of freedom of speech and assembly is guaranteed so that aspirants for political power are able to get to the electorate with their vision and the electorate have a choice to make. If one were to accept preeminent South Asian analyst Stephen Cohen’s assertion that Pakistan is being ruled by a “moderate oligarchy” defined as “an informal political system that (ties) together the senior ranks of the military, the civil service, key members of the judiciary, and other elites” with an inerrant belief that India must be countered at every turn, that nuclear weapons have endowed Pakistan with security and prestige, and that fight for Kashmir can only end with its becoming a part of Pakistan, then politics in Pakistan takes a shape different from other countries. In this case Francis Fukuyama’s prescription that democracy needs a certain level of economic development for the stake holders to oppose any interruption of democratic process, neighborhood effect i.e. flourishing democracy in neighboring countries would inspire people to emulate them, culture for democracy (that sadly has been lacking in the case of Pakistan), and an inner craving for democracy would not apply in the case of Pakistan regardless of the presence or absence of Benazir Bhutto. Given the fate of enquiry commissions established by authorities in this part of the world results of investigation into the carnage of Benazir Bhutto’s motorcade would be suspect. Some analysts believe that a section of Pakistan army and its intelligence apparatus retain ties to militant groups including Taliban sympathizers that they had developed during Ziaul HuQ’s regime. These elements would have no favor with mascara - Bhutto entente and logically would like to disrupt such an “unholy” alliance.
Evidently there is a contradiction between us’ priority to fight terrorism and Pakistan labeled as front line in the war on terror having an ambivalent attitude towards the Islamists. One should not forget that but for the support of President Musharraf’s political party (pml-quaid-e-azam) the muttahida majlis-a-amal (MMA), a conglomerate of Islamism political parties, would not have secured double-digit vote in the last election. The Islamists’ political hold in NWFP and Baluchistan were furthered by the active cooperation of the army and ISI and the ideological leaning of the people of that area   in support of Islamic orthodoxy has been translated into anti-Americanism. During the summer of 2006 US-NATO offensive “ a considerable number of militants had been able to find sanctuary in Pakistan, that prominent Afghan Taliban leaders were managing to plan operations from Pakistan and that Pakistan border units lacked the will or the capacity to cut off cross-border infiltration”.

 Veteran journalist Robert Kaplan sees Pakistan as an Yugoslavia in the making albeit with nuclear weapons and that Afghanistan situation, Osama bin laden, and the fighting in Kashmir “obscures the core issue in South Asia: the institutional meltdown in Pakistan. And as was true of Yugoslavia, it is the bewildering complexity of ethnic and religious divisions that makes Pakistan so fragile”. Leading us analyst on South Asia Stephen Cohen is so disenchanted with President Musharraf that he compares him with General Yahiya khan and is skeptical if the idea of Pakistan as a state can work. The most immediate reason of muddled the political situation was caused the sacking by President Musharraf of chief justice ethical chowdhury who has now become the symbol of opposition to the government. According to Brussels based international crisis group in all 67 of the 97 judges of the Pakistani superior courts have been removed after they refused to swear allegiance to the illegal martial regime. Refusing to accept the legitimacy of the martial law government appointed new judges the Pakistan bar council and the supreme court bar association have asked all lawyers to boycott all courts presided over by these newly appointed judges who have taken oath under the PCO.  Pakistan’s judiciary was never effectively independent. In Pakistan the dream of its founder Mohammed ali Jinnah, “an impeccably dressed Westernized Muslim with Victorian manners and secular outlook”, was shattered by an increasingly authoritarian and theocratic establishment that Stephen Cohen calls “moderate oligarchy” – an informal political system that ties together the military, the civil service, some chosen members of the judiciary, and the economic elite who lacking legitimacy in the support of the people opted for Islam as an instrument of policy.  Bush administration cannot be unaware of the Islamization of Pakistani poor and middle class through the large number of madras as that regularly pour into the Pakistani society a considerable number of youngsters well versed in religious studies   who mostly lack the skills necessary for employment in jobs required in it or management or in other areas.

COLD WAR AND DEMOCRACY DEFICIT
During the cold war when India opted for non-alignment the cold war warriors in Washington put India in the soviet camp the Pakistani generals took full advantage of a sort of McCarthyism in the US foreign policy and strengthened Pakistan’s security alignment with the US through SEATO, CENTO and other arrangements. In the pursuit of George Kennan’s policy of containment of the soviet expansionism the Americans created NATO in Europe, got involved in Vietnam War and promoted military dictatorships in Latin America, Africa and Asia including several military governments in Pakistan. In the process the west while insisting that democracy be practiced in their own countries willed to accept the developing countries as “Antarctica of democratic values” where liberal values were kept frozen for getting short term security benefits from plutocratic dictators. One wonders whether a kind of incipient racism did not run riot in the Western thought process that the subalterns of the newly freed colonies were not fit to be endowed with modernity meaning secularization and humanization of the world and freeing the individual from tradition. In the case of Pakistan finding religion as insufficient basis for nationhood the generals in collusion with the landed aristocracy and economic elite achieved dominance in “a nation without clear definition or cohesion”. Stephen Cohen, perhaps the greatest expert the US has on South Asian affairs, calls this compact “moderate oligarchy... An informal system that (tied) together senior ranks of the military, the civil service, the key members of the judiciary and other elites”. Cohen holds various us administrations responsible for the ascendancy of the army in Pakistan and encouraging Pakistan’s nuclear ambition. A series of us Presidential waivers relating to economic and military sanctions were allowed despite the facts that Pakistan disclosed in 1984 that it could enrich uranium for nuclear weapons and in 1987 that it could assemble a nuclear device.
The terrorist attacks of 9/11 put a solidarist face on us policy towards Pakistan that the bush administration considers as a very important partner in its war on terror. It is not known whether unbridled support given to Pakistan including giving it the status of a major non-NATO ally is despite the fact that Parvez Musharraf’s decision to join the war on terror did not signify a structural change in Pakistan’s policy but was an expedient one resulting from the total decimation of its ally the Talibans and the us threat that Pakistan could either join the war on terror or face the consequences. The us policy makers who insist on the continuation of Parvez Musharraf in power ignore the fact that the Musharraf government recognizes the Islamist political parties combine­MMA­as the main opposition party in parliament though Bhutto’s Pakistan people’s party has more parliamentarians (mma-63, ppp-81), perhaps to impress upon the west of the pseudo-civilian government’s indispensability in its “struggle” with the Islamists for power in Pakistan. This strand of argument is fallacious on the ground that “no Islamic organization is in a position to politically or militarily challenge the role of one and only center of power in Pakistan: the army”; and that in the event of exit of Parvez Musharraf the likely successor will be another general and not a populist civilian leader. Such deterministic prediction, albeit comfortable for the moment, ignores the on-going Balch nationalism, wrongly projected as Islamic terrorism by the intelligence services, which has sprung from deprivation and dissatisfaction of the Balch already feeling, colonized by the Punjabis. It would be prudent to remember that in unified Yugoslavia the slogan that what is good for Serbia is good for Yugoslavia has ultimately led to the separation of Montenegro which was the last bastion of the old Yugoslav republic. Baluchistan accounts for 43% of Pakistani territory, 36% of Pakistan’s total gas production, holds large quantity of other minerals and is a potential transit route fro gas pipeline from Iran and Turkmenistan to India. But the province’s gas and mineral deposits are being expropriated and the people are feeling marginalized and dispossessed.
While an independent Baluchistan cannot be a desirable outcome of the existing trouble there for Pakistan, South Asia or the international community, “Pakistan today” writes Ashley Tellis (of the Carnegie endowment), “ is clearly both part of the problem and the solution to the threat of terrorism facing the United States”. Indeed the 9/11 commissions had more or less highlighted Pakistan’s deep involvement with international terrorism and recommended a long term us commitment to provide comprehensive support to Pakistan. The choice for Pakistan, it has been said, is not between the military and the mullahs but between the military-mullah combine and the civilian and secular political parties.
The us and the west, therefore, would do well to help Pakistan build the political institutions, insist that the military stop marginalization of established political parties viz Bhutto’s PPP and Nwaz Sharif’s PML, encourage Bhutto-sharif pledge to establish “real democracy” and charter of democracy agreed by the two last may in London, take measures to stop “Talibanization”” of Pathan politics and Islamization of Pathan nationalism in Pakistan, and encourage President Musharraf to give up the post of the army chief of staff.  US may also try to convince the Pak army that promotion of across the border terrorism in Kashmir and other parts of India is counter productive. In short, only a truly democratic polity in Pakistan would be beneficial for the country and the international community and reduce tension in South Asia.
Brussels based international crisis group had earlier expressed the fear that President Musharraf may declare a state of emergency suspending fundamental rights and effectively declaring martial law. ICG fears that suppression of popular response against such a move would produce chaos and violence and ultimately increase the influence of the Islamists and further anti-us feeling. Gareth Evans, President of ICG in a speech (15th June 2007) said  “another less edifying experience has been the constant wriggling of Western, and in particular us policy makers, in the face of Parvez Musharraf’s continuing authoritarian rule in Pakistan, and in particular the contempt that continues to be expressed by so many of them­more veiled in public, but quite open in private­towards the democratic parties as they struggle with signs of growing popular and elite support, to recover ground. Despite manifest failings of Benazir Bhutto and Nazi Sharif, I for one, feel strongly that New York governor al smith was absolutely right when he said in the 1920s that the only cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy”.  Bush administration in its mono-centric pursuit of the war on terror is willing to ignore a Pakistan in disarray. Gareth Evans’ advocacy of liberal political system in Pakistan is further strengthened by the apparent failure of President Musharraf’s government to contain violence in the northern part of the country. In a recent report the New York Times alleged that Pakistani security forces have been out gunned and out numbered in NWFP by the militants and the security forces have ceded authority to the Talibans and their sympathizers and as a result “there is a general policy of appeasement towards the Talibans which has further emboldened them”. The bush administration that has been giving Pakistan two billion dollars a year for the last five years may wish to take stock of the lal masjid episode so eloquently explained by cricketer turned politician imran khan to British journalist David frost in a recent interview.
During the cold war when India opted for non-alignment the cold war warriors in Washington put India in the soviet camp the Pakistani generals took full advantage of a sort of McCarthyism in the US foreign policy and strengthened Pakistan’s security alignment with the US through SEATO, CENTO and other arrangements. In the pursuit of George Kennan’s policy of containment of the soviet expansionism the Americans created NATO in Europe, got involved in Vietnam War and promoted military dictatorships in Latin America, Africa and Asia including several military governments in Pakistan. In the process the west while insisting that democracy be practiced in their own countries willed to accept the developing countries as “Antarctica of democratic values” where liberal values were kept frozen for getting short term security benefits from kleptocratic dictators. One wonders whether a kind of incipient racism did not run riot in the Western thought process that the subalterns of the newly freed colonies were not fit to be endowed with modernity meaning secularization and humanization of the world and freeing the individual from tradition. In the case of Pakistan finding religion as insufficient basis for nationhood the generals in collusion with the landed aristocracy and economic elite achieved dominance in “a nation without clear definition or cohesion”. Stephen Cohen, perhaps the greatest expert the US has on South Asian affairs, calls this compact “moderate oligarchy... An informal system that (tied) together senior ranks of the military, the civil service, the key members of the judiciary and other elites”. Cohen holds various us administrations responsible for the ascendancy of the army in Pakistan and encouraging Pakistan’s nuclear ambition. A series of us Presidential waivers relating to economic and military sanctions were allowed despite the facts that Pakistan disclosed in 1984 that it could enrich uranium for nuclear weapons and in 1987 that it could assemble a nuclear device.
MILITARY-ISLAMISTS ETENTE
The terrorist attacks of 9/11 put a solidarist face on us policy towards Pakistan that the bush administration considers as a very important partner in its war on terror. It is not known whether unbridled support given to Pakistan including giving it the status of a major non-NATO ally is despite the fact that Parvez Musharraf’s decision to join the war on terror did not signify a structural change in Pakistan’s policy but was an expedient one resulting from the total decimation of its ally the Talibans and the us threat that Pakistan could either join the war on terror or face the consequences. The us policy makers who insist on the continuation of Parvez Musharraf in power ignore the fact that the Musharraf government recognizes the Islamist political parties combine­mma­as the main opposition party in parliament though Bhutto’s Pakistan people’s party has more parliamentarians (mma-63, ppp-81), perhaps to impress upon the west of the pseudo-civilian government’s indispensability in its “struggle” with the Islamists for power in Pakistan. This strand of argument is fallacious on the ground that “no Islamic organization is in a position to politically or militarily challenge the role of one and only center of power in Pakistan: the army”; and that in the event of exit of Parvez Musharraf the likely successor will be another general and not a populist civilian leader. Such deterministic prediction, albeit comfortable for the moment, ignores the on-going Baluch nationalism, wrongly projected as Islamic terrorism by the intelligence services, which has sprung from deprivation and dissatisfaction of the Baluch already feeling, colonized by the Punjabis. It would be prudent to remember that in unified Yugoslavia the slogan that what is good for Serbia is good for Yugoslavia has ultimately led to the separation of Montenegro which was the last bastion of the old Yugoslav republic. Baluchistan accounts for 43% of Pakistani territory, 36% of Pakistan’s total gas production, holds large quantity of other minerals and is a potential transit route fro gas pipeline from Iran and Turkmenistan to India. But the province’s gas and mineral deposits are being expropriated and the people are feeling marginalized and dispossessed.
While an independent Baluchistan cannot be a desirable outcome of the existing trouble there for Pakistan, South Asia or the international community, “Pakistan today” writes Ashley Tellis (of the Carnegie endowment), “ is clearly both part of the problem and the solution to the threat of terrorism facing the United States”. Indeed the 9/11 commissions had more or less highlighted Pakistan’s deep involvement with international terrorism and recommended a long term us commitment to provide comprehensive support to Pakistan. The choice for Pakistan, it has been said, is not between the military and the mullahs but between the military-mullah combine and the civilian and secular political parties.
The us and the west, therefore, would do well to help Pakistan build the political institutions, insist that the military stop marginalization of established political parties viz Bhutto’s PPP and Nwaz Sharif’s PML, encourage Bhutto-Sharif pledge to establish “real democracy” and charter of democracy agreed by the two last may in London, take measures to stop “Talibanization”” of Path an politics and Islamization of Path an nationalism in Pakistan, and encourage President Musharraf to give up the post of the army chief of staff.  US may also try to convince the Pak army that promotion of across the border terrorism in Kashmir and other parts of India is counter productive. In short, only a truly democratic polity in Pakistan would be beneficial for the country and the international community and reduce tension in South Asia.
Globalization and South Asia
Harvard university professor and historian Niall Ferguson has painted a disturbing picture of sinking globalization by comparing the conditions existing now with the conditions existing before the First World War. He has identified five causes which led to the global disconnect in the first quarter of the 20th century. The first was the imperial overstretches of then British Empire that lacked the will and the capacity to withstand the German challenge for global hegemony. Ferguson detects the same weariness in the US which suffers from “personnel deficit” as the US can deploy no more than half a million troops overseas of which nearly 150000 are already in Iraq engaged in an unwinnable war. Besides Osama bin laden estimates that while al-Qaeda spent only half a million dollars for the 9/11 carnage bush administration has so far spent 500 billion dollars and more are being sought from the congress which has passed a resolution giving a deadline for the return of us troops from Iraq. The second disruptive factor responsible for sinking globalization is great power rivalry (in the form of Anglo German conflict leading to the First World War) can now take the form of us-Russian rivalry, a concept dismissed by Harvard professor Joseph Nye Jr. And many others because true to the promise made by President Bush to the American people that arms race shall not be allowed to be repeated the US spends more than 400 billion dollars on defense while it spends a much lesser sum on diplomacy. The third fatal factor, writes Ferguson, is unstable alliance system. One suspects that NATO and the coalition of the willing notwithstanding possible coalition of disparate elements having convergence of interest e.g. economic conflict between the EU and the us, Putin’s refusal to accept unipolarity and emergence of a revivalist in post-Putin Russia, china’s ire over Taiwan despite Chinese phenomenal economic development mainly by us driven consumerism could account for a possible disruption in globalization which mainly depends on overcoming cultural, economic and political barriers dividing the world into zones of different shades. Had a Bosnian Serb having shady links with the Serbian government not assassinated Austrian archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo perhaps the First World War could have been avoided. The moot point here is the presence of rogue states that abounds in the world today in the form of failed and failing states. Taleban Afghanistan, present day Iraq, North Korea, DR Congo, Somalia and Sudan can be cited as examples. Finally, writes Ferguson, “the rise of revolutionary terrorist organizations hostile to capitalism”, he terms al-Qaeda “islamo-bolshevists”, could rupture the globalization process.
Despite the doomsday scenario painted above the sheer impossibility of armed conflict among major powers in the face of us nuclear primacy and the international connectivity caused by technological advancement inducing an unquenchable thirst among the people of first, second, third and even the fourth world to acquire the material benefits and adopt the liberal democracy enjoyed by the fortunate makes globalization an irreversible process. In this context the remarks made by the Indian prime minister at the 13th saarc summit at Dhaka that the member countries have not been able to achieve the “shared goal of prosperity” envisioned when saarc was formed and that “regional economic cooperation in South Asia has fallen far short of our expectation” become relevant. Development described by amartya sen as a fundamental human right cannot be attained in isolation and the process of globalization in which social Darwinism is an integral part to weed out the inefficient has to begin with regional cooperation in a new context where Westphalian concept of sovereignty has to be abridged and shared with other members of the region as has been successfully done by the European union. The world called by Marshal McLuhan as “the global village” in qualitative term is still afflicted by tragedies like in Darfur, Srebrenica, Rwanda and conflictual politics as in Bangladesh where till recently we could not recognize the father of the nation in whose name the liberation war was fought. Yet now we in Bangladesh for the first time after 1975 can feel proud that inhibitions of the past have been swept aside, and that too by the armed forces chief (we had our fair share of army rule), and of a government determined to free us from being branded as the most corrupt country in the world.
But then it must be recognized that there is a certain degree of unease in many parts of the world after the Iraq war. This unease is more pronouncedly felt in the Muslim world than elsewhere. Despite the fact that the world , particularly the Arab neighbors of Iraq, had heaved a sigh of relief at he disappearance of saddam hussein from the global scene; the blatant illegality of Iraq war and the use of naked force without global consent has put many in the world in a quandary. These parts of the world would have been happier if the Anglo-US use of force, aided and abetted by some countries of the old and new Europe, could have some semblance of Kantian moral imperative backing their military endeavor in an otherwise seemingly Hobbesian world of strife. The promise of Americans as “liberators” has quickly turned into the reality of us troops as “occupiers” in Iraq in the eyes of most Iraqis and that of many countries of the world. The argument number of us and British troops are being killed by a handful of people still loyal to saddam hussein is getting less and less convincing even to the erstwhile Iraqi dissidents who while expressing their eternal gratitude to President bush and then British prime minister Blair for getting rid of saddam hussein are insistent that the governance of Iraq should be handed over to the Iraqis without further delay. Americans are perplexed and angry over this apparent “ingratitude” of the Iraqis that they are not appreciative of the immense risk taken by them in causing destabilization of the international political construct familiar to the people of the world since the second world war; in putting on line the unwavering trust of the international community in the impeccable moral virtues and values possessed by the us; the financial cost the us may be asked to bear for the reconstruction of Iraq; and the political cost of fracturing the transatlantic alliance. Americans historically have a positive view of occupation. The US occupation of Germany and Japan after the Second World War helped transform both into world economies. The Muslim world has the experiences of Israeli occupation of Arab territories that conjures up images of genocidal brutality by Israel meted out to unarmed civilians in the occupied lands. Former under secretary of state for public affairs and public diplomacy charlotte beers told the senate foreign relations committee early this year of the “frighteningly wide” gap between how America sees itself and how the rest of the world sees America. Regarding the Muslim world Charlotte Beers told, “millions of ordinary people have gravely distorted but carefully cultivated images of us­images so negative, so weird, so hostile that I can assure you a young generation of terrorists are being created”. This failure of the American public diplomacy in trying “ to do a better job of telling our story” in the words of President bush could be due to stylistic difference (American penchant for speaking straight as opposed to Muslim perception of direct talks as being confrontational and threatening to its collective social fabric) as to no less Muslim world’s valid perception of s mono-centric policy of favoring Israel to the total disregard of the injustice meted out daily to the Arabs, in particular to the Palestinians( American public diplomacy in the Arab world- June 2003-r.s.zaharna American university).
9/11 TERRORISM AND THE MUSLIM WORLD
It is now universally recognized that the tragic events of nine-eleven have decidedly impacted upon us policy on war on terrorism. The import of the nine-eleven events was perhaps no less significant than the Japanese attack on pearl harbor which finally helped the decision of President Roosevelt to take America into the war against Nazism and fascism. A direct result of the September eleven terrorist attacks was the dislodgement of the Taliban from Afghanistan, a war which the us waged from high moral ground , in which NATO joined hands though Afghanistan was “out of the area”, in which the international community( including the entire Muslim world) extended its full support to the us military actions. This complete fusion of support for the US actions was possible because of the odious nature of the Taliban regime and the determination of the international community to deny terrorists any pretext to justify their heinous crime in the name of religion or politics. One may recall that the organization of the Islamic conference strongly condemned the terrorist acts of nine-eleven and observed that “the brutal acts of terror ran counter to the teachings of divine religions as well as ethical and human values”. Arab league called the attacks “dreadful”. Yasser Arafat emphatically declared that fighting terror was not a war against Arabs or Muslims or Islam and refused clemency to acts of terrorism in the name of Palestinian cause. Notwithstanding the total support extended to the US war on terror there is a pervasive belief in the Muslim world that the us policy towards the Muslims is skewed by negative stereotypes of Islam that fail to recognize its diversity. It has been argued that radical Islamic movements often arise out of legitimate needs and grievances of the oppressed sectors of the population who see the US as partly responsible for their sufferings. Professor Stephen Zunes of the University of San Francisco has pointed out that from the time of the crusades through European colonial era to the war on Iraq Western Christians have killed far more Muslims than the reverse. Given this strong sense of history among the Muslims Washington’s use and threat of military force result in popular reaction that often takes the form of religious extremism. Professor Zunes faults the us policy makers for their support of repressive regimes that makes democratic and non-violent options for the Islamic opposition extremely difficult. In hindsight one could successfully argue that the Iranian Islamic revolution would not have taken place had not the us government of the day helped Reza Shah Pahlavi to restore his brutal regime by ousting popular Iranian prime minister dr. Mohammed Mossadegh.  It has now been recognized by us policy makers that “democratic exceptions” made in the past by the us administrations by avoiding scrutiny of internal workings of countries in the interest of ensuring steady flow of oil, containing soviet, Iranian or Iraqi influence or securing military bases did not further American interest in the long run because no extremist Islamic movement has ever evolved in democratic societies. Ambassador Richard Haas, head of policy planning in the US state department explained that America’s rationale in promoting democratization in the Muslim world was both altruistic and self interested. In his view countries plagued by economic stagnation and lack of opportunity, closed political system and burgeoning population fuel alienation of their citizens resulting in transformation of these societies into breeding grounds for extremists and terrorists bent upon harming us interests. Equally important, he felt, the growing gulf between many Islamic regimes and their citizens would limit the ability of these regimes to respond coherently to issues of vital interest to the US.
Despite US pledge to remove democratic deficit in Muslim countries by encouraging democracy to take roots in these societies; the bush doctrine of preemptive/preventive war would continue to be the primary tool of war on terror. This doctrine, as is well known, has been in the center of controversy in the US and beyond. Last May senator Dianne Feinstein addressing the center for defense information said that by adopting a policy of unilateralism and preemption undermining international law and institutions and by increasing us reliance on nuclear weapons (including first strike against non-nuclear states) bush administration may actually encourage proliferation of wmd while seeking to achieve the reverse. Referring to nuclear posture review senator Feinstein spoke of potential grave dangers if the US were to develop low yield nuclear weapons which in turn would justify other countries to do the same increasing the attendant risk of such weapons falling into the hands of “enemy states or terrorist groups”. Former secretary of state Madeline Albright who stated that in all American history there has never been such a tectonic shift in foreign and security policies as between Clinton and bush administrations echoed her concerns. If Iraq war was in implementation of the doctrine of preemption/prevention (saddam Hussein was believed to be in possession of WMD which could be launched under an hour) then we have also seen French German –Russian reluctance to bless us military action through the UNSC route. Basically the fault line dividing the US and Europe center around disagreement regarding source and gravity of threats to Western societies and on responses to these threats. Supporters of bush doctrine cite the 1962 Cuban missile crisis and President Kennedy’s following words: “we no longer live in a world where only actual firing of weapons represents a sufficient challenge to a nation’s security to constitute maximum peril”. To jack Kennedy any substantial increased possibility of their use or sudden change of their deployment was unacceptable. Therefore imposition of naval quarantine over Cuba by President Kennedy was in effect an act of preemption. They argue that what constituted “maximum peril” to President Kennedy has increased manifold in today’s world in which shadowy terrorists act in concert with rogue states.
US SECURITY CONCERNS AND THE MUSLIM WORLD
While accepting the validity of us security concerns, the Muslim world would remain wary about the methods to be used by the US to meet these challenges. The nuclear posture review (of January 2002) identified as possible targets countries like North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Libya. Saddam Hussein is gone. In case of Iran British foreign secretary jack straw has assured during his recent visit to Tehran that military action against Iran was not on the card. Us general Anthony Zinni who has had extensive experience of the Middle East assessed that within the next year to three years the clerics would be gone and young people and those that were slowly turning the tide would have turned Iran around. Michael leden of American enterprise institute, a conservative think tank, is of the opinion that the Iranian people have shown themselves to be the most pro-American population in the Muslim world but the Iranian regime is arguably the most anti-American on earth. Therefore if Iran folds anyway why bother to embark on a military adventure which may delay the departure of the clerics. US, according to general zinni, would like President Musharraf to succeed because if he fails then Pakistan could end up in chaos like Afghanistan or become a fundamentalist state like Iran in the early days of the ayatollah or fall under the thumbs of hardliner generals with consequent increased tension with India. In the ultimate analysis, the Muslim world would not like to see another Muslim country pulverized like Iraq or Afghanistan. After all most Muslims are neither Islamists nor modern day kharijites (kharijites were people who lived outside civilization, using terrorism against their enemies and committed murders on a large scale for political objectives). Besides Samuel Huntington’s clash of civilization though an arresting thesis is not an incontrovertible one. One would, therefore, hope that the US would not confine it to be only people from mars but in concert with people from Venus would continue its dialogue with the Muslim world and solve the root causes of terrorism through political and developmental engagements. The Muslim world accused of providing asylum to the sympathizers of the 9/11 carnage despite the fact clash of civilizations, a concept not universally accepted particularly in the east, which that the developing countries being “soft targets” for the terrorists were no less devastated than the countries of the West, Pakistan continues to play a vital role in the war on terror.
Pakistan’s Indophobeia
During Pakistani President’s one of the  visits to Washington and London both President bush and prime minister Blair effusively praised President Parvez Musharraf’s courage in “standing firm against terrorism”, his “vision for enlightened moderation in the Islamic world”, and “his good stewardship of the Pakistan economy”. Yet Pakistani scholar Parvez hoodbhoy (foreign affairs-nov/dec 2004) has posed an enigmatic question: can Pakistan work? Such a question may be asked of countries standing on the brink of “failure” defined as a state unable to provide human security, justice and basic necessities of life to its people. But can Pakistan be categorized as falling into such a group even if the most expansive definition of a “failed state” is taken into account?  Not if one is to give credence to the recent speech given by Prime Minister Shauna Aziz and of his assertion of Pakistan’s consistent economic growth at more than six percent per anum for the last several years and of improved socio-economic indicators. But then Stephen Cohen, the highly credentialed and perhaps the leading American analyst on South Asia, (the nation and the state of Pakistan) has quoted Pakistanis who acknowledged Pakistan’s failure as a state several times in the past, most notably being in 1971 when East Pakistan became Bangladesh. Cohen considered Pakistan as “a case study of negatives­a state seemingly incapable of establishing a normal political system, supporting radical Islamic Taliban, and mounting jihadi operations into India while its own economic and political systems were collapsing and internal religious and ethnic based violence were rising dramatically”. Hussein Haqqani (of Carnegie endowment of international peace- the role of Islam in Pakistan’s future) sees Pakistan’s weakness being embedded in disproportionate focus on ideology, military capability and external alliance since the country’s inception in 1947. Pakistan’s progress has been faltering not only in its inability to build up institutions supportive of democracy but also in other areas compared to its nemesis­India. Pakistan’s economy is the smallest among the nuclear powers. Pakistan suffers from massive urban unemployment, rural underemployment, illiteracy and low per capita income. But perhaps Pakistan’s greatest weakness stems from its inability to acquire a clear identity as a nation –state bereft of transnational Islamic ideology. Stephen Cohen finds the “history and future of Pakistan being rooted in this duality, a complex relationship between Pakistan the state and Pakistan the nation­mission bound to serve as a beacon for oppressed and backward Muslim communities elsewhere in the world”. It debatable whether Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, described by Parvez Hoodbhoy as “an impeccably dressed Westernized Muslim with Victorian manners and secular outlook” had thought of Pakistan as a cradle for oppressed Muslims in global terms. This role of Muslim leadership, if any country can appropriate such a role at all, can perhaps be claimed by Saudi Arabia as the guardian of the holiest places of Islam. But then Saudi Arabia itself is in the throes of anarchic confusion forced to walk along the edge of internecine conflict between purist Islamists and Westernized elite compounded by American phobic suspicion of its trusted ally in the aftermath of 9/11 tragedy. Indeed the Islamic world is in disarray in the face of American triumphalism. In reality the Islamic world unable to define a uniform Islamic image has been in decline for ages, the last nail in the coffin having been driven by the end of the ottoman rule.
In the case of Pakistan its obsession with Islamic ideology was a direct result of its pathological fear of Hindu India which led to the country being ruled by an establishment described by Stephen Cohen as a “moderate oligarchy” consisting of the military, civil service, judiciary and landed aristocracy. This oligarchy believes in implacable opposition to Indian preeminence, fight for the “liberation” of Kashmir, maintenance of nuclear weapons as a deterrence to Indian “designs” and as a status symbol, implicit belief in social Darwinism and consequent contempt for land reforms, closest possible relationship with the us despite anti-us sentiment among the general public, and use of Islam as the national unifier and as a force to deter Pashto on, Sindhi and Balch sub-nationalism.  In this conglomeration of oligarchic forces the army from the beginning pronounced its dominance over the others. But since the army alone could not rule Pakistan it needed collusive cooperation of other self-interested parties. In this endeavor us help proved providential. During the cold war days the Western countries’ priority was to contain communism and not to propagate democratic values. John Foster Dulles way back in 1946 saw the need for a “rededication to our religious faith” and demonstration of Western political system as “a curative thing” to protect and defend “our cherished freedom” through the containment of communism as of utmost importance. So several defense arrangements were created. Paradoxically, however, while Western members of NATO (except turkey) and ANZUS were expected to practice democracy, non-Western members of SEATO and CENTO were allowed to be deviants. One wonders why. Regardless of membership of defense alliances the third world countries received Western assistance in combating communism that could be more effectively fought by military dominated autocracies than by democracies. Consequently the west encouraged military rule and in some cases kleptocracy in many third world countries as long as communism was denied political space in these underdeveloped societies. Pakistan was no exception. When the intensity of the cold war was on the wane soviet invasion of Afghanistan came as a god-sent blessing for general ziaul-ul-huq who based Pakistani educational and legal system on Islamic law and formalized the state ideology as an official policy of Islamization. Through his Islamization efforts, observes Hussein Haqqani, Zia made Pakistan an important ideological and organizational center of global Islamist movement including its role in the anti-soviet campaign in Afghanistan by allowing Afghan mujahedeen to operate from bases in Pakistan and sponsoring the Taliban putsch for power in Afghanistan by dislodging the soviet backed regimes. Little did the Americans realize at that time that they were being instrumental in constructing a Frankenstein who at a later date would be responsible for the 9/11 carnage in the us mainland. Even now the bush administration is helping the Pakistani military as the dominant partner of the “moderate oligarchy” to rule Pakistan through marginalization of comparatively secular political parties­Nazi Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim league and Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan peoples party. Though the political dominance and institutional integrity of the Pakistani army, observes Stephen Cohen, has been able to marginalize radical Islamic parties so far, one should not lose sight of the fact that in the process of sidelining Nazi Sharif and Benazir Bhutto President Musharraf has helped Muttonhead Majlis-e-Amal, an alliance of six Islamic parties to gain 11 percent of the popular votes and 53 seats in the federal national assembly and governance of NWFP and Baluchistan. The west should ponder if continued support to Musharraf regime (its necessity being explained as an essential part of the war on terror) would not at some future date be translated into adversarial actions against Western interests. Some Western scholars hold the view that though the danger of Islamic radicalism in Pakistan may not pose any danger in the short run poverty, unemployment, and perceived injustice to the Muslims in general may generate actions that would not be in the interest of the west. Besides future recruits of the al-qaedists may not have to come from the marginalized sections of Pakistani society. The case of Daniel pearl murderer Omar Saied Sheikh, born into prosperous Pakistani-British family and having been a student in the London school of economics and 9/11 high jackers are cases in point. A June 2003 public opinion survey found 45 percent Pakistanis had at least “some confidence” in Osama bin laden’s ability to “do the right thing about world affairs”. In a testimony early this year to the senate foreign relations committee a senior state department official characterized Pakistan as “probably the most anti-American country in the world right now”.
If democracy deficit has been identified as one of the main causes fuelling terrorism because the west is perceived by the citizens of those countries as propping up the failed autocratic governments in the affected countries then the west should avoid pursuing double standard in its propagation of democratic values. Us’ need for Pakistani cooperation in the war on terror notwithstanding President Musharraf’s decision to hold on to the post of army chief (though rubber stamped by the parliament) her silence on this important issue of disfiguration of democratic institution may not be looked upon kindly by future generation of Pakistanis. Leon Haader (of Cato institute) who sees President Musharraf’s joining the war on terror as not reflective of structural change in Pakistani policy holds the view of “Pakistan with its dictatorship, failed economy and insecure nuclear weapons as a reluctant supporter of us goals at best and a potential long term problem at worst.”
The point being driven at is that the west particularly the us and Europe should not have a myopic view of Pakistan where the army is apparently beating up the al-qaedists with some success but should encourage secular pluralism instead of continued support to a military-Islamist combine. Emergence of a powerful Islamic fundamentalist group in Pakistan though discounted by Stephen Cohen for the present cannot be totally ruled out. Cohen bases his argument on the premise that “regardless of what may be desirable the army will continue to set the limits of what is possible in Pakistan”. If that were the case then the guardians of global security and propagators of democratic values would be well advised to put a check on the “moderate oligarchy” and encourage Pakistan to follow the course of democratic pluralism. In the ultimate analysis filtered judgment by many is always preferable to dictated conclusion by the few.
Us vice President dick Cheney’s unannounced visit to Pakistan in early part of 2007 generated speculation about the extent of Pakistan’s efforts on the pursuit of war on terror. Cheney does not go anywhere, says South Asian scholar Barnett Rubin, unless there is some trouble in the place he travels to. One obvious reason is perhaps to encourage President Parvez Musharraf to redouble his efforts in controlling the reported increase of Taleban insurgents’ flight into Afghanistan from the lawless Pakistan’s federally administered tribal areas (fata). Afghan President Hamid Karzai and President Musharraf have already engaged in public debate, each blaming the other, for the increased Taleban attacks on the NATO and Afghan forces that Karzai believes could not have been possible without sanctuary and assistance from the areas not fully under federal control, termed by President Bush as “wilder than the wild west”.  Cheney is reported to have warned President Musharraf that us $3 billion given as aid to Pakistan could be in jeopardy if Pakistan’s current efforts to de-Talibanize the fata and stop incursions into Afghanistan from Pakistan by the insurgents to attack both the NATO and the Afghan forces are not done. Meanwhile former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto claimed that she would be able to stop the Talebans from increasing their strength inside Pakistan if she were to be reelected prime minister of the country. Basically both Bhutto and nwaz sharif, along with many others, firmly believe that the current authoritarian rule under American patronage is responsible for the current mess. But the history of Pakistan of the last fifty years of military rule intermittently intruded upon by civilian administration provides evidence to the contrary. While Samuel Huntington is celebrating the fourth wave of democratization following the changes in “east Europe”, a term former soviet client states forcefully contest these days and the dramatic changes taking place in Latin America, and President bush is fighting doggedly the war on terror, described by some detractors as war on Islam, President Musharraf is going on full steam for reelection as President by the same parliamentary coalition of largely Islamist groups who gave him the presidency in 2002 without waiting for a new parliamentary election scheduled for  January 2008. The Americans are not oblivious of the fact that President Musharraf’s deal with the tribal leaders of status quo ante if ties with the Talibans were cut and cross border raids were stopped has failed. Former intelligence czar John Negroponte told the congress last year that the “tribal authorities are not living up to the deal” and that the cross border incursions into Afghanistan had doubled. Such a record does not speak well of bush administration’s decision to designate Pakistan as a major non-NATO ally for the purpose of bilateral military relations. In 2003 Colin Powell as secretary of state had described   Pakistan as   “as a moderate, modern Muslim nation, a nation that is becoming increasingly democratic” and allayed fears of the possibility of any sudden change in Pakistan’s policy on the war on terror should President Musharraf was to be assassinated. Colin Powell assured that the US was working with the government of Pakistan which did not rest on any single individual and that the US was reaching out to all levels of Pakistani society. The notion of “major non-NATO ally” (MNNA) status first surfaced in 1989. For several years this status was limited to Australia, Egypt, Israel, Japan and South Korea.   Though MNNA does not enjoy the same benefits of defense and security guarantee afforded to NATO members, yet there are defense related advantages in the up gradation of military relationship.  In the case of Pakistan skeptics hoped that the bush administration had given serious consideration to the question of the reliability of Pakistan as an ally of the US war on terror. Leon Haader of the Cato institute advised Washington to view Pakistan, with its dictatorship, failed economy, and insecure nuclear arsenal “as a reluctant supporter of us goals at best and as a potential long term problem at worst”. He did not see President Musharraf’s decision to join the US on its war on terror as reflecting a structural transformation in Pakistan’s policy but a tactical move to cut losses resulting from the demolition of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.  Political analyst Matt Trundle compared the US policy of cooperation with Pakistan as an alliance with a lesser evil against a greater evil. In reality, wrote Thundyll, like the soviet threat in 1945 the Pakistani threat is extant. While in the case of the former it was communism in Pakistan’s case it is Islamic extremism. Since the partition of India in 1945 Pakistan has been largely dictated by the politics of religion. Except for some feeble attempts to bring about secular values, both civilian and military rulers had appealed to the religious sentiments of the Pakistanis to gain legitimacy and to ensure survival.  According to a report by the Brussels based international crisis group (ICG report no 49) mullahs and military worked together against common foes during the cold war period and have identical views on Kashmir and towards India. The fundamental fact remains that Muttahida-Majlish-e- Amal (MMA), a conglomerate of religious fundamentalist political parties, has a considerable presence in the center and rules the two provinces bordering Afghanistan with a declared Islamization agenda. Additionally, Pakistan is bedeviled with religious sectarian conflicts. The Sunnis are divided into two groups­one following Deobandi school and the other Barelvi school of thought. The Diobands are anti-Shia. The hardcore among them­the vast majority­consider the shies infidels and demand constitutional amendment to that effect. Sectarian killings are considered as jihad. One has to admit that Islamization is an irreversible fact of life in Pakistan with its implicit anti-Western and anti-American sentiments remaining as integral parts of the Islamist agenda.
ISLAMIC EXTERMISM AND SOUTH ASIA
The inescapable fact remains that Islamic extremism continues to threaten not only the west but the three sub-continental countries as well. It would be prudent for us all to be well aware of the peril and take national actions in concert with the international community to eliminate this divisive element from global values of liberty, equality and fraternity and democratic culture for all.
French political analyst Frederic Grare has debunked the fear of the west, particularly of the us, that an overthrow of Pakistani President Parvez Musharraf, his replacement by an Islamist regime and consequent control of nuclear weapons as “myth of an Islamic threat” deliberately propagated by the Pakistan army to continue its stranglehold on Pakistani state power. He argues that an Islamist threat is neither great nor autonomous as it is not thought to be nor the Islamist has no possibility of capturing power through free and fair elections. Historically the Islamic political parties got between 5-8% of popular votes except in 2002 elections when they garnered about twelve percent votes by forming an alliance with other Islamic parties called Muttahida Majlis Amal (MMA) and formed government in NWFP and Baluchistan. This has been possible mainly because of the support of the army that has remained the most dominant and coherent force in Pakistan since the inception of the country. Ironically the founder of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, was an “Westernized Muslim with Victorian manners and a secular outlook” whose promise for a liberal and secular polity, albeit in total contradistinction of his two nation theory claiming that the Hindus and the Muslims could never live together, was rejected by the Pakistan army almost immediately after independence of the country from British rule. The generals’ conviction that army rule was necessary to thwart Indian domination led to successive military coups subordinating all state institutions including the judiciary which had to sanctify abrogation of successive constitutions by enunciating the “doctrine of necessity”.
Army in politics
During the cold war when India opted for non-alignment the cold war warriors in Washington put India in the soviet camp the Pakistani generals took full advantage of a sort of McCarthyism in the us foreign policy and strengthened Pakistan’s security alignment with the us through SEATO, CENTO and other arrangements. In the pursuit of George Kennan’s policy of containment of the soviet expansionism the Americans created NATO in Europe, got involved in Vietnam war and promoted military dictatorships in Latin America, Africa and Asia including several military governments in Pakistan. In the process the west while insisting that democracy be practiced in their own countries willed to accept the developing countries as “Antarctica of democratic values” where liberal values were kept frozen for getting short term security benefits from kleptocratic dictators. One wonders whether a kind of incipient racism did not run riot in the Western thought process that the subalterns of the newly freed colonies were not fit to be endowed with modernity meaning secularization and humanization of the world and freeing the individual from tradition. In the case of Pakistan finding religion as insufficient basis for nationhood the generals in collusion with the landed aristocracy and economic elite achieved dominance in “a nation without clear definition or cohesion”. Stephen Cohen, perhaps the greatest expert the US has on South Asian affairs, calls this compact “moderate oligarchy... An informal system that (tied) together senior ranks of the military, the civil service, the key members of the judiciary and other elites”. Cohen holds various us administrations responsible for the ascendancy of the army in Pakistan and encouraging Pakistan’s nuclear ambition. A series of us Presidential waivers relating to economic and military sanctions were allowed despite the facts that Pakistan disclosed in 1984 that it could enrich uranium for nuclear weapons and in 1987 that it could assemble a nuclear device.
9/11 AND US POLICY
The terrorist attacks of 9/11 put a solidarist face on us policy towards Pakistan that the bush administration considers as a very important partner in its war on terror. It is not known whether unbridled support given to Pakistan including giving it the status of a major non-NATO ally is despite the fact that Parvez Musharraf’s decision to join the war on terror did not signify a structural change in Pakistan’s policy but was an expedient one resulting from the total decimation of its ally the Talibans and the us threat that Pakistan could either join the war on terror or face the consequences. The us policy makers who insist on the continuation of Parvez Musharraf in power ignore the fact that the Musharraf government recognizes the Islamist political parties combine­MMA­as the main opposition party in parliament though Bhutto’s Pakistan people’s party has more parliamentarians (mma-63, ppp-81), perhaps to impress upon the west of the pseudo-civilian government’s indispensability in its “struggle” with the Islamists for power in Pakistan. This strand of argument is fallacious on the ground that “no Islamic organization is in a position to politically or militarily challenge the role of one and only center of power in Pakistan: the army”; and that in the event of exit of Parvez Musharraf the likely successor will be another general and not a populist civilian leader. Such deterministic prediction, albeit comfortable for the moment, ignores the on-going Balch nationalism, wrongly projected as Islamic terrorism by the intelligence services, which has sprung from deprivation and dissatisfaction of the Baluch already feeling colonized by the Punjabis. It would be prudent to remember that in unified Yugoslavia the slogan that what is good for Serbia is good for Yugoslavia has ultimately led to the separation of Montenegro which was the last bastion of the old Yugoslav republic. Baluchistan accounts for 43% of Pakistani territory, 36% of Pakistan’s total gas production, holds large quantity of other minerals and is a potential transit route fro gas pipeline from Iran and Turkmenistan to India. But the province’s gas and mineral deposits are being expropriated and the people are feeling marginalized and dispossessed.
While an independent Baluchistan cannot be a desirable outcome of the existing trouble there for Pakistan, South Asia or the international community, “Pakistan today” writes Ashley Tellis (of the Carnegie endowment), “ is clearly both part of the problem and the solution to the threat of terrorism facing the United States”. Indeed the 9/11 commissions had more or less highlighted Pakistan’s deep involvement with international terrorism and recommended a long term us commitment to provide comprehensive support to Pakistan. The choice for Pakistan, it has been said, is not between the military and the mullahs but between the military-mullah combine and the civilian and secular political parties.
The us and the west, therefore, would do well to help Pakistan build the political institutions, insist that the military stop marginalization of established political parties viz Bhutto’s PPP and Nwaz Sharif’s PML, encourage Bhutto-Sharif pledge to establish “real democracy” and charter of democracy agreed by the two last may in London, take measures to stop “Talibanization”” of Pathan politics and Islamization of Pathan nationalism in Pakistan, and encourage President Musharraf to give up the post of the army chief of staff.  We may also try to convince the Pak army that promotion of across the border terrorism in Kashmir and other parts of India is counter productive. In short, only a truly democratic polity in Pakistan would be beneficial for the country and the international community and reduce tension in South Asia.
Bush push for democratization of Broader Middle East
It is difficult to be sanguine if President Bush’s insistence on bringing about democracy in the broader Middle East will ultimately serve the US interest in the conflict-ridden zone that for ages has acted as a politico-cultural contestant of the west. Bush administration’s logic behind the advocacy for democracy is manifold. At one extreme the administration stung by the 9/11 terrorist attacks have come to realize that “democracy deficit” tolerated by the successive us administrations responding to the situations demanded by the cold war resulted in dictatorial regimes in many Muslim countries where dissent often meant being sent to the gulags while profligate elites lived life of moral degeneration ultimately acted against the interest of the west. At the other end of the spectrum was the conviction of the liberal thinkers and embraced by the neo-cons that democracies do not go to war against one another simply because waging war by a democracy would need distilled approval of different branches of the administration thus making it a difficult venture. Besides in a democracy governments being ultimately accountable to the people they do not have the luxury enjoyed by a fascist, Nazi or a Stalinist dictator. This argument can be equally extended to non-state actors who have made terrorism their religion. The Western world, therefore, is preoccupied with Islamic fundamentalism and political Islam due to their realization that policies followed hitherto had given birth to failed states in the vacuum left by the cold war which helped incubate the vitriolic contagion of al-Qaida variety. In the panic following the 9/11 events new cold war warriors equated Islamic fundamentalism with political Islam. While Islamic fundamentalism encapsulates the emotional, spiritual and political response of the Muslims to the acute politico-economic crisis in the middle east and the Muslims’ frustration over the inability of pan Arab nationalism to deliver political goods to the citizens; political Islam aims at establishing a global Islamic order through challenging the status quo within the Islamic states and through establishing a transnational net work of contacts.
DEMOCRATIZATION AND TERRORISM
Question has, however, arisen whether democratization of Muslim societies would necessarily reduce terrorism and prevent fresh recruits to the terrorist outfits. Vermont university professor Gregory Gause holds the view that in the absence of data available showing a strong relationship between democracy and absence or reduction of terrorism, the phenomenon appears to stem from factors other than regime type. He argues that since the al-qaedists are not fighting for democracy but for the establishment of what they believe to be a purist version of an Islamic state there is no reason to believe that a tidal wave of democracy would wash away terrorist activities. Some Middle East experts have suggested that as the root cause of al-Qaida lie in poverty and educational deficiencies in countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan, for example, caused by the authoritarian nature of the rulers the terrorist menace could have been better tackled through political reform. But a counter argument proffered by liberal thinker Paul Berman states that this approach may not succeed as al-Qaida ideology and radical Islam are driven by a fear and hatred of liberal Islam which they see as a “hideous schizophrenia” of the west that divides the state from religion and promotes individual freedom. A similar strand of argument finds that modernity rather than democracy should be used as the most important tool to fight global terrorism. Since modernity involves more than improved material conditions and entails a transformation in beliefs and philosophies, al-qaedists with their narrow interpretation of religious dogmas interspersed with voyeuristic attractions and/or fearful retribution would lose their way in the maze of diasporic struggle for identity. But then again it has also been argued that al-qaedist appeal is not due to lack of modernity in the Islamic society but due to its excess which in the view of so-called purists is instrumental in contributing to social “degeneration” of the Western culture having contagion-effect on Muslim societies. If Western libertarian values are believed to be inextricably linked with democratic values then terrorists would logically be driven not by a desire for democracy but by their opposition to foreign domination. Continuing insurgency in Iraq is a case in point. Despite American assertion to the effect that the insurgents are mainly foreigners, the insurgents are by and large Iraqi Arab Sunnis who are fighting against being dispossessed and now the list of their grievances have been added by the new constitution rejected by the Sunnis and to be put to a country wide referendum in mid-October. Sunni insurgency does not mean Iraqi opposition to democracy as more than half of the Iraqis went to the polls in January parliamentary elections despite threats from the insurgents not to turn up to vote.
Historian Bernard Lewis once said the democracy is a peculiarly Western way of conducting business that may or may not be suitable for others. Perhaps disproving Lewis’ contention 2003 pew global attitude project found that strong majority of those surveyed in Kuwait (83 percent), Jordan (68 percent), and Palestine (53 percent) was supportive of democracy. This position was further strengthened by large voter turn out in Algeria, Palestine, Kuwaiti, and Yemeni elections. The point that comes out is that the Islamic world may be averse to accepting American policies but not American values that quintessentially are not very different from Western liberal values. Citing Iraq war as an example majority of people polled in most Islamic countries are convinced that the war was motivated by Washington’s desire for oil, protect Israel (which needed no protection any way), and weaken the Islamic world.
Arabs, indeed, the entire Muslim world has a keen sense of history. Often they are reminded of Samuel Huntington’s observation: “the west won the world not by superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by the superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do”.
If Iraq can be taken as a barometer then many Islamic countries spurred on by the US to speed up the process of democratization are more likely than not to opt for some kind of Islamic rule. Gregory Gause’s findings show that only in morocco where more secular leftist parties have a long history and established presence, or in Lebanon where Christian-Muslim dynamic determine electoral politics, pluralities of people surveyed in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, UAE, Egypt etc would support greater role for clergy in their political system. In Pakistan the great majority of people would, given a chance, opt for some sort of Islamic rule in addition to the increasing theocratic influence in two of the provinces ruled by the mullahs. Bush administration would, therefore, be well advised to listen to Harvard professor Jessica Stern that “democratization is not necessarily the best way to fight Islamic extremism”. Perhaps, bush administration may wish to strengthen the secular and progressive forces to fight fundamentalist forces both within and outside the electoral process.
The creation of a democratic political and social order in the Islamic world would not be easy. But vigilance would have to be maintained to see that civil liberties and rule of law prevails, that state failure does not give way to extremist religious ideology, that corrupt governments do not succeed in refusing to integrate dissident groups and emerging social classes etc. In any case, hasty “democratization” of the Muslim world may not serve the interest either of the people who are being “democratized” or of the US, the prime mover of the next democratic wave.
AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN DIFERENCES
Afghan President Hamid Karzai and President Musharraf have already engaged in public debate, each blaming the other, for the increased Taleban attacks on the NATO and Afghan forces that Karzai believes could not have been possible without sanctuary and assistance from the areas not fully under federal control, termed by President Bush as “wilder than the wild west”.  Cheney is reported to have warned President Musharraf that us $3 billion given as aid to Pakistan could be in jeopardy if Pakistan’s current efforts to de-Talibanize the fata and stop incursions into Afghanistan from Pakistan by the insurgents to attack both the NATO and the Afghan forces are not done. Meanwhile former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has claimed that she would be able to stop the Talebans from increasing their strength inside Pakistan if she were to be reelected prime minister of the country. Basically both Bhutto and Nwaz Sharif, along with many others, firmly believe that the current authoritarian rule under American patronage is responsible for the current mess. But the history of Pakistan of the last fifty years of military rule intermittently intruded upon by civilian administration provides evidence to the contrary. While Samuel Huntington is celebrating the fourth wave of democratization following the changes in “East Europe”, a term former soviet client states forcefully contest these days and the dramatic changes taking place in Latin America, and President bush is fighting doggedly the war on terror, described by some detractors as war on Islam, President Musharraf is going on full steam for reelection as President by the same parliamentary coalition of largely Islamist groups who gave him the presidency in 2002 without waiting for a new parliamentary election scheduled for  January 2008. The Americans are not oblivious of the fact that President Musharraf’s deal with the tribal leaders of status quo ante if ties with the Talibans were cut and cross border raids were stopped has failed. Former intelligence czar John Negroponte told the congress last year that the “tribal authorities are not living up to the deal” and that the cross border incursions into Afghanistan had doubled. Such a record does not speak well of bush administration’s decision to designate Pakistan as a major non-NATO ally for the purpose of bilateral military relations. In 2003 Colin Powell as secretary of state had described   Pakistan as   “as a moderate, modern Muslim nation, a nation that is becoming increasingly democratic” and allayed fears of the possibility of any sudden change in Pakistan’s policy on the war on terror should President Musharraf was to be assassinated. Colin Powell assured that the US was working with the government of Pakistan which did not rest on any single individual and that the US was reaching out to all levels of Pakistani society. The notion of “major non-NATO ally” (MNNA) status first surfaced in 1989. For several years this status was limited to Australia, Egypt, Israel, Japan and South Korea.   Though MNNA does not enjoy the same benefits of defense and security guarantee afforded to NATO members, yet there are defense related advantages in the up gradation of military relationship.  In the case of Pakistan skeptics hoped that the bush administration had given serious consideration to the question of the reliability of Pakistan as an ally of the US war on terror. Leon Haader of the Cato institute advised Washington to view Pakistan, with its dictatorship, failed economy, and insecure nuclear arsenal “as a reluctant supporter of us goals at best and as a potential long term problem at worst”. He did not see President Musharraf’s decision to join the us on its war on terror as reflecting a structural transformation in Pakistan’s policy but a tactical move to cut losses resulting from the demolition of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.  Political analyst matt Thundyll compared the US policy of cooperation with Pakistan as an alliance with a lesser evil against a greater evil. In reality, wrote Thundyll, like the soviet threat in 1945 the Pakistani threat is extant. While in the case of the former it was communism in Pakistan’s case it is Islamic extremism. Since the partition of India in 1945 Pakistan has been largely dictated by the politics of religion. Except for some feeble attempts to bring about secular values, both civilian and military rulers had appealed to the religious sentiments of the Pakistanis to gain legitimacy and to ensure survival.  According to a report by the Brussels based international crisis group (ICG report no 49) mullahs and military worked together against common foes during the cold war period and have identical views on Kashmir and towards India. The fundamental fact remains that Muttahida-Majlish-e- Amal (MMA), a conglomerate of religious fundamentalist political parties, has a considerable presence in the center and rules the two provinces bordering Afghanistan with a declared Islamization agenda. Additionally, Pakistan is bedeviled with religious sectarian conflicts. The Sunnis are divided into two groups­one following Deobandi school and the other Barelvi school of thought. The Deobandis are anti-shier. The hardcore among them­the vast majority­consider the Shias infidels and demand constitutional amendment to that effect. Sectarian killings are considered as jihad. One has to admit that Islamization is an irreversible fact of life in Pakistan with world and freeing the individual from tradition. In the case of Pakistan finding religion as insufficient basis for nationhood the generals in collusion with the landed aristocracy and economic elite achieved dominance in “a nation without clear definition or cohesion”. Stephen Cohen, perhaps the greatest expert the US has on South Asian affairs, calls this compact “moderate oligarchy... An informal system that (tied) together senior ranks of the military, the civil service, the key members of the judiciary and other elites”. Cohen holds various us administrations responsible for the ascendancy of the army in Pakistan and encouraging Pakistan’s nuclear ambition. A series of us Presidential waivers relating to economic and military sanctions were allowed despite the facts that Pakistan disclosed in 1984 that it could enrich uranium for nuclear weapons and in 1987 that it could assemble a nuclear device.
US POLICY AND PAKISTAN
The terrorist attacks of 9/11 put a solidarist face on us policy towards Pakistan that the bush administration considers as a very important partner in its war on terror. It is not known whether unbridled support given to Pakistan including giving it the status of a major non-NATO ally is despite the fact that Parvez Musharraf’s decision to join the war on terror did not signify a structural change in Pakistan’s policy but was an expedient one resulting from the total decimation of its ally the Talibans and the us threat that Pakistan could either join the war on terror or face the consequences. The us policy makers who insist on the continuation of Parvez Musharraf in power ignore the fact that the Musharraf government recognizes the Islamist political parties combine­MMA­as the main opposition party in parliament though Bhutto’s Pakistan people’s party has more parliamentarians (mma-63, ppp-81), perhaps to impress upon the west of the pseudo-civilian government’s indispensability in its “struggle” with the Islamists for power in Pakistan. This strand of argument is fallacious on the ground that “no Islamic organization is in a position to politically or militarily challenge the role of one and only center of power in Pakistan: the army”; and that in the event of exit of Parvez Musharraf the likely successor will be another general and not a populist civilian leader. Such deterministic prediction, albeit comfortable for the moment, ignores the on-going Baluch nationalism, wrongly projected as Islamic terrorism by the intelligence services, which has sprung from deprivation and dissatisfaction of the Baluch already feeling colonized by the Punjabis. It would be prudent to remember that in unified Yugoslavia the slogan that what is good for Serbia is good for Yugoslavia has ultimately led to the separation of Montenegro which was the last bastion of the old Yugoslav republic. Baluchistan accounts for 43% of Pakistani territory, 36% of Pakistan’s total gas production, holds large quantity of other minerals and is a potential transit route fro gas pipeline from Iran and Turkmenistan to India. But the province’s gas and mineral deposits are being expropriated and the people are feeling marginalized and dispossessed.
While an independent Baluchistan cannot be a desirable outcome of the existing trouble there for Pakistan, South Asia or the international community, “Pakistan today” writes Ashley Tellis (of the Carnegie endowment), “ is clearly both part of the problem and the solution to the threat of terrorism facing the United States”. Indeed the 9/11 commission had more or less highlighted Pakistan’s deep involvement with international terrorism and recommended a long term us commitment to provide comprehensive support to Pakistan. The choice for Pakistan, it has been said, is not between the military and the mullahs but between the military-mullah combine and the civilian and secular political parties.
The us and the west, therefore, would do well to help Pakistan build the political institutions, insist that the military stop marginalization of established political parties viz Bhutto’s PPP and Nwaz Sharif’s PML, encourage Bhutto-Sharif pledge to establish “real democracy” and charter of democracy agreed by the two last may in London, take measures to stop “Talibanization”” of Pathan politics and Islamization of Pathan nationalism in Pakistan, and encourage President Musharraf to give up the post of the army chief of staff.  US may also try to convince the Pak army that promotion of across the border terrorism in Kashmir and other parts of India is counter productive. In short, only a truly democratic polity in Pakistan would be beneficial for the country and the international community and reduce tension in South Asia. Could it be possible that Pakistan is now heading towards becoming a failed state? Parts of swat is now being controlled by the followers of firebrand Maulana Faizullah who has reportedly decided sympathy with the Talibans .one may ask how Pakistan has been allowed to come to this stage despite being an ally of the west since its independence. A simple answer lies in the tolerance of “democracy deficit” by the west during the cold war. The following lines will dwell on this subject.
Democracy deficit tolerated by the successive us administrations responding to the situations demanded by the cold war resulted in dictatorial regimes in many Muslim countries where dissent often meant being sent to the gulags while profligate elites lived life of moral degeneration ultimately acted against the interest of the west. At the other end of the spectrum was the conviction of the liberal thinkers and embraced by the neo-cons that democracies do not go to war against one another simply because waging war by a democracy would need distilled approval of different branches of the administration thus making it a difficult venture. Besides in a democracy governments being ultimately accountable to the people they do not have the luxury enjoyed by a fascist, Nazi or a Stalinist dictator. This argument can be equally extended to non-state actors who have made terrorism their religion. The Western world, therefore, is preoccupied with Islamic fundamentalism and political Islam due to their realization that policies followed hitherto had given birth to failed states in the vacuum left by the cold war which helped incubate the vitriolic contagion of al-Qaida variety. In the panic following the 9/11 events new cold war warriors equated Islamic fundamentalism with political Islam. While Islamic fundamentalism encapsulates the emotional, spiritual and political response of the Muslims to the acute politico-economic crisis in the middle east and the Muslims’ frustration over the inability of pan Arab nationalism to deliver political goods to the citizens; political Islam aims at establishing a global Islamic order through challenging the status quo within the Islamic states and through establishing a transnational net work of contacts.
Question has, however, arisen whether democratization of Muslim societies would necessarily reduce terrorism and prevent fresh recruits to the terrorist outfits. Vermont university professor Gregory Gause holds the view that in the absence of data available showing a strong relationship between democracy and absence or reduction of terrorism, the phenomenon appears to stem from factors other than regime type. He argues that since the al-qaedists are not fighting for democracy but for the establishment of what they believe to be a purist version of an Islamic state there is no reason to believe that a tidal wave of democracy would wash away terrorist activities. Some Middle East experts have suggested that as the root cause of al-Qaida lie in poverty and educational deficiencies in countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan, for example, caused by the authoritarian nature of the rulers the terrorist menace could have been better tackled through political reform. But a counter argument proffered by liberal thinker Paul Berman states that this approach may not succeed as al-Qaida ideology and radical Islam are driven by a fear and hatred of liberal Islam which they see as a “hideous schizophrenia” of the west that divides the state from religion and promotes individual freedom. A similar strand of argument finds that modernity rather than democracy should be used as the most important tool to fight global terrorism. Since modernity involves more than improved material conditions and entails a transformation in beliefs and philosophies, al-qaedists with their narrow interpretation of religious dogmas interspersed with voyeuristic attractions and/or fearful retribution would lose their way in the maze of.
PAISTAN AND FAILED STATE CONCEPT
The end of communism has brought about the end of history as asserted by Francis Fukuyama’s was however diluted by the question posed by Cynthia Enloe (the morning after: sexual politics after the cold war), widely accredited as the first author to attempt to make feminist sense of international relations, “ any post-war time is fraught with questions. These post-war years are no different. The first is always: what had changed? The formal ending of super power rivalry does not look like dawning of a brand new day in the ongoing evolution of politics… we are still living in a time where grand politics and politics of every day life continue to be defined in large part by the anxieties and actions of the cold war”. Even if one were to set aside momentarily gendered notion of security and structural violence embedded in unequal social relations, one has to take into account post-colonial failed and failing states, some sustained by cold war rivalry and others joining their ranks as cold war props vanished.
Helman and rather described the failed nations as “utterly incapable of sustaining itself as a member of the international community”. William Olsen expanded the definition by including states facing serious “internal problems that threaten their continued coherence” or “significant internal challenges to their political order”. Events of nine-eleven have given acute importance to the problems of failed and failing states as they can both be hospitable and can harbor non- state actors­warlords and terrorists­and of the need to understand the dynamics of the nation-state’s failure as being central to the war on terrorism. Robert Rotenberg (new nature of national state failure­the Washington quarterly­summer 2002) finds failed states as tense, deeply conflicted, having intense and enduring violence against the government or the regime caused, among others, by appalling living standards, decaying infrastructure of daily life, greed of rulers, patronage based system of extraction from ordinary citizens etc. effectively failed and failing states are unable to deliver political goods­security, education, health services, economic opportunities, law and order and a judicial system to administer it, infrastructural facilities­to its citizens.
Failed states are unable to provide security, a most basic demand of the citizens. Though a structured law enforcement authority exists yet crimes are committed with impunity. Rarely a citizen can build a house or an apartment complex without giving protection money to the criminals of that area. No businessman, be he one who sells odd articles sitting beside the footpath or one owning a factory employing hundreds of people, can afford to run business peacefully unless he pays regular protection money to the local mafia who in turn allegedly enjoys political patronage. Global competitive index of the world economic forum in 2003, in the case of Bangladesh for example, has placed the country at 79 out of 80 countries assessed. The survey identified corruption as the most inhibiting factor in doing business in Bangladesh. Inefficient bureaucracy, inadequate infrastructure, poor law and order, policy instability also affect the country’s business environment (The Daily Star­October 31, 2003). Transparency international has held the police in Bangladesh as corrupt and also indicated the presence of police- criminal nexus among some members of the force. Custodial deaths at the hands of law enforcement authorities are not unknown in Bangladesh. Us state department’s international religious freedom report 2002 not only described Bangladeshi police as being “generally ineffective in upholding the law” but “often are slow to assist members of religious minorities who have been victims of crime”. It should, however, be admitted that police brutality is not directed towards any particular religious community but is quite agnostic in its choice of victims.
It is often fallaciously assumed that failed states are generally asphyxiated dictatorships like Taliban’s Afghanistan, Mobutu’s Zaire or Barre’s Somalia. Though these were undoubtedly failed states, some are adorned with democratic institutions though flawed. As Robert rot berg explains if legislatures exist at all they are rubber stamp machines. Democratic debates are noticeably absent. The judiciary is derivative of the executive rather than being independent and citizens know that they cannot rely on judicial system for redress or remedy especially against the government. The bureaucracy has long lost its sense of professional responsibility and exists only to carry out the orders of its political masters. Indeed promotions to higher posts or transfers to coveted posts largely depend on passing the DNA tests for loyalty to the party in power.
Former British foreign secretary jack straw enumerated some of the characteristics of failed states. In general terms, straw said, a state failed when it was unable: (a) to control its territory and guarantee security to its citizens, (b) to maintain the rule of law, promote human rights, and provide effective governance, and (c) to deliver public goods to its people (such as economic growth, education and health care etc). In straw’s analysis it is possible to identify indicators of each of these elements of failure. For example, finding out could assess security criteria if there are areas beyond the control of the government or presence of significant ethnic, religious or inter-group conflicts. On governance, the indicators could include the ability of the government to implement policies; extent of corruption able to distort optimum implementation of decisions; ability of the people to influence governmental decisions without resorting to violence; and, presence of institutions to facilitate peaceful transference of power. As regards economy, the indicators could include the stability of the state’s economy; its dependence on certain industries or on agricultural sector; effective economic management; per capita GDP; literacy; life expectancy etc. Apart from the horrific events like that of nine-eleven, jack straw’s “continual fear and danger of violent death” in Hobbes Ian terminology is fuelled by the fact that over the past decade wars in and among failed states have killed about eight million people and have displaced another four million, most being civilians.
The logical question asked is why do states fail? Robert Doff of North Carolina University traces the failed state phenomenon to the collapse of the colonial order following the Second World War. Suddenly many state without having the required institutions and without the experience of self-government as they were colonies found themselves free from external dominance. Even before this phenomenon weak states were not unknown as Walter Lippmann wrote in 1915 that the overwhelming problem of diplomacy was due to weak states that were industrially backward and politically incompetent to prevent outbreak of internal violence. The cold war competition compounded the malaise as competing super powers showered the failing states with economic and military assistance. They thus ignored the fundamental premise of “democratic peace” which stipulates that democracies do not generally go to war against other democracies because internal democratic norms promote external democratic behavior and institutional checks and balances of democracies place constraints on the aggressive behavior of the leaders. The end of the cold war that dried up economic assistance pushed many of the failing states into the black hole of politico-economic disaster. Ironically the end of the cold war also brought along the “democratic moment” when many erstwhile dictatorships were suddenly wearing the garb of democracy. Because many of these states had known only authoritarianism for decades their sudden introduction to democracy brought forth a challenge to both the rulers and the ruled about how to strike a balance between enjoyment of rights with duties and obligations to the state. Besides the disappearance of a strong central authority encouraged pockets of chaos and anarchy along ethnic and religious lines or among minorities who had felt asphyxiated in the past regimes. Taking the advantage of the weakness of the central authority gangs and criminal syndicate assumed control over streets of cities. Ordinary police force either became paralyzed or was infected with the contagion of criminality. Since anarchy became the norm the ordinary citizens turned to godfathers/ warlords or other strong figures for protection.
Since failed states by definition denote ungovernability the consequent rampant criminality gives rise to sweeping despair and hopelessness. But when national ungovernability becomes global it starts to adversely affect the neighboring countries and as nine-eleven demonstrated even powerful distant lands. Oslo conference on root causes of terrorism found, among others, failed or weak states leaving a power vacuum for exploitation by terrorist organizations to maintain safe heavens, training facilities, and launching terrorist attacks. Because of the direct causal relationship between failing states and terrorism having been established long before nine-eleven Boutros Ghazi in 1992 addressed the issue of reduced significance of sovereignty in the post-cold war world and the concomitant possibility of UN intervention in the domestic affairs of member states. He suggested that such intervention would be appropriate in the face of a collapsed domestic governing authority, displaced populations and gross violations of human rights or when developments in failed states threaten international peace and security.
More often than not state failures are man made. Leadership decisions and leadership failures have destroyed states and contributed to the fragility of existing institutions. Mobutu’s kleptocratic rule and Robert Mugabe’s obduracy are two such examples. But since Robert Kalgan’s prescription of military solution to security issues does not have universal appeal, one could heed jack straw’s advice (failed and failing states­06.09.02) to take recourse to a range of tools­some developmental and some diplomatic­to strengthen states prone to failure. Doing so is far less expensive than reconstructing states after failure. Because prevention of state failure is imperative it hoped that the recent UNSC debates and the just concluded Madrid conference on Iraq have impressed upon the high and mighty that multilateral approach rather than display of muscularity holds the key to real peace and prosperity of the world.

During Pakistani President Musharraf’s visit to Washington and London in 2004 both President Bush and Prime Minister Blair effusively praised President Parvez Musharraf’s courage in “standing firm against terrorism”, his “vision for Enlightened Moderation in the Islamic World”, and “his good stewardship of the Pakistan economy”. Yet Pakistani scholar Parvez Hoodbhoy (Foreign Affairs-Nov/Dec 2004) has posed an enigmatic question: can Pakistan work? Such a question may be asked of countries standing on the brink of “failure” defined as a state unable to provide human security, justice and basic necessities of life to its people. But can Pakistan be categorized as falling into such a group even if the most expansive definition of a “failed state” is taken into account?  Not if one is to give credence to a speech given by then Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and of his assertion of Pakistan’s consistent economic growth at more than six percent per anum for the last several years and of improved socio-economic indicators. But then Stephen Cohen, the highly credentialed and perhaps the leading American analyst on South Asia, (The nation and the State of Pakistan) has quoted Pakistanis who acknowledged Pakistan’s failure as a state several times in the past, most notably being in 1971 when East Pakistan became Bangladesh. Cohen considered Pakistan as “a case study of negatives­a state seemingly incapable of establishing a normal political system, supporting radical Islamic Taliban, and mounting Jihadi operations into India while its own economic and political systems were collapsing and internal religious and ethnic based violence were raising dramatically”. Hussein Haqqani (of Carnegie Endowment of International Peace- The role of Islam in Pakistan’s future) sees Pakistan’s weakness being embedded in disproportionate focus on ideology, military capability and external alliance since the country’s inception in 1947. Pakistan’s progress has been faltering not only in its inability to build up institutions supportive of democracy but also in other areas compared to its nemesis­India. Pakistan’s economy is the smallest among the nuclear powers. Pakistan suffers from massive urban unemployment, rural underemployment, illiteracy and low per capita income. But perhaps Pakistan’s greatest weakness stems from its inability to acquire a clear identity as a nation –state bereft of transnational Islamic ideology. Stephen Cohen finds the “history and future of Pakistan being rooted in this duality, a complex relationship between Pakistan the state and Pakistan the nation­mission bound to serve as a beacon for oppressed and backward Muslim communities elsewhere in the world”. It debatable whether Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, described by Parvez Hoodbhoy as “an impeccably dressed westernized Muslim with Victorian manners and secular outlook” had thought of Pakistan as a cradle for oppressed Muslims in global terms. This role of Muslim leadership, if any country can appropriate such a role at all, can perhaps be claimed by Saudi Arabia as the Guardian of the holiest places of Islam. But then Saudi Arabia itself is in the throes of anarchic confusion forced to walk along the edge of internecine conflict between purist Islamists and westernized elite compounded by American phobic suspicion of its trusted ally in the aftermath of 9/11 tragedy. Indeed the Islamic world is in disarray in the face of American triumphalism. In reality the Islamic world unable to define a uniform Islamic image has been in decline for ages, the last nail in the coffin having been driven by the end of the Ottoman rule.

In the case of Pakistan its obsession with Islamic ideology was a direct result of its pathological fear of Hindu India which led to the country being ruled by an establishment described by Stephen Cohen as a “moderate oligarchy” consisting of the military, civil service, judiciary and landed aristocracy. This oligarchy believes in implacable opposition to Indian preeminence, fight for the “liberation” of Kashmir, maintenance of nuclear weapons as a deterrence to Indian “designs” and as a status symbol, implicit belief in social Darwinism and consequent contempt for land reforms, closest possible relationship with the US despite anti-US sentiment among the general public, and use of Islam as the national unifier and as a force to deter Pashto on, Sindhi and Balch sub-nationalism.  In this conglomeration of oligarchic forces the army from the beginning pronounced its dominance over the others. But since the army alone could not rule Pakistan it needed collusive cooperation of other self-interested parties. In this endeavor US help proved providential. During the Cold War days the western countries’ priority was to contain communism and not to propagate democratic values. John Foster Dulles way back in 1946 saw the need for a “rededication to our religious faith” and demonstration of western political system as “a curative thing” to protect and defend “our cherished freedom” through the containment of communism as of utmost importance. So several defense arrangements were created. Paradoxically, however, while western members of NATO (except Turkey) and ANZUS were expected to practice democracy, non-western members of SEATO and CENTO were allowed to be deviants. One wonders why. Regardless of membership of defense alliances the Third World countries received western assistance in combating communism that could be more effectively fought by military dominated autocracies than by democracies. Consequently the West encouraged military rule and in some cases kleptocracy in many Third World countries as long as communism was denied political space in these underdeveloped societies. Pakistan was no exception. When the intensity of the Cold War was on the wane Soviet invasion of Afghanistan came as a God-sent blessing for General Ziaul-ul-Huq who based Pakistani educational and legal system on Islamic law and formalized the state ideology as an official policy of Islamization. Through his Islamization efforts, observes Hussein Haqqani, Zia made Pakistan an important ideological and organizational center of global Islamist movement including its role in the anti-Soviet campaign in Afghanistan by allowing Afghan mujahedeen’s to operate from bases in Pakistan and sponsoring the Taliban putsch for power in Afghanistan by dislodging the Soviet backed regimes. Little did the Americans realize at that time that they were being instrumental in constructing a Frankenstein who at a later date would be responsible for the 9/11 carnage in the US mainland. Even now the Bush administration is helping the Pakistani military as the dominant partner of the “moderate oligarchy” to rule Pakistan through marginalization of comparatively secular political parties­Nwaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League and Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party. Though the political dominance and institutional integrity of the Pakistani army, observes Stephen Cohen, has been able to marginalize radical Islamic parties so far, one should not lose sight of the fact that in the process of sidelining Nwaz Sharif and Benazir Bhuto President Musharraf has helped Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, an alliance of six Islamic parties to gain 11 percent of the popular votes and 53 seats in the Federal National Assembly and governance of NWFP and Beluchistan. The West should ponder if continued support to Musharraf regime (its necessity being explained as an essential part of the war on terror) would not at some future date be translated into adversarial actions against western interests. Some western scholars hold the view that though the danger of Islamic radicalism in Pakistan may not pose any danger in the short run poverty, unemployment, and perceived injustice to the Muslims in general may generate actions that would not be in the interest of the West. Besides future recruits of the Al-Qaedists may not have to come from the marginalized sections of Pakistani society. The case of Daniel Pearl murderer Omar Saeed Sheikh, born into prosperous Pakistani-British family and having been a student in the London School of Economics and 9/11 high jackers are cases in point. A June 2003 public opinion survey found 45 percent Pakistanis had at least “some confidence” in Osama bin Laden’s ability to “do the right thing about world affairs”. In a testimony early this year to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee a senior State Department official characterized Pakistan as “probably the most anti-American country in the world right now”.

If democracy deficit has been identified as one of the main causes fuelling terrorism because the West is perceived by the citizens of those countries as propping up the failed autocratic governments in the affected countries then the West should avoid pursuing double standard in its propagation of democratic values. US’ need for Pakistani cooperation in the war on terror notwithstanding President Musharraf’s decision to hold on to the post of Army Chief (though rubber stamped by the Parliament) her silence on this important issue of disfiguration of democratic institution may not be looked upon kindly by future generation of Pakistanis. Leon Haader (of Cato Institute) who sees President Musharraf’s joining the war on terror as not reflective of structural change in Pakistani policy holds the view of “Pakistan with its dictatorship, failed economy and insecure nuclear weapons as a reluctant supporter of US goals at best and a potential long term problem at worst.”

The point being driven at is that the West particularly the US and Europe should not have a myopic view of Pakistan where the army is apparently beating up the Al-Qaedists with some success but should encourage secular pluralism instead of continued support to a military-Islamist combine. Emergence of a powerful Islamic fundamentalist group in Pakistan though discounted by Stephen Cohen for the present cannot be totally ruled out. Cohen bases his argument on the premise that “regardless of what may be desirable the army will continue to set the limits of what is possible in Pakistan”. If that were the case then the guardians of global security and propagators of democratic values would be well advised to put a check on the “moderate oligarchy” and encourage Pakistan to follow the course of democratic pluralism. In the ultimate analysis filtered judgment by many is always preferable to dictated conclusion by the few.
SHIFT IN INDO-PAK RELATIONS
There is a feeling of expectancy in the air though no one is sure what the fifty odd years old conundrum will produce. Expectancy resulted from the olive branch extended by Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee from Srinagar to Pakistan to deescalate the sclerosis that has set in the bilateral relations between the two countries. This was promptly followed by a phone call from Pak Prime Minister Jamali to his Indian counterpart and then followed up through exchange of letters between the two. Vajpayee’s initiative was naturally welcomed by the world which has remained submerged in the magnum opus history of the sub-continent fifty years old and is currently engaged in the unrelaxed vigil so that a possible catastrophic war does not engulf the region, a distinct possibility till recently when the vast army of the two nuclear powered countries were facing each other eye ball to eye ball.  The tectonic shift in Indian policy has been startling given the face off at the NAM summit at Kuala Lumpur when President Musharraf raised a bilateral issue­Kashmir­in a multilateral forum that invited a sharp retort from the Indian prime minister. In early April foreign minister Jessant Sinhala thought Pakistan to be “a fit case” for preemptive attack like that on Iraq because Pakistan had WMD, lacked democracy and sheltered international terrorists. Colin Powell, however, did not find any “direct parallel to the two cases”. In February Sinhala told an Indian periodical (outlook- 24th February) in reply to a question about the dangerous possibility of Pak nuclear weapons falling into wrong hands that in his view “nuclear weapons in the hands of Pakistan are already in wrong hands”. He insisted that Pakistan must abandon its approach of compulsive hostility and use of cross border terrorism with impenitent and ferocious regularity as an instrument of policy towards India. In March Vajpayee strongly criticized the US for showing weakness towards Pakistan. On other occasions he castigated the west for following a double standard in combating terrorism.
Pursuant to the Srinagar olive branch positive developments to date have been naming of high commissioners by the two countries; political decision reached on the resumption of bus, rail and air links; and decision to restart talks. Understandably having been bitten twice­bus visit to Lahore and failed summit at Agra­India has become cautious and would like to take a “step by step process and resume the dialogue process in a calibrated and well prepared manner” in order to normalize relations with Pakistan (Jaswant Sinha to Hindustan times­6th April). Indians felt betrayed that when Vajpayee was talking to then Pak Prime Minister Naas Sharif at Lahore Pak military was preparing for Kargil misadventure presumably keeping the civilian administration in the dark. While Indian caution is understandable the question arises what prompted the Indian prime minister to take the peace initiative now. Though dismissed by India that her overture to Pakistan was due to us pressure it is difficult to totally disregard the possibility of foreign pressure in view of frequent visits to South Asia by Richard Arbitrage and Cristina Roca of the us state department and British foreign secretary jack straw. Indians would like to describe their policy change was due to some positive steps taken by Pakistan such as actions taken against hijbul mujaheddin and lessening of Pak governmental sponsorship and support of cross border terrorism and no less due to Indian prime minister’s “initiative and statesmanship” which have earned us admiration and appreciation of India’s step by step policy of augmenting relations with Pakistan. Indian leaders and policy makers are generally reluctant to admit of doing things under duress. India is very conscious of her unique position as being the largest democracy in the world; hosting second largest (after the us) talent pool of it specialists; second largest populated (after china) country; as a fairly large economy (GDP $ 448 billion in 1999); more than a million strong defense force armed with nuclear weapons etc. India feels that she should be a permanent member of the UNSC. She feels happy over President Bush’s commitment to develop a fundamentally different relationship with India by opening a strategic dialogue which encouraged prime minister Vajpayee to declare that USA and India were “natural allies” both being victims of international terrorism. Indian confidence as a critical presence in Asia was recently buttressed when defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld called on the visiting Indian deputy Prime Minister L.K.Advani within hours of his arrival at Washington. This was seen by Indian officials as a very rare gesture shown by senior us government official to visiting foreign dignitaries and an extra-ordinary honor extended to Advani. Reportedly Rumsfeld was keen to know about Indian reaction to the US request for Indian troops for Iraqi reconstruction to which Indian DPM reportedly replied that his country was still considering various aspect of the issue before taking a final decision. Advani took this opportunity to express Indian disappointment that enough us pressure was not being put upon Pakistan to stop cross border terrorism. It is also possible that Vajpayee extended his hand of friendship towards Pakistan to facilitate holding the next saarc summit in Islamabad. It would not have helped India’s image to have been seen as obstructing indefinitely holding of the saarc summit.  As it is one wonders about the depth of India’s interest in the saarc. Perhaps, India has reached the conclusion that given the abysmal depth of Indo-Pak distrust and her neighbor’s misgivings about India’s treatment of bilateral relations with them SAARC would not become a robust organization any time soon. India is a dialogue partner of ASEAN, a regular participant of ASEM and APEC processes, valued by the EU and the US. Therefore SAARC may not have the same priority for Delhi that it has in other South Asian capitals. This thesis, however, becomes debatable when one looks at the speech delivered by Indian foreign minister at the Pantheon university at Athens (India-EU relationship­15th January 2003) in which he spoke of the remarkable process by which the European union came to acquire a political and strategic dimension becoming virtually a united states of Europe, an example sunhat felt, could be emulated by Asia.
If India truly has become disenchanted with the SAARC process it could be because the fundamental issue in indo=Pak relations has remained unresolved. As late as early June Pak foreign minister churched kauri reiterated that as far as Pakistan was concerned the whole of Jammu & Kashmir was disputed territory and its status was yet to be determined as required by UNSC resolutions. Former Pak foreign secretary Riaz khokar told the disarmament conference at Geneva that Pakistan hoped that a resumed dialogue between India and Pakistan would address “the core issue of Kashmir without which there can not be any realistic hope of enduring peace and security in the region”. A position paper issued by the Pak foreign office clearly states that Pakistan will continue to extend full political, diplomatic and moral support “to the legitimate Kashmiri struggle for their right of self determination as enshrined in the relevant UN resolutions”. The position paper adds that in the context of bilateral dialogue Pakistan calls on India to translate its commitments into reality. On the Indian side foreign minister Sinha was asked in an interview( with radiff.com­4th June 2003) under what conditions, if any, would India be amenable for dividing Kashmir formally along the line of control(loc) and accept it as an international border. In reply he said that the constitution of India and the resolution adopted in parliament in 1994 clearly lay down that the entire state of Jammu& Kashmir was an integral part of India. Where then is the scope to bridge the vast gap without which no lasting solution of the Kashmir problem and by extension of indo-Pak relations can be resolved? The positions stated above are not new but reiteration of the old ones totally devoid of any imaginative new elements. One could perhaps consider the advice given by ambassador Richard Haas of the US state department who spent almost three decades working on regional conflicts that the inability to resolve big issues should not stop progress on the little ones because the path to large breakthrough was often paved with agreements on small issues. He further advised that since the status of loc could neither be changed unilaterally nor through violence the two countries should work on issues that could be solved so that bilateral relations could be improved.
Whether one likes it or not the world has irrevocably been changed by the tragic events of nine-eleven when the US lost its innocence regarding its invincibility and realized to its horror that small states can cause as much damage to the most powerful nation on earth as big states can. The other lesson learnt was that non-state actors could also cause immense harm to the innocent as recent events at Bali, Riyadh and morocco have horribly demonstrated. It is therefore essential that indo-Pak differences be resolved peacefully as the Europeans have done by moving away from centuries of conflict laden history. In this conflict resolution endeavor all South Asians have direct stake. In the event of a nuclear conflagration none will escape Unscathed. In common prosperity all can share. Both India and Pakistan would be well advised to abandon their respective dogmatist position and try to reach a realistic solution. Holding on to a fifty year old legend will bear no fruit. In sum, South Asia has more urgent wars to fight, the wars on the grim triad of poverty, ignorance and disease than wage military wars. To emancipate about a billion people from the vortex of poverty and under development South Asian leaders have to shed their politicians robe and put on the garb of statesmen. The heritage of love or hate they leave for the future generation will affect the fate of teeming millions in the years to come.
During his most recent visit to South Asia us secretary of state Colin Powell announced the intention of the bush administration to notify the us congress that it would designate Pakistan as a major non-NATO ally for the purpose of future bilateral military relations. Stating that Pakistan has an important role to play in this region, he described Pakistan “as a moderate, modern Muslim nation, a nation that is becoming increasingly democratic”. He allayed fears of the possibility of any sudden change in Pakistan’s policy on the war on terror should President Musharraf who has been target of several assassination attempts on his life were to depart from Pakistan’s political scene. Colin Powell assured that the US was working with the government of Pakistan which did not rest on any single individual and that the US was reaching out to all levels of Pakistani society.
Indian reaction to the US decision to upgrade military relations with Pakistan was measured. An official spokesman of the Indian foreign office said that India was studying the details of the decision “which has significant implications for the India-us relations”. Indian government expressed disappointment that Colin Powell did not warn India about the decision though he was in Delhi just two days before he made the announcement in Islamabad relating to Pakistan. Perhaps to calm India down us state department expressed the hope that the decision to upgrade military relations with Pakistan would not affect relations wit India because of the strength and depth of the existing “strategic partnership” between the two countries.
PAKISTAN AS MNNA
The notion of “major non-NATO ally” (MNNA) status first surfaced in 1989. For several years this status was limited to Australia, Egypt, Israel, Japan and South Korea. In 1992 a new section was added to the foreign assistance act of 1961 giving the US President the authority to name new countries to be MNNAs. The President’s designation of MNNA takes effect thirty days after congress is notified in writing. Though MNNA does not enjoy the same benefits of defense and security guarantee afforded to NATO members, yet there are defense related advantages in the up gradation of military relationship. Some of the benefits are: - priority delivery of excess defense articles, stockpiling of the us defense articles, purchase of depleted uranium anti-tank rounds, participation in cooperative research and development programmes, and participation in defense export loan guarantee program which backs up private loans for commercial defense articles.
It is obvious that the inclusion of Pakistan in the list of MNNA is to reward Pakistan’s total cooperation in the US led war on terror. Before the efficacy of the us decision is analyzed beyond its very short term goal of rewarding Pakistan despite proliferation of nuclear technology by a.q.khan’s, one may wish to trawl through us relations with other MNNAs. Australia has been tied to the US by ANZUS alliance since 1951 and as a follower of “whites only” immigration policy till seventies was a sort of apartheid South Africa in the midst of Australasia region. In 1964 Australia introduced draft to send troops to Vietnam during the war that was abolished when labor government came to power. In the current war on terror Prime Minister John Howard has been hawkish in favor of the US position, a policy not uniformly supported by Australians. In the cases of Japan and South Korea, both of which host us troops on their soil, MNNA status is a natural development of their military relations with the US. Inclusion of Israel on the pretext of guaranteeing its security does not need elaboration. Egypt was perhaps included because of changed Egyptian policy towards the US in post-Nasser era and in view of Camp David accord between Anwar Sadat and Manachem Begin through the mediation of President Carter.
In the case of Pakistan one hopes that the bush administration had given serious consideration to the question of the reliability of Pakistan as an ally of the US war on terror. Leon Haader of the Cato institute advised Washington to view Pakistan, with its dictatorship, failed economy, and insecure nuclear arsenal “as a reluctant supporter of us goals at best and as a potential long term problem at worst”. He did not see President Musharraf’s decision to join the US on its war on terror as reflecting a structural transformation in Pakistan’s policy but a tactical move to cut losses resulting from the demolition of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Besides, the reported choice given to President Musharraf by deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage of either to cooperate or be bombed to stone age (reflecting President Bush’s dictum of either you are with us or against us) helped to expedite Pakistan’s decision to join the us in the war on terror. In an op-ed (March 17, 2004) Colin Powell denied that us-Pakistan relations are “a temporary marriage of convenience”. He emphasized that “the US partnership with Pakistanis not just for today and tomorrow. Our partnership is for the long term”. He added that American interests in Pakistan was not defined by the state of indo-Pak relations nor driven solely by the US need to secure Pak assistance against terrorism and proliferation.
Notwithstanding Colin Powell’s sacramental testimony on us-Pakistan relations state department could have considered President Musharraf’s televised speech to the nation (on 19.09.2001) in which he compared his move to cooperate with the           us to the temporary ceasefire Muslim leaders signed with the non-believers at early stages of Islamic history to provide the Muslims with the opportunity to gain strength and expand influence. Political analyst Matt Thundyll has compared the US policy of cooperation with Pakistan as an alliance with a lesser evil against a greater evil. In reality, writes Thundyll, like the soviet threat in 1945 the Pakistani threat is extant. While in the case of the former it was communism in Pakistan’s case it is Islamic extremism. Since the partition of India in 1945 Pakistan has been largely dictated by the politics of religion. Except for some feeble attempts to bring about secular values, both civilian and military rulers had appealed to the religious sentiments of the Pakistanis to gain legitimacy and to ensure survival. The fact that the very creation of Pakistan was based on the ground that Indian Muslims and Hindus could not co-exist together was the most compelling religious argument which convinced the British to the creation of the two adversarial states in the sub-continent. Pakistan is an Islamic theocracy. Pakistan’s constitution provides that all existing laws shall be brought in conformity with the injunction of Islam as laid down in the holy Quran and sunnah and no law shall be enacted which is repugnant to such injunctions. According to a report by the Brussels based international crisis group (ICG report no 49) mullahs and military worked together against common foes during the cold war period and have identical views on Kashmir and towards India. One should, however, be cognizant of improving indo=Pak relations and the on going attacks on al-Qaida by Pakistani military in the lawless region of South Waziristan. Yet the fundamental fact remains that Muttahida-Majlish-e- Amal (MMA), a conglomerate of religious fundamentalist political parties, has a considerable presence in the center and rules the two provinces bordering Afghanistan with a declared Islamization agenda. Additionally, Pakistan is bedeviled with religious sectarian conflicts. The Sunnis are divided into two groups­one following Deobandi School and the other Barelvi school of thought. The Deobandis are anti-shier. The hardcore among them­the vast majority­consider the shies infidels and demand constitutional amendment to that effect. Sectarian killings are considered as jihad. One may also recall the council of Islamic ideology (CII), established by President Ayub khan in 1960 that received expanded powers during general Zia-ul-Huq’s Islamization campaign. In 1991 Nwaz Sharif’s government made death penalty mandatory for blaspheming the holy prophet(sm). The hudood ordinances and the related anon-e shadiest (the law of evidence) were discriminatory to women.
The central point of the above discourse is to emphasize the fact that Islamization is an irreversible fact of life in Pakistan with its implicit anti-Western and anti-American sentiments remaining as integral parts of the Islamist agenda. Therefore rewarding countries like Pakistan despite the US administration’s satisfaction over the dismantling of a, khan’s nuclear proliferation network, with enhanced military support is likely to boomerang in the long run.
US’ designation of Pakistan as major non-NATO ally may allow the US to have military presence in Pakistan, as is the case in Japan and South Korea. US nuclear assets could also be stationed there. In return the US could expect Pakistan to send sizeable number of troops to Iraq to relieve war weary American soldiers stationed there. In another scenario of us troops stationed in Pakistan could be used for intervention in Iran should such a situation arise. In all these cases popular discontent against the Pakistani government and the US administration is bound to surface with all intensity. As it is US invasion of Iraq and Pakistani military attacks on suspected al-Qaida operatives in South Waziristan are hugely unpopular among Pakistani people. Possible Indian response to a militarily strengthened Pakistan could see an emergence of Russia-china-India strategic alliance with anti-us bias, a proposal formally put forward by then Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov in 1998. Besides Sino-Indian relations are reportedly improving. An additional factor promoting such an alliance could be India’s reasonably high growth rate. IMF calculates that by 2006 India would have a larger GDP than Italy or Britain and by 2025 could surpass those of Germany and France. Should it come to pass Indian economy would be the fourth largest in the world after the US, Japan and china. Professor Joseph Nye of Harvard Kennedy School of government however dismisses the possibility of India alone becoming a global challenger of the US in this century though India has considerable assets that could be added to the scale of sino-russian-Indian coalition. He also thinks of such a coalition becoming a serious anti-American threat to be remote.
In any case not taking India into confidence about upgrading military relations with Pakistan and making the announcement in Islamabad at a time when India is in the midst of a general election do not bode well for indo-us strategic partnership. Such duplicity, if it was so, would portray the US to the Indian public as politically insensitive. Besides the US might not have enhanced its prestige in the world by “supping with the devil” in the backdrop of A.Q.Khan nuclear black marketing which should have merited punishment and not reward. It remains to be seen as to how the us will make up to India for its foreign policy lapse and finally come to terms with the fact that South Asia is “ India dominant” and not “Pakistan dominant” and any American attempt to equate India and Pakistan will be strategically unrealistic. Besides, the region may see another arms race as a result of the US decision relating to Pakistan. In any case, one can not but be amazed by the serial foreign policy blunders committed by the bush administration administering a country which strides the globe like a colossus , dominating every sphere of global activity and possessing military might second to none. But then the US had not forgotten India’s increasing politico-economic stature in the world. This was reflected in President Bush’s visit to India in March 2006.
The visit to India by President George w bush signaled above all that India’s preferred destination has changed from Moscow to Washington. This gradual transformation in the indo-we relations have been occasioned by, in the words of Indian foreign secretary Shay Sharan, ‘the end of the cold war and consequent rearrangement of interstate ties”. He finds the defining moment of this transformed relationship in the visit of prime minister man Mohan Singh to Washington in July last year when the two countries agreed to move beyond the bilateral framework towards a global partnership based on common values and common interests. Addressing the Asia society a few days before his visit President Bush detailed his expectations from the forthcoming visit. Us and India, he said, faces the threat of terrorism (more commonly known as “threat of Islamic extremism”) and hoped to make India “more effective partner in the global war on terror”. Unlike the US, terrorism faced by India is polycentric, ranging from Kashmiri militants to Maoists to Naga separatists to host of others trying to destabilize the country. The most virulent of them all being the Islamic extremists, both the US and India have found common ground to face this dreadful enemy. Indian experience in Kashmir and American experience in Iraq with terrorism, one from across the border and the other homegrown, convinced both that the practice of democracy was crucial to fight this menace. President Bush was exultant to inform hid audience at the Asia society of the indo-us launching of global democracy initiative and of their leadership role in advancing the United Nations democracy fund.
India has been the largest practicing democracy in the world for over five decades. But the constraints put by cold war dynamics and India’s espousal of the non-aligned movement prevented growth of indo-us relations. But then the end of the cold war and India’s emergence as the fourth largest economy in the world (as measured by purchasing power parity) with a GDP amounting to us $ 3.36 trillion, among others, contributed to reassessment of the US policy towards India. India says President Bush, is now one of the fastest growing markets for the American products, and India’s middle class estimated at 300 millions is greater than the entire population of the US, and India’s growth is creating opportunities for American business notwithstanding loss of American jobs due to outsourcing.
It is no secret that the Bush administration had already decided to help India become a major world power in the 21st century. This considered decision, according to Ashley Tellis( of Carnegie foundation for international peace), was the product of strategic vision of Condoleezza rice that a strong and independent India represents a strategic asset there being no intrinsic conflict between the us and India, and that this policy would not be affected by Pakistan’s ire but dictated by the intrinsic importance of India and Pakistan to the us interests.
In May last year British paper financial times published a pentagon report advising bush administration to take more seriously the possibility of china’s emergence as a strategic rival to the US. Under the national defense authorization act 2000 pentagon has to submit an annual report on the current and probable future course of Chinese army and Chinese security and military strategy. According to the Pentagon report India, Russia and china are key determinants of international security environment in the 21st century. Of the three, Russia is considered a constructive partner while china “has the greatest potential to compete militarily with the US and field disruptive military technologies that could over time offset traditional us military advantage”. Despite such disquieting report pentagon advised that the US policy should remain focused on encouraging china to play a constructive role in the Asia-pacific region. There is a school of thought which believes that the us’ recognition of India as a civilian nuclear power has probably more to do with china’s investment in asymmetric military power “beyond Taiwan” than for love of Indian democracy. Harvard professor Joseph Nye jars. However doubts that China would ever be able to achieve the position of peer competitor of the us on a global basis given the facts that the us would continue to outpace the rest of the world in defense expenditure so that the us, as promised by President bush, would never have to enter into an armed race with any country, stunning Chinese economic growth is faced with inefficient state owned enterprises, growing inequality between the rich and the poor straining social cohesion, massive internal migration from the rural to the urban areas, corruption, inadequate infrastructure etc, and no less importantly the 1996 Clinton-Hashimoto declaration as the basis of post-cold war stability in east Asia shall act as an impediment to nascent Chinese militaristic ambition, if any. President carter’s national security advisor Zbigniew Brezinski firmly believes that Chinese leadership is not inclined to challenge the us militarily because china’s phenomenal economic growth is contingent upon good relations with the us, Japan, South Korea and other trading partners, and the us being the fourth largest trading partner and the  source of largest us trade deficit, Chinese expectation of foreign direct investment of us $100 billion in 2005, and increasing number of the Chinese middle class make it difficult to believe that Chinese leadership could embark on any adventurous military policy against the us. Additionally there is no reason to believe that from Nixon to carter to Reagan to Clinton to bush­any us President has deviated from the premise that a china that lives in isolation from the international community can be more devastating than one brought within the orbit of internationally accepted rules. There is evidence, however, that the American efforts to build up India as a global power were designed to use India as a countervailing power to possible Chinese expansionism. After the Chinese revolution the US came to believe that the newly independent India was the only potential regional power that could check Chinese dominance of South East Asia. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru who refused play along thwarted the American design. After the 1964 Chinese nuclear test pentagon considered the possibility of providing India with nuclear weapons under the US custody. The idea was dropped as it ran counter to the non-proliferation agenda of the US administration. Bill Clinton’s March 2000 visit to India bound the two countries to “work together for strategic stability in Asia and beyond”. January 2004 declaration titled “next step in strategic partnership” and India defense relationship agreement of June last year are believed to have china in sight, elucidated by ambassador Robert Blackwell’s rhetorical question: why should the us want to check on India’s missile capability that could lead to china’s permanent nuclear dominance over democratic India?
But the recent Sino-Indian overtures do not give any indication at all that India, despite former defense minister George Fernandez’ inopportune remark that china remains India’s number one enemy, has any intention to play the role of the us sentinel in Asia. Bush visit was not to strike a Faustian bargain but to recognize the reality of India as an economic and military powerhouse. Us under secretary nick burns speaking to the press at Delhi frankly confessed about the choice faced by the bush administration regarding India’s nuclear program: - is it better to keep India in isolation or is it better to bring India into compliance actively with major international agreements that govern the disposition of nuclear materials and nuclear energy? India, bush administration concluded, despite having nuclear technology for over three decades has not proliferated as opposed to North Korea and Pakistan and Iran that “lied to idea”.
The US congress and the 44 nation nuclear suppliers group must both approve the agreement reached at Delhi which will give India access to billions of dollars of the US and other foreign atomic technology and fuel to meet India’s soaring energy needs. The agreement’s passage through the congress, however, is not guaranteed, particularly in an election year with the possibility of the republicans losing their majority in the congress. One ranking democratic member of the congress described the deal as “undermining the security not only the of the US but of the rest of the world”. Non-proliferation issue aside(strongly refuted by Shaym Saran in his Washington speech), questions have been raised as to whether India(for that matter Pakistan) needs nuclear weapons at all and of possible harm to the Indian populace from a continued expansion on India’s nuclear complex. Besides it has been claimed that the cost of producing nuclear electricity in India is higher than the cost of producing electricity from other sources. Chernobyl scenario and disposal of nuclear waste would pose additional problem.
Supporters of the nuclear deal sees it not only a way out for India’s soaring energy needs but also a virtual us recognition of India as a nuclear power because according to the joint statement India will have “the same benefits and advantages as other leading countries with advanced nuclear technology like the united states”. Detractors, however, point out that domestic uranium, freed as a result of uranium purchased from the international market, would be used to increase India’s nuclear arsenal. It is quite possible that the indo-us deal would start an armed race between India, Pakistan and china­all desperately poor countries though India and china is role model for the developing world.
In short, bush visit to India was to confer on India American blessings for India to play a global role. Cato institute’s handbook for the US congress recommends that the US administration should focus on India as a leading diplomatic and economic partner of the US in South Asia and as a strategic counterbalance to china. Cato further recommends that India be treated as a central player in the US led war on terror and radical Islamic force in South Asia. Bush visit has followed the advice and more. The very fact that the situation in Burma and Nepal were mentioned in the press conference addressed by President Bush and Prime Minister Singh testify to the possibility of wide ranging discussions on neighboring countries and other issues of international concern in the summit meeting. Bush visit was effectively India’s coronation as a global power and perhaps as the regional hegemon in South Asia.
The crisis revolving Lal Masjid in Islamabad though insignificant militarily because the militant leaders Aziz and ghazi were“traditional clerics and not jihadist” brings anew the question of Islamic extremism in Pakistan.  Religious affairs minister Ejajul Huq described the militants as “far more dangerous and harmful than al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives” while President Musharraf claimed that the militants belonged to Jaish-e-Mohammed and al-Qaeda. Musharraf himself was a target of assassination attempt when the aircraft carrying him was fired upon (the attempt was described by Delhi-based South Asia intelligence review as at best ludicrous, with no significant danger to the President at any time) and his regime continues to face challenge, the latest being the London meeting of all parties conference that accused   Musharraf regime of bringing  “Pakistan to the edge of a precipice, leading to strife, chaos and the threat of disintegration”.

Daniel Markey (of the council of foreign relations) in a recent article (foreign affairs- July/August 2007) suggested that the choice facing the US “between supporting Pakistan’s army and promoting democracy has always been a false one. Both are necessary. Only by helping to empower civilians and earning the trust of the army at the same time will the united states successfully prosecute the long war against extremism and militancy”. It has been argued in favor of Daniel Markey’s premises that societies like that of Pakistan burdened with the attributes of   tribalism   preclude fairness and justice to the people. Added to this feudalistic character of the society is the constant fear of Hindu India overrunning smaller (but nuclear) Pakistan.   It has been suggested that the Pakistan army and Isis’ retention of ties with the militants and Taliban sympathizers have been done as a hedge against abandonment by the US in case of an indo-Pak conflict.  Besides given the Pakistan army and ISI's long standing relationship with the Islamists they were never serious about fighting terrorists. Despite common belief that the Talibans are still present in Pakistan’s federally administered tribal areas (FATA) and that Osama bin laden and Ayman al-Zwahiri are living in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region, some South Asian experts advise that the us administration should broaden its relations with the army as a constant in the power politics of Pakistan and even if a civilian government were to come to power it will have to negotiate its perilous relationship with the army. Ayesha Siddiqa writes in her book military Inc. That “the military’s power allows it to define its economic interests and exploit public and private resources, a behavior that increases the organization’s appetite for power”. Siddiqa’s contention is strengthened by the belief that Pakistan military will not accept any dilution of power, however tainted some elements of the army remain of Islamist extremism and jihadist ideology.  The future of Pakistan would be better served by a choice between the military and the democrats and not the military and the mullahs as constantly propagated by the vested quarters.

Evidently there is a contradiction between US’ priority to fight terrorism and Pakistan labeled as front line in the war on terror having an ambivalent attitude towards the Islamists. One should not forget that but for the support of President Musharraf’s political party (PML-Qaed-i-Azam) the Muttahida-Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), a conglomerate of Islamist political parties, would not have secured double-digit vote in the last election. The Islamists’ political hold in NWFP and Baluchistan were furthered by the active cooperation of the army and ISI and the ideological leaning of the people of that area   in support of Islamic orthodoxy has been translated into anti-Americanism. During the summer of 2006 US-NATO offensive “ a considerable number of militants had been able to find sanctuary in Pakistan, that prominent Afghan Taliban leaders were managing to plan operations from Pakistan and that Pakistan border units lacked the will or the capacity to cut off cross-border infiltration”.

 Veteran journalist Robert Kaplan sees Pakistan as an Yugoslavia in the making albeit with nuclear weapons and that Afghanistan situation, Osama bin laden, and the fighting in Kashmir “obscures the core issue in South Asia: the institutional meltdown in Pakistan. And as was true of Yugoslavia, it is the bewildering complexity of ethnic and religious divisions that makes Pakistan so fragile”. Leading us analyst on South Asia Stephen Cohen is so disenchanted with President Musharraf that he compares him with General Yahiya khan and is skeptical if the idea of Pakistan as a state can work. The most immediate reason of muddled the political situation was caused the sacking by President Musharraf of chief justice Ifthikar Chowdhury who has now become the symbol of opposition to the government. Pakistan’s judiciary was never effectively independent. In Pakistan the dream of its founder Mohammed ail Jinnah, “an impeccably dressed Westernized Muslim with Victorian manners and secular outlook”, was shattered by an increasingly authoritarian and theocratic establishment that Stephen Cohen calls “moderate oligarchy” – an informal political system that ties together the military, the civil service, some chosen members of the judiciary, and the economic elite who lacking legitimacy in the support of the people opted for Islam as an instrument of policy.  Bush administration cannot be unaware of the Islamization of Pakistani poor and middle class through the large number of madras as that regularly pour into the Pakistani society a considerable number of youngsters well versed in religious studies   who mostly lack the skills necessary for employment in jobs required in it or management or in other areas.
DECLARATION OF EMERGENCY RULE

Brussels based international crisis group has expressed the fear that President Musharraf may declare a state of emergency suspending fundamental rights and effectively declaring martial law. ICG fears that suppression of popular response against such a move would produce chaos and violence and ultimately increase the influence of the Islamists and further anti-us feeling. Gareth Evans, President of ICG in a speech (15th June 2007) said  “another less edifying experience has been the constant wriggling of Western, and in particular us policy makers, in the face of Parvez Musharraf’s continuing authoritarian rule in Pakistan, and in particular the contempt that continues to be expressed by so many of them­more veiled in public, but quite open in private­towards the democratic parties as they struggle with signs of growing popular and elite support, to recover ground. Despite manifest failings of Benazir Bhutto and Nwaz Sharif, I for one, feel strongly that New York governor al smith was absolutely right when he said in the 1920s that the only cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy”.  Bush administration in its mono-centric pursuit of the war on terror is willing to ignore a Pakistan in disarray. Gareth Evans’ advocacy of liberal political system in Pakistan is further strengthened by the apparent failure of President Musharraf’s government to contain violence in the northern part of the country. In a recent report the new York times alleged that Pakistani security forces have been out gunned and out numbered in NWFP by the militants and the security forces have ceded authority to the Talibans and their sympathizers and as a result “there is a general policy of appeasement towards the Talibans which has further emboldened them”. The bush administration that has been giving Pakistan two billion dollars a year for the last five years may wish to take stock of the all mashed episode so eloquently explained by cricketer turned politician Iran Khan to British journalist David frost in a recent interview.
Frankly, barring few exception (e.g. India) one could argue that countries like Pakistan where literacy rate in barely 30-50%, education reform is in shambles, banned sectarian and jihadi groups supported by a network of mosques and madrasas operate openly primarily due to the military government’s dependence on the Islamist political parties combine with consequent increased influence of al-Qaeda followers liberal democracy further adding to the attributes of electoral democracy can not be successfully practiced. It is not enough that contestation to fill political offices are ex ante uncertain, post-facto irreversible, and that elections are repeatable. It is necessary for democracy to be successful political equilibrium must exist in the society and “social coordination” in the form of freedom of speech and assembly is guaranteed so that aspirants for political power are able to get to the electorate with their vision and the electorate have a choice to make. If one were to accept preeminent South Asian analyst Stephen Cohen’s assertion that Pakistan is being ruled by a “moderate oligarchy” defined as “an informal political system that (ties) together the senior ranks of the military, the civil service, key members of the judiciary, and other elites” with an inerrant belief that India must be countered at every turn, that nuclear weapons have endowed Pakistan with security and prestige, and that fight for Kashmir can only end with its becoming a part of Pakistan, then politics in Pakistan takes a shape different from other countries. In this case Francis Fukuyama’s prescription that democracy needs a certain level of economic development for the stake holders to oppose any interruption of democratic process, neighborhood effect i.e. flourishing democracy in neighboring countries would inspire people to emulate them, culture for democracy (that sadly has been lacking in the case of Pakistan), and an inner craving for democracy would not apply in the case of Pakistan regardless of the presence or absence of Benazir Bhutto.
Meanwhile the decimation of democracy in Pakistan continues unabated. Despite President Musharraf’s declaration that his actions relating to declaring the state of emergency, detention of politicians and lawyers, sacking of judges of the supreme courts and other superior courts who refused to swear allegiance under the provisional constitutional order, gagging the media etc are fir the good of the people of Pakistan it is difficult to trust his words, and the only country that can put effective pressure on President Musharraf appears to have failed to stop the rot. Deputy Secretary John Negroponte’s November (2007) visit to Pakistan to convince Musharraf to reverse his actions has failed. In a public statement Negroponte described Musharraf’s actions “run directly counter to reforms that have been undertaken in recent years. Their continuation undermines the progress Pakistan has made.” He “urged the government (of Pakistan) to stop such actions, lift the state of emergency, and release all political detainees. Emergency rule is not compatible with free, fair and credible elections that require the active participation of political parties, civil society and the media. The people of Pakistan deserve an opportunity to choose their leaders free from restrictions that exist under a state of emergency”. It was interesting to note that Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan people’s party have withdrawn its application to challenge the appointment of Musharraf as President on the ground that the present supreme court filled with Musharraf allies would not be able to deliver justice. Refusing to accept the legitimacy of the new judicial appointees the Pakistan bar council and the Supreme Court bar association have asked its members to boycott all courts presided over by the judges who took oath under PCO. In all 64 of 97 judges of Pakistan’s superior courts have been removed for their refusal to take oath under PCO. The US has reportedly given $10 billion to Pakistan in the last five years most of which has gone to the military. It remains to be seen if Musharraf’s rebuff to Negroponte will be followed by reduced assistance to Pakistan. One can try to understand Musharraf’s obstinacy by his and the army’s firm belief that they and they alone can save Pakistan from disintegration. The question one can ask is why Pakistan should disintegrate that the role of the army is so essential. How can destroying the pillars that sustain democracy in any country avert state failure? Despite us’ threat it is difficult to imagine that us assistance to Pakistan would face a substantial cut because President bush has made so-called war on terror his cause célèbre and perhaps his legacy to the American people that he saved the us from infamous Osama bin laden’s followers as Roosevelt Truman did save then Western world against the Nazi menace. Given his penchant for religiosity, supported by a large segment of American society, one wonders whether unwittingly he has not become a believer in Huntington’s clash of civilization and Bernard Lewis’ crisis of Islam theses.
Musharraf’s handpicked judges of the Pakistan supreme court has thrown out the challenges mounted by the opposition parties to his election as President. It is not known yet about the grounds on which the opposition petitions were dismissed. But it was known that they would be. Naas has now called upon Benazir Bhutto to join the boycott of the up coming parliamentary and provincial assembly elections. Benazir’s tone is now less strident than it was a few days back. In an interview with Nayan Chandra of Yale Global Online in August 2007 Benazir had warned that without a peaceful transfer of power Pakistan might witness a Ukrainian orange revolution in which the winner would not be the political parties demanding democracy but the Islamic extremists. Referring to the abdication of the shah of Iran she had reportedly said that at that time no one had believed that peoples’ discontent would be transformed into the clerical revolution of ayatollah Khomeini. Confirming her July 2007 meeting with general Musharraf to Nayan Chandra she revealed that they had discussed the possibility of general Musharraf giving up his uniform and running in the Presidential election as a civilian with Bhutto becoming prime minister for the third time. They had discussed President Musharraf becoming a civilian President in charge of national security and foreign affairs; lifting of the ban on Bhutto from becoming prime minister; and her serving as chief executive. She emphasized that her party-PPP- could not cooperate with a military presidency that blurred the distinction between civil and military rule. She had also expressed her determination to return to Pakistan regardless of any deal with general Musharraf “for saving my country from militant takeover (and) god forbid, disintegration”. She indicated in the interview that should be assume power then she would pursue a policy of non-interference in Afghanistan, end the policy of strategic depth, to have an Afghanistan that is peaceful with good elations with all her neighbors and give up traditional tit-for –tat policy being followed with India. Supporting President Musharraf’s approach towards resolving the Kashmir issue she had said “we want an end to militants who tried to highjack our foreign policy by conducting attacks on Indian parliament and on other sites in India. Our world vision collides rather dramatically with the world vision of the extremists.” She criticized Musharraf’s failing to curb the Talibans and letting Pakistan to become “the preferred home to terrorists”.  Benazir underlined the two fault lines bedeviling Pakistan- one on dictatorship versus democracy and the other on moderation versus fundamentalism or extremism. Brushing away the criticism of Naas Sharif for her talks with Musharraf she justified the talks as necessary to give peaceful transfer of power in Pakistan a chance that could avoid a militant takeover. (Pakistan at the Crossroads- Mayan Chandra-August 2007).   It is possible that backdoor negotiations are going on between Musharraf and Benazir. Any analysis of Pakistani politics it would be incomplete without taking into consideration the role to be played by MMA and Muslim league-Qaed-i-Azam( king’s party).  If one looks back to the democratic period 1988-99 following the death of Ziaul Huq one would find a Pakistan mired in conflict between military and civilian politicians, Islamist parties and secular political institutions. While the democratic political parties tried to move Pakistan from Islamization to development and modernity, the military and Islamic forces were busy to thwart this trend by bringing Islam into the foreign policy matrix to strengthen Pakistan’s fight over Kashmir and also to promote Pakistan’s position in the Islamic world. In this continuing struggle elections were held in 1993 where Nazi Sharif’s Muslim league won. In the words of political analyst valid Nasr “this was for the first time in the Muslim world that the democratic process had produced a brake to Islamism.” Sharif proved that the Islamic vote bank was not the sole property of Jamaat-e-Islami. General Musharraf’s emergence in Pakistani politics in 1991 encouraged increasing radicalization of Islamic discourse, and support to extremist Islamic groups in order to destabilize pal’s Islamic constituency and undermine Nawaz Sharif whose government also tried to destroy institutions that support democracy. Sharif’s ouster was followed by 2002 elections in which Bhutto’s PPP and Sharif’s PML were severely disadvantaged. The military naturally regarded both as adversaries and hence looked towards the Islamists – the MMA­a coalition of the Deobandi JUI and Jamaat-e-Islami that won 11% of the votes never won by the Islamists in the history of Pakistan. The party won 82% of the seats in the national assembly, majority of the seats in NWFP assembly and 14 out of 51 in the Baluchistan assembly. According to some the Deobandi ascendancy in NWFP, Baluchistan and Afghanistan created an Islamist-Pathan belt stretching from Kandahar to Quetta to Peshawar.
ASASSINATION OF BENAZIR BHUTTO
The assassination of Benazir Bhutto has dealt as a serious blow to the re-emergence of democracy in Pakistan and the country’s return to stability. Echoing global sentiment Brussels based international crisis group in a statement said, “Pakistan’s military backed in terim government is not in a position to carry out a fair investigation into the assassination. The United Nations Security Council should meet urgently to establish an international commission of enquiry to determine who ordered and carried out the killings. Given the long standing connections between the Pakistan military and jihad groups, this would be the only way to carry out an impartial and credible investigation”. Benazir’s husband Asif Ali Zardari in the first press conference after the “election” of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the 19 years old son of Benazir, as the next chairman of the Pakistan peoples party (PPP) also demanded an international investigation in line with the one sponsored by UNSC regarding the assassination of Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri. Pakistani government, however, had ruled out international cooperation in any such enquiry. But President Musharraf’s assurance to Gordon brown that he would consider taking foreign assistance in investigating the assassination is at variance to the comments made by the caretaker prime minister Mian Soomro that Pakistani experts were competent enough for the job. Divergence of opinion between the two top people in Pakistan compounds the confusion already surrounding the manner of death of Benazir. More so as the al=Qaeda’s Pakistani head, blamed by Pakistani authorities for Benazir’s death, has denied the complicity of his organization in the assassination. But Bruce Riedel, former defense and intelligence official in George h w bush and Clinton administrations is inclined to believe that al-Qaeda could have killed Benazir in line with the attempts on President Musharraf’s life made possible by the fact that “al=Qaeda has sympathizers at the highest level of security and intelligence which provided information on his (Musharraf) movements in the past which facilitated the efforts to kill him”. It is also widely believed that a section of ISI has retained connections with the Talibans and al-Qaeda as a hedge against possible us abandonment of Pakistan in favor of India should the crunch come.
The various accounts of the assassination given by those who were present and the different versions of the assassination were not uniform. It is, however, generally accepted that on 27th December 2007 Benazir was addressing an election rally at Liana Baugh in Rawalpindi in which she made an impassioned call for the end of the military rule and vowed to crush Islamic extremism that was threatening the very foundation of the republic. After the rally as her car was leaving the venue of the meeting she was killed. Two of her closest collaborators who were in the car with her insisted that she was killed by gunshot. The government first claimed that she was killed by the handle of the roof opener of the car by cracking her skull while she ducked the gunshot. Some functionaries of the government even showed x-ray films of her wound on television. When this version was received with derision the government changed the story and said the shrapnel from the bomb exploded by the assassin killed her. When a private TV channel showed some footage of the carnage the government pointed its finger towards al-Qaeda as the mastermind and the guilty party that killed Benazir. That may well be. But different accounts given at short intervals compounded by the lack of autopsy of Benazir’s dead body and cleaning up by water hose pipe of the crime scene and thus washing away of any possible clue to the murder has received widespread condemnation. It is believed that the denial of security measures she had requested such as additional police protection and jamming devices could not have happened without the consent of President Musharraf. In the light of both domestic and international outcry President Musharraf requested the Scotland Yard to assist the investigation of the assassination of Benazir. The Yard was asked to find out how she was killed and not by whom. On 8^th February 2008 Scotland Yard made public their finding that she died of a severe head injury sustained from the effect from the bomb blast and not by gunfire. However in the same report UK Home Office pathologist remains “unable categorically to exclude the possibility of there being a gunshot wound to the upper trunk or neck’ of Benazir Bhutto. The gist of the report suggested that it could not be considered conclusive as the team was asked to determine the cause of her death only. The report negated the earlier Pakistan Interior Ministry theory that two persons had committed the assassination. The Scotland Yard report said that a single attacker had fired the shot at close range and second later detonated the bomb. The Report underlined the limitation the team faced such as limited x-ray material, absence of an autopsy, and CT scan, washing of the site before investigation could begin, etc.
One wonders whether given the bloody history of political assassinations in the sub-continent­father of the nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and General Ziaur Rahman in Bangladesh; Mahatma Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and Rajeev Gandhi in India; Solomon Bandaranaike and President premeds in sir lank; liana ail khan, judicial murder of Zulia ail Bhutto, and now of Benazir Bhutto­the assassination of Benazir was not inevitable. Her will written only two days before her departure for Karachi giving detailed instructions on the political steps to be carried out by PPP testifies to her premonition of death. She said so to CNN's wolf Blitzer in a recent interview. To South Asian expert Stephen Cohen whom she and her husband met just before she departed for Pakistan she said that she needed to restore her contacts with the Pakistani people, and being a gradualist she was not averse to working with President Musharraf--- an arrangement that changed after her return to Pakistan with Musharraf’s declaration of emergency and defacing of the country’s judiciary beyond pale. Musharraf’s popularity is now almost non-existent as is evident from a recent poll by the international republican institute that two third of Pakistanis would like Musharraf to step down and give up power.
Despite widespread call by the international community on President bush to follow a Pakistan policy instead of Musharraf policy and amidst growing suspicion that billions of dollars given in assistance to Pakistan to fight the al-Qaida have found their way to bolster Pak military along the line of control in Kashmir the US administration is reluctant to admit that its counter insurgency policy is just not working. According to Bruce Riesel “the way that Pakistan is going to be able to fight terrorism is to have a legitimate, democratically elected, secular government that can rally the Pakistani people to engage the al-Qaeda, the Talibans, and other extremist movements. The army has failed to do that. The army dictatorship has failed to do so. We should now press for democratic movement to move forward”. It is easier said than done. Pakistan society is still mired in social stratification based on the long history of feudalism that forms its basis. How else would one explain the “crowning” of Belawal at the tender age of 19 years who had to add the name of Bhutto with that of Zardari, his father’s name, to become the head of PPP? The first few chapters of Benazir’s autobiography daughter of the east e.g.  “our lands like those of other landowners in Sindh were measured in square miles, not acres” or “ hundreds of thousands throughout India and Pakistan belonged to the Bhutto tribe, one of the largest in Sindh” testify to the feudalistic upbringing she had with possible marks on her character despite Harvard and oxford education that Benazir Bhutto had the opportunity to have.  No one would blame Benazir for her privileged birth. One would be inclined to share the grief of multiple tragedies that she had suffered in her lifetime. The point, however, remains that Pakistani society being largely ruled by oligarchs where the individual still has to free himself from tradition, where primordial tribal loyalty predominates decision making process, where religious edicts by village Maulanas have quasi-judicial force, and gender inequality is accepted as normative social order, institution of Western liberal democracy would remain a far cry. Yet among the current leaders in Pakistan Benazir was, perhaps, the most secular and determined to face up to the increasing Islamic extremism in the country and was decidedly most favored by the Western powers among the political leaders in Pakistan. Her death, says Stephen Cohen, could deal a death blow to the idea of a liberal and moderate Pakistan and “its further decay will affect its neighbors, Europe and the United States in unpredictable and unpleasant ways…in Pakistan it is likely that separatism will increase as will violent extremist Islamism. Benazir’s death will cripple the already besieged moderate elements of civil society” (Assassination Aftermath-Jan01-Brookinks Institution). As mentioned earlier Asif Zardari had refused permission for autopsy on Benazir’s body after her death because, as he said, he had no confidence in the results that an autopsy performed by Musharraf government. In a wide-ranging interview with Newsweek magazine’s Farid Zakaria President Musharraf strongly denied any governmental involvement in the murder of Benazir Bhutto while there is widespread belief among Pakistanis that the assassination could not have taken place without the complicity of some part of the government. He blamed Benazir’s carelessness about her own security that made the assassination possible. “The man in charge of her own security was her own handpicked superintendent of police,” added President Musharraf “the area was known to be dangerous. There was a death threat, intelligence that there would be an attack, and we told her, yet she wanted to go, she was intent about it. She went into a dangerous place, and if you get out of the vehicle, you are responsible.” On his inability to do a post mortem President Musharraf explained, “somehow in our culture a post mortem of a woman is not done”. Besides, he mentioned the refusal of Asif Zardari to allow post mortem on the body of Benazir and should Musharraf have insisted on the post mortem without PPP's consent public feelings already suspicious of governmental complicity in the murder would have been further inflamed and therefore it would have been unwise decision to take.
On 16th January 2008 the US Congress passed its first 2008 legislation by condemning the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and calling on the bush administration for a shift in its Pakistan policy. The   resolution was passed unanimously. On 22^nd January 2008 Senator Javed Leghari and PPP Information Secretary Sherry Rahman told The Brookings Institution that 80% of Pakistanis believe that government, government agencies or affiliated political party were involved in the assassination of Benazir. Only 17% of the people believe that al-Qaeda was responsible for the crime. Senator Leghari found it difficult to believe that while toe Musharraf government could listened in to the conversation between the Al-Qaeda head in Pakistan and his followers the government could not find him to arrest him. He also complained that the terms of reference given to the team from Scotland Yard are limited to finding out the cause of the death but not about the killers. Sherry Rahman told the Brookings scholars that the election of the new leadership “was not based in some hierarchical gimmickry but rather based on the recognition of the services and sacrifices of Benazir Bhutto and other Bhutto family members for the party and the country”.  Sherry Rahman told the scholars that PPP wanted to return Pakistan to its original vision articulated by Mohammed Ali Jinnah that was for a Pakistan for a secular nation where every citizen enjoyed same rights regardless of religion. Gender or ethnicity.
  According to Gary Ackerman, a ranking member of the House Foreign Relations Committee reliance by the Bush administration on President Musharraf for “war on terror” just has not worked, as success has not been achieved in either stemming terrorism or in the establishment of democracy. Ashley Tellis, an expert on South Asian affairs cautioned the house hearing on us-Pak relations of the possible civil unrest and instability in Pakistan should election be flawed the chances of which are great as in many developing countries like Kenya. Brussels based international crisis group (after Bhutto’s murder: a way forward for Pakistan-January 2008) suggested that stability in Pakistan and its contribution to wider anti-terror efforts require immediate transformation to a democratic system that would involve the departure of President Musharraf from the political scene of Pakistan. Reported instruction given by the new army chief General Ashraf Kyani to the army intelligence to keep out of meddling in the forthcoming elections appears to be a good sign. But then again given Pakistan’s history of the involvement of the military in domestic political affairs it is difficult to conceive a totally hands off policy by the army in domestic politics. But continuing Western backing of military dominated Musharraf government can have the night marish prospect of civil unrest in an already fragmented society in which the extremist elements would come to the top. The chances of PPP winning the elections are very bright mainly because of the sympathy votes resulting from the murder of Benazir Bhutto for which most Pakistanis blame the governmental complicity thus marring the prospect of PML -Q or more popularly known as the king’s party formed by Musharraf from politicians who deserted Nawaz Sharif after his ouster from power and other opportunistic politicians. In the international republican institute poll conducted in November 2007 showed 66 to 75 % of Pakistanis described themselves as anti-Musharraf and wanted him to go. The US, however, regardless of the sentiment of the people wants the creation of a political center revolving around Musharraf. Additionally the reported refusal by Asif Zardari, Benazir’s husband to become the caretaker prime minister, to a proposal made by Parvez Musharraf increased both his stature and support for PPP in the country. Delhi based South Asia intelligence review in a year ending review of Pakistan stated that the country’s “slide towards state failure (and) progressive collapse was much more rapid and irretrievable than most had envisaged”. The review continues that a wide array of anti-state actors is currently engaged in varying degree of violence and subversion and well over half of the territory presently under Pakistan’s control has passed from the realm of the civil government and is now controlled by military force. One hundred thousand troops are now stationed in the federally administered territory (fata) it is believed that next to Sri Lanka fata now represents the second most violent sub-national geographical unit in South Asia.  In July 2007 President Bush’s homeland security advisor Frances Townsend had reportedly stated that “there is no option that is off the table” as far as direct us intervention in Waziristan was concerned.  Such comments by administration officials and Presidential candidates have brought sharp reaction from Pakistan President who has declared any military operation inside Pakistan without the consent of the Pakistani authorities would be considered as invasion. 
The situation in Pakistan is inextricably linked with peace and security in the region and the world. It would be too simplistic to regard the turmoil as only an extension of the war between Islam and Christianity as historian Bernard Lewis would have the world believe that Islam was never prepared from its inception to consider any other faith as its equal and the revealed Islamic testament as the last and the truest will of god. Consequently the present terrorist activities, albeit committed by a minority of the followers of the faith, can be considered as an extension of the crusades fought by Saladin the great and Richard the lion heart. The terroristic appeal that Osama bin laden has been able to enthuse in some is not so much due to the hatred some Muslim youths may be feeling towards the Western Christians as much it is due to the failure of the rulers of the Islamic world to bring to them the fruits of modernity and no less due to the lack of accountability and openness of the ruling clique to the people. Consequently the youths in the Islamic world feel cheated of the Western style democracy that many of them have seen first hand while studying abroad where the ruler remain accountable to the ruled and also the economic benefits that they feel their oil resources should give them. Interestingly the total GDP of the oil rich Arab countries is les than that of Spain that is not the richest country in Europe. Though most of the terrorists of 9/11 carnage did not come from very poor families and one of the suicide bombers in London underground massacre belonged to an affluent family yet economic deprivation and lack of opportunity for vertical mobility in society due to various factors have been identified as the root cause of terrorism. One must, however, recognize the fact that the factor standing in the way of vertical social mobility of the Muslim Diaspora in the west is not necessarily their faith­Islam­but the poor education that they received mainly due to the fact that their parents could not afford better education to their children. So poverty has become a vicious circle   and the lack of Western government to come to their rescue helped fuel resentment among the Muslim youth. In the Islamic countries the fear that large scale Westernization would ultimately threaten the core Islamic values spurred the religious zealots, assisted by poverty and tribal traditions, to educate their children in madrassas (religious schools) that proved to be fertile ground for recruiting al-Qaeda followers. It is very true in Pakistan and Bangladesh where the number of religious schools has increased in geometric proportion compared to the increase of ordinary schools (not entirely secular). Unfortunately the curriculum of the religious schools and the education imparted by them do not prepare the students when they grow up for the jobs that require different skills. Growth in developing countries like Pakistan being export driven and the importing countries being mostly Western developed economies spiritual education does not help export and by definition does not add to the national GDP. But the recent anti-Western sentiment against President Musharraf is mainly due to the widespread belief among Pakistanis of his partnership in President Bush’s “war on terror” that is seen in Pakistan and in many Muslim countries as basically an war on Islam. President Musharraf’s current visit to Europe (January 2008) is to convince the Europeans and also increasing number of Americans that Western security is inextricably linked with his survival and therefore they should neither cut down on the financial assistance given to Pakistan nor increase the pitch of anti-Musharraf slogan. Barring President bush the Europeans and many bush advisers are becoming convinced that Musharraf has to go and solution of the turmoil in Pakistan, particularly after the death of Benazir Bhutto, that extremism in Pakistan can be best fought through a democratic set up brought about by a free and fair election in which peoples sentiment will be expressed.  It is understood that the European hosts have given advice to President Musharraf that the forthcoming elections not be rigged and that he has promised to do so. Even if one were to believe that President Musharraf will keep his promise Pakistan’s power being polycentric and Musharraf not being in command of the army any longer one can never be certain how far the coming elections will meet the international standard of free and fair elections.  
Despite Western scholars wishful thinking about free and fair elections in Pakistan one has to concede the depth of commitment to political Islamic that has permeated the Pakistani society that cannot be easily ignored. Frederic Grare (mentioned earlier in the discourse-Islam, Militarism, and the 2007-2008 Elections in Pakistan-August 2006-Carnegie papers) writes “what is stake here is not the link between madrassas and the jihadi organizations but rather the kind of education they disseminate and its social impact. Madrassa students are likely to graduate fully indoctrinated but not equipped with the skills of value on the job market. By maintaining a substantial part of the population in such a state of semi literacy, the regime guarantees its own stability; better educated people might be in a position to ask for more accountability, a greater share of power, and a more equitable distribution of the country’s economic resources”. The emphasis put on Islamization predated the partition of India in 1947. One part of the Muslims, albeit a less influential part, wanted Islamic theology to be the basis of Muslim homeland. Though attempts were made by the Aligarh group led by Nawab Viqar-ul-Mulk to highjack the newly established Muslim league in 1906 to give the platform a more theocratic foundation because they felt deprived of their privileges with the advent of the British in India, Muslim league was led by Western educated leaders who wanted a land for the Muslims because they were convinced that Hindus and Muslims could not live together in peace. The founder of Pakistan Mohammed ail Jinnah addressing the first constituent assembly in August 1947 spelt out the Pakistan ideology,” namely the secular and tolerant vision of the new state. That speech was not a sudden aberration, as some Islamic ideologists and general Zia’s hacks were later to allege. It was consistent with what Mr. Jinnah had been saying for decades. The Muslim league had always been committed to a secular society. Following Mr. Jinnah his successor liana ail khan too reiterated the Muslim league’s secular values” (Rise of Religious Fundamentalism in Pakistan- Hams Alvie). While moving the objective resolution in the constituent assembly in March 1949 Liaqat Ali Khan had declared, “The people are the real recipient of power. This naturally eliminates any danger of the establishment of a theocracy”. Despite this history of secular belief by the earlier leaders of the Pakistan movement Mama’s official motto remains “Islam is the solution” and the group’s conflict with Musharraf’s so-called secularization is proved by Musharraf’s significant concession to MMA by simply not changing legislation regarding gender and minorities.  Logically the Western mind not conversant with the quintessence of Islam, particularly after 9/11 and the terrorist activities in Europe and other regions of the world stated looking at Islam and the Muslims-Diaspora and visitors alike- with suspicion to the extent that former Italian prime minister Berlusconi openly said that not al-Qaeda but Islam itself is the danger and former French President Giscard d’Estaing predicted that the inclusion of Muslim turkey into the European union would spell the end of Europe. Such half baked knowledge of Islam, assisted by the extremists in the faith determined to save the followers from the clutches of the Western degeneration, helped authoritarian leaders like President Parvez Musharraf to successfully present the myth of the victory of Islamic extremism in Pakistan unless the US and Europe propped him up. That he was increasingly becoming a liability instead of an asset continued to be ignored. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto has woken up the west to the fact that some parts of Pakistan having remained ‘wilder than the wild west” cannot be subjugated by force alone but have to be accepted with all their “imperfections” if Pakistan is to remain an unbroken entity.  It has been the policy of successive Pakistani governments to consider Afghanistan as a place for its “strategic depth” in case of a conflict with India. The acquisition of nuclear weapons by both the countries has put an end to an all out armed conflict between the two nations because in a nuclear war there are no victors as the damage that can be wrought on the contestants is beyond the tolerance limit of any country. Despite Pakistan’s repeated assurances to the international community that its nuclear weapons are secure even in the case of large scale violence internally the suspicion of the international community about the close relationship between a part of the military establishment and the Islamic extremists cannot be wished away. Besides the tribal people generally do not feel constrained by the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan and freely move from one country to the other.  There are many along the tribal belt and in the FATA who have never accepted the legitimacy of the Durand line drawn by the British dividing the two countries. In order to conduct any meaningful policy towards the whole of Pakistan and not only the settled areas one has to understand the language and culture of the tribal areas. For example, the obsessive protection of women from the clutches of “dishonor” has to be accepted as a fact of life if one has to deal with the tribals.  Many women themselves would become volunteers in the implementation of strict sharia laws as understood in that area so that other women do not go ‘astray”. Recently a man jealous of more social recognition given to his wife due to her social work and her talent as a poet killed her and was given a very light prison sentence and is now free. This kind of legal system would not be understood in the settled areas, let alone in the Western societies. One has to realize that a society where a marksmanship and horsemanship are inextricably associated with manhood and many marriages are solemnized at the birth of the bridegroom and within the family and certainly within the tribe has some peculiar characteristics that cannot be understood by outsiders. The Americans, it is understood, are now stationing people who not only know the local dialect but also are totally conversant with the local custom. In the process of social evolution the people in the tribal areas of Afghanistan and the adjoing areas of Pakistan have to catch up with modernity-- the first principle of which is to free oneself from the bonds of tradition. It certainly has to be recognized that the tribal chiefs are largely responsible for the underdevelopment and illiteracy of the people of their tribes so that their dictatorial powers are not challenged and the money received from the central government is channeled through them. Now that Afghanistan has become the largest producer of opium in the world the warlords are particularly sensitive to their powers in the area, as they have realized the value of the crops fetched in the international market.  Pakistan’s problem has been further compounded by ineffectiveness of Karzai administration in Afghanistan. According to a NEW YORK TIME’s report (September 25, 2007) “Government corruption and poppy cultivation are rampant and public services remain a wreck; food prices are soaring, unemployment remains high and resurgent Taliban forces in the South are pressing towards the capital”.  South Asia analyst Ashley Tellis (Pakistan­conflicted ally in the war on terror­December 2007) blames Islamabad’s failure on the convulsive political deterioration in NWFP, Islamabad’s ineptitude in counterterrorism operations, and political failures of Karzai government. Telis also blames President Musharraf for overlooking the Taliban leadership and for drawing a distinction between “diehard” militants who are worthy of interdiction but are hard to find, and the Talibans who are a part of the Afghan society. Besides there has been a structural change in the leadership in the FATA region. The political agents and tribal leaders have been supplanted by Maulavis who look at the political issues through religious prism. These radicalized Maulavis see the protection of the Talibans and the al-Qaeda cadres as a politico-religious obligation. Ashley Tellis also questions the effectiveness of the army battalions inserted in FATA who are trained in conventional warfare and are not suitable for war with insurgents in treacherous mountainous regions of the Pak-Afghan border. Additionally the Pakistani forces sent to fight the Talibans are riddled with Taliban sympathizers and are also suspicious of the real intentions of Islamabad and Washington. While the elimination of al-Qaeda remains a constant element in the US and EU foreign and defense policies, the West is also worried over the possibility, however, remote of nuclear weapons falling into wrong hands. In January 2008 both President Musharraf and high officials of the government have dismissed such a possibility of coming to pass. A senior military official who is responsible for the command and control of the nuclear weapons has ruled out any such possibility. International Herald Tribune (January 26, 2008) reports that since 2000 Pakistan has established an all encompassing command and control system that is efficient, effective and responsive. Pakistan took exception to the remark by IAEA Director General El Baradei to the effect that “nuclear weapons could fall into the hands of an extremist group in Pakistan or in Afghanistan”. Pakistan called the remark as a “deliberate provocation”. On the possibility that the terrorists can lay their hands on a conventional bomb carrying radioactive debris the official said that such a risk is global in nature and not Pakistan specific. As opposed to India international concern over possible proliferation by Pakistan is due to the dangerous behavior of A.Q.Khan, the father of Pakistani atomic bomb who established an international black market for sale of nuclear technology and materials. Compared to Pakistan India has proved to be far more responsible and conscious that nuclear technology and materials do not proliferate.
If one closely follows the Presidential primaries and the debates one would get the impression that no President aspirant would agree to compromise on the question of national security and is determined to hunt down the terrorist and the al-Qaeda elements in particular. While praising the men and women in uniform sent in harms way abroad some of the Presidential aspirants have questioned the efficacy of “surge’ policy of the Bush administration in Iraq and they would like to bring the American soldiers back home “with honor” as Senator John McCain puts it. Only Representative Ron Paul questioned the logic of President Bush’s sending troops to Iraq that posed no threat to the US and had no WMD. Senator Barak Obama, of course, had consistently opposed the war on Iraq and is now basking in the glory of President Bush’s lowest ever-public support for the Iraq policy. This discussion on Iraq war becomes relevant because of its waging the “war on terror” in which Pakistan is considered as a front line state. The question one can ask is whether a possibility remains of the Pakistan army becoming an Islamist army in which case the US may have to change its policy of describing as a major non-NATO ally to an adversary. Frederic Grare (of Carnegie Foundation) writes, “The Pakistani army, which largely controls the major Islamist organizations, could be infiltrated by Islamic actors who could then seize leadership through a coup d’état or regular promotion. Although the military remains opaque, there is so far no evidence that it has been widely infiltrated, much less controlled, by the Islamists. Although the Islamists are undoubtedly present, there is no reason to believe that their numbers are significantly greater than in the rest of the Pakistani society”. Frederic Grare warns that by focusing on only Islamist militancy, Western governments confuse the consequence and the cause: the army is the problem. Recently number retired army officials have called on President Musharraf to step down as much for the good of the country as well to maintain the “good’ name of the Pakistani army. The genocide committed by the Pak army on armed civilians in then East Pakistan has irrevocably destroyed the professionalism of the Pak army. This was compounded by the incursions in FATA and alleged human rights abuses in the frontier region.  The army is generally regarded as the one institution that is still disciplined and subject to hierarchical commands. Pakistan army in British tradition do not rebel against senior officers, the rebellion consisting of a few junior officers who surrender after 15 minutes fame as is seen in some developing countries. Yet its intrusion in civilian politics and its refusal to submit to civilian control in the tradition of “l’etat c’est moi” (I am the state of King Louis XIV of France do not inspire confidence among the general public.

Pakistani saga is still continuing.  February 2008 elections have brought about a democratic revolution in Pakistan with the victory of late Benazir Bhutto’s PPP and Nwaz Sharif’s PML(N) winning majority of the votes and forming government not only at the center but also in the provinces. Veteran PPP leader Ahmed Gilani has been appointed Prime Minister though Asif Zardari’s (Benazir Bhutto’s husband) filing of nomination papers for a seat in the National Assembly has given the impression in some quarters that he would eventually end up being the Prime Minister.  One hopes that with the elections in Nepal with Maoists victory to the Constituent Assembly the murderous civil war that has claimed the lives of 13000 people would come to an end. Though it is too early to tell as the other major parties are yet to clear their positions. With the forthcoming elections in Bangladesh we hope to move to a truly democratic set up unsullied by corruption. In short Pakistan’s democratic revolution has demonstrated that military does not necessarily have to be the final arbiter of the fate of the nation.

 
References for Pakistan situation

1.    Presidential coup d’état and regime change­school of international affairs, Carleton university, Ottawa

2.    The idea of Pakistan Stephen Cohen

3.    Foreign affairs July/ August 2007- Daniel Markey

4.    Military inc.- Assam Saied

5.    Failed and failing states-jack straw-6.9.02-birningham,

6.    The nation and state of Pakistan- Stephen Cohen

7.    Pakistan: emergency rule or return to democracy-international crisis group-June 2007

8.    Speech by Gareth Evans, President of ICG on 15 June 2007

9.    Nial Ferguson-

10.                       American public diplomacy in the Arab world-June 2003-R.S.Zaharna

11.                       Stephen zones­Political Islam

12.                      Us nuclear posture review- January 2002    

13.                       Michael laden-American enterprise institute

14.                       Parvez Hoodbhoy- foreign affairs-nov/dec 2004

15.                       The nation and state of Pakistan- Stephen Cohen

16.                       The role of Islam in Pakistan’s future- Hussein Haqqani

17.                       Leon Haader- CATO Institute-Pakistan in America’s war against terrorism-may 2002

18.                       Ibid

19.                       Pakistan military and the mullahs-ICG Asia report-march 2003

20.                       Frederick Grare-Islam militarism and the 2007-2008 elections in Pakistan-August 2006

21.                       Gregory Gause- Vermont university

22.                       ICG Asia report no. 49-march 2003

23.                       Ashley Tellis – Carnegie foundation for peace-us strategy: assisting Pakistan’s transformation

24.                       Gregory Gause- Vermont university

25.                       Failed and failing states- Hellman & Ratner

26.                       New nature of national state failure-Robert Rotenberg-Washington quarterly-summer 2002

27.                       The daily star- October 31, 2003

28.                       Jack straw- British foreign secretary

29.                       Jaswant Sinha-Outlook 24th February 2003

30.                       Jaswant Sinha-Hindustan times-6th April 2003

31.                       Jaswant sinha-India/eu relationship-15th January 2003

32.                       Jaswant sinha-radiff.com-4th june 2003

33.                       ICG Asia report 49- march 2003

34.                       Speech by President bush to us Asia society-march 2006

35.                       Daniel Markey- foreign affairs-July/August 2007

36.                       Military inc-Ayesha Siddiqa

37.                       Speech by Gareth Evans, President of icg-15th June 2007

38.                       The lawless frontier-Robert Kaplan –September 2000

39.                       Winding back martial law- Asia briefing no.70

40.                       The water’s edge-Daniel Widome- November 2007

41.                       Securing Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal-David Albright-institute for science and international security

42.                       Military rule Islamism and democracy in Pakistan-vali nasr-the middle east journal-spring 2004

43.                       Election democracy and stability in Pakistan-ICG Asia report no.137-July 2007

44.                       The Pakistani Taliban-graham usher-February 2007

45.                       Pakistan’s tribal areas: appeasing the militants-ICG report December 2006

46.                       Democratization and failed states-Robert doff-Parameters summer 1996

47.                       Daniel Markey- summer of Pakistan’s discontent-foreign affairs-September 2007

48.                       Daniel Markey-a false choice in Pakistan-July/August 2007

49.                       Can Pakistan work- Parvez Hoodbhoy-foreign affairs-nov/dec 2004

50.                       Cato institute­Leon Haader-Pakistan in America’s war against terrorism- may 2002

51.                       The idea of Pakistan-- Stephen Cohen

52.                       The end of history and the last man-Francis Fukuyama

53.                       Winding back martial law in Pakistan-international crisis group-November 2007-Asia briefing no.70

54.                       Discord in Pakistan’s northern areas- international crisis group- April 2007

55.                       Carnegie foundation for peace- Ashley Tellis-US strategy: assisting Pakistan’s transformation

56.                       Mayan Chandra- Yale Global Online

57.                       New York Times- September 25, 2007

58.                       Pakistan­conflicted Ally in the war on terror- December 2007

Rise of religious extremism in Pakistan­Hamas