Big Worries in Pakistan

It looks like Pakistan is moving to impeach Pervez Musharraf. And it also looks like they have the votes to pull it off. The big question is whether the Pakistani military will allow the impeachment to go forward. Musharraf could dissolve parliament, but he can’t do that unless he is sure he has the backing of the military. And, as of right now, things are not looking too good for Pervez.

Pakistani politics give new meaning to the term Byzantine. It’s extremely difficult to parse out what is going on and even what is desirable from an American point of view. With so many of our troops stationed in Afghanistan and with Iran’s territory denied to us for purposes of resupply, it is critical that the Pakistani government is cooperative. Unfortunately, Pakistan has been playing a double game with us since the very beginning of our occupation of Afghanistan. Their intelligence service, the ISI, has supported warlords, provided training and sanctuary to the Taliban, and recently bombed the Indian Embassy in Kabul (probably to signal their displeasure with a deal whereby Indian goods will be imported through Iran). At the same time, they keep America at bay by turning over a trickle of bad guys, doing occasional sweeps through the Tribal Areas, and by taking advantage of our absolute dependency upon their territory for supplying our troops.

We have every reason to be furious with the performance of Musharraf and the ISI. But we prefer to maintain the fiction of good cooperation. Yet, it’s not all that clear that things would improve with Musharraf gone. Musharraf’s ostensible cooperation with the United States goes a long way toward explaining his vast unpopularity. For example, how are we to read this?

One politician, part of a parliamentary bloc that could go either way on impeachment, said in a telephone interview on Thursday that he had instructed his colleagues to vote in favor of impeachment.

The politician, Munir Orakzai, who represents the Kurrman district in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas where the Taliban insurgency has gathered huge strength, said Mr. Musharraf was to blame for the problems. “He has made things worse for us,” Mr. Orakzai said.

Has he made things worse by tolerating the strengthening of the Taliban in Mr. Orakzai’s territory or by authorizing military sweeps aimed at rooting out Arab and Talib extremists? Without more context it’s impossible to say whether Mr. Orakzai supports impeachment because Musharraf supports the radicalization of the Tribal Areas or because he opposes it. Is Orakzai pro-American or anti-Taliban?

Things are not made any clearer when we learn that the impeachment drive is being led by the widower of Benazir Butto, Asif Ali Zardari (head of the Pakistan Peoples Party), and Nawaz Sharif (head of the Pakistan Muslim League-N). Both Butto and Sharif have long and complicated relationships with the West, but they can both be broadly described as pro-West. Of the two, the Bhutto faction is the more westernized and secular, and it was the Bush administration that pushed for the return of Benazir Bhutto to Pakistan (which resulted in her assassination). Sharif, meanwhile, was ousted in the coup that brought Musharraf to power in the first place. His natural constituency is more religious and conservative, but his record on those issues is decidedly mixed.

Both Sharif and Bhutto have had extremely strained relationships with the Pakistani military and intelligence services. It is probably time for Musharraf to retire from Pakistani politics, but it is not at all clear what will replace him and how they will interact with America. Will they continue to play a double game, giving lip service to assisting U.S. policy while actively undermining our position in Afghanistan? Will they seek to end all cooperation? Or will the situation improve?

And, anytime we are looking at this level of instability and unpredictability in a country that is armed with nuclear weapons, we have to be extremely nervous about our inability to anticipate or steer events. Those worries are only magnified by India’s possession of nuclear weapons and our reliance on Pakistan to keep our soldiers supplied in Afghanistan.

It is probably the extreme perils involved with instability that have led us to tolerate a failing status quo. It is very worrisome that Pakistan is moving into this degree of uncertainty now, while we still have the Keystone Kops at the helm of our national security apparatus.