An Islamist
threat to
military rule in Pakistan?
By
Jonathan
Power
TFF
Associate since 1991
Comments directly to
JonatPower@aol.com
February 11, 2007
LONDON - One of the more interesting moments in my
conversations with senior western diplomats here was being told that in
the event of a coup by Islamist militants the U.S. had a plan to seize
Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, using troops specially trained for the
purpose who are based in Pakistan. When I mentioned this to Pakistan’s
foreign minister he looked at me with amusement and said, "But we
have a plan to counter the plan."
At this point, I thought, international politics is
nothing but machismo where face and swagger replaces careful thought.
No one should doubt that Pakistan is the world’s
haven for its most committed anti-Western terrorists. Al Qaeda is here
and so are the Taliban - President Pervez Musharraf was quite open with
me on that. It is well within the bounds of possibility that Osama bin
Laden is here too. But this does not mean that violent Islamists are about
to overthrow Musharraf and take over the country. Whilst some of the more
extreme ones have already tried - and nearly succeeded - in assassinating
Musharraf, militant Islam actually practised with violence is a fringe
activity in Pakistan and one largely under the government’s control.
While there is in the country at large a latent sympathy
for the terrorists who work to undermine India’s grip on the disputed
province of Kashmir, the sympathy for Al Qaeda and the Taliban is highly
concentrated in the so called tribal areas and Baluchistan on the border
with Afghanistan. When it comes to parliamentary elections the Islamists
parties - who formally abjure violence and are free to campaign even under
army rule- only gain between 5 and 8% of the vote. Even in 2002, when
behind the scenes the army manipulated the vote in their favour, they
only won 11.1%.
After years of political restrictions and the exile
of its leader, Benazir Bhutto, the very secular Pakistan People’s
party (PPP) remains the most potent political party in the country. And
its rival, the Muslim League of Nawaz Sharif, (despite its name a secular
party) although carved to pieces by Musharraf, still fills a defined political
space and along with the PPP makes it very difficult for the Islamist
parties to grow further.
In local and provincial elections the religious parties
fare better. In Baluchistan and the North-West Frontier province they
are in office. Here they have been able to offer if not shelter at least
a blind eye to terrorist organizations. But when it came to a nation wide
effort to organize large-scale protests against the start of the Iraq
war in 2003 the religious parties were unable to mobilize the masses.
Musharraf’s campaign to explain to the public that Pakistan could
not afford to alienate the U.S. was widely accepted.
The army too remains essentially a secular organization.
Robert Kaplan has written that if Musharraf goes "after him come
the men with the beards". But the fact is the army is fairly representative
of the country and Islamists make up probably no more than 10% of its
higher ranks, if that.
It is doubtful that Musharraf is playing a complicated double game, as
Kaplan and others suggest, whereby he appears to be trying to repress
terrorists but privately is nurturing them, or at least turning a blind
eye. There is no doubt the umbilical cords that gave succour to both the
terrorists operating against India over Kashmir and those working with
the Taliban have long ago been cut.
If Musharraf doesn’t close down the anti Indian
ones is it is because he would rather know where they are, than forcing
them to hide in the mountains and join hands with those trying to assassinate
him. If Musharraf doesn’t move more forcefully against the Taliban,
although thousands of Pakistani troops have perished in the attempt, it
is because they are sheltering among the 3 million Afghani refugees in
Pakistan and, as he says, "if I sent in the army into the refugee
camps and hundreds of women and children died as we tried to root out
the terrorists the world would be up in arms against us."
Musharraf is no saint but he impresses a wide range
of people - even those who oppose army rule - with his integrity. Yet
this is not a good enough reason for refusing to push hard for the return
of full democracy in time for October’s election, as many Western
governments appear to have concluded.
Only with democracy will the Pakistani electorate
mature. And only with democracy will electoral competition in the northern
tribal areas break up the power of the religious parties and make the
life of the Taliban and Al Qaeda more difficult. This is the subtle work
western diplomacy needs to concentrate on, not elaborating scenarios for
dealing with a highly unlikely- in fact impossible- Islamic coup.
Copyright © 2007 Jonathan
Power
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