Still On Pakistan

The apparent calm that seems to herald the prompt arrest and deportation of former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif upon his return from forced exile yesterday sequel to his overthrow in a military coup in 1999 by current dictator, General Pervez Musharraf might not last. There is hardly any doubt that his deportation took not only his party and supporters but also even himself by surprise. The fact that he was served papers for money laundry charges prior to being deported is indication that even the dictator and his regime may have improvised the deportation to Saudi Arabia as a last ditch measure. In which case, they were unprepared for how best to respond to the challenge that Mr. Sharif represents for them in Pakistan.

There are certainly some elements in the regime who favor the option of tackling the challenge evident in Mr. Sharif judicially. Whoever those elements might be, Mr. Sharif’s deportation may indicate that there are also another set of elements in the regime who are uncomfortable with the Pakistani judiciary, which has recently signaled with the restoration of Chief Justice who Musharraf tried to remove, and the ruling that Sharif was free to return to Pakistan, that it is unwilling to side with Musharraf and his regime.

Mr. Sharif’s deportation will further complicate the situation for Musharraf and his regime. They have clearly shown their disregard for the Supreme Court and the rule of law. By so-doing, they are likely to incite negative reactions from parts of the West, particularly the EU, which promptly condemned them for deporting Sharif in disregard of the Supreme Court ruling. Although Musharraf and his regime can resolve to become more aggressive and repressive in their quest to remain in power, there is every doubt that they are capable of stemming the anger of sections of the Pakistani society that show aversion for their continued stay in power. Gone are the days when Musharraf slept peacefully at night. Henceforth, with his regime, he will leap from crisis to crisis all the way, to the point that he may not even have the time and the peace of mind to devout the necessary attention to the task of aiding the US in its global war on terrorism in Pakistan and the sub-region.

The Hand Writing On the Wall

It’s interesting that the Bush White House has refused to see that the hand writing on the wall over its myopic foreign policy gamble in Pakistan clearly indicates a big failure. The pattern of the unfolding events since dictator Pervez Musharraf’s over-reach to get rid of the Chief Justice failed could not have been less clearer: the spontaneous mobilization of various strata of the Pakistani civil society led by the legal profession produced a groundswell that not only succeeded in reversing the dictator’s over-reach, but also emboldened the Supreme Court to void his extra-legal exile of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif sequel to his overthrow of his elected government in a coup eight years ago.

This clear pattern of events ought to have been sufficient cause for the US to appraise the situation of affairs in Pakistan more objectively. Such appraisal could have been sufficient pointer to imbue credence to the fact that Musharraf’s regime had slipped into that slippery slid of difficulty that often characterizes a declining dictatorship. Instead, the White House has preferred to embark on a gamble, which is using former Prime Minister Benizar Bhutto to broker a deal that could presumably save Musharraf and his regime. Well, it does not seems as that gamble is about to pay off at all. The court boycott that began yesterday across Pakistan in a renewed campaign by the legal profession to force Musharraf from power is yet another clear indication that the Pakistani civil society, led by the lawyers clearly has the upper hand in the unfolding power situation. In fact, the US gamble may have neutralized Bhutto’s perceived potential to remain relevant in the unfolding power situation.

There is no doubt now that Sharif will return to Pakistan. There is also no doubt that he might probably lead his party, the Pakistan Muslim League in a spirited mobilization to make life difficult if not impossible for any contraption of a government that may result from the US-Musharraf-Bhutto gamble. IkengaComments predicts that most if not all actions taken by Musharraf and his regime to gain the upper hand in the unfolding power situation in the country henceforth runs the risk of back-firing on the dictator. If the ultimate aim of US foreign policy in Pakistan is anything beyond perpetuating an intractably unstable status-quo ante, then the White House is headed for yet another foreign policy failure over there. The hand writing on the wall is so clear on that.

Musharraf, Bhutto, Et Al

The power situation that Pakistan’s dictator, Parvez Musharraf unknowingly provoked when he over-reached himself in the spring this year and fired the Chief Justice is not likely to resolve itself any time soon. Instead, it is more likely to sustain itself in a truly Pakistani pattern as it spirals itself indefinitely aided by events even as it claims some unsuspecting victims including the dictator himself and even his regime. Apart from Musharraf and his regime, it seems like former Prime Minister Benizar Bhutto is quickly positioning herself as a possible victim of events that she played little or no role to trigger into place in the first instance.

If that happens, it’s only clear that she must blame her extensive opportunistic tendencies more than anyone or anything else for that outcome. Our suspicion is that she may have pre-occupied herself more with listening to the Bush White House than reading the tea leaves on the events more correctly for herself, as the events unfold. In which case, one can only see her as being too myopic to the degree that makes it difficult for her to discern that US desires in Pakistan and in the sub-region has little or nothing to do with whatever her own desires are for herself, her political party, and Pakistan. If she is unable to realize that US desires to save Musharraf and his tottering regime would not further her own ambition to return to Pakistan and to power in the long run, it might be partly because of the issues in her own past that came together to help force her from power some years back. One such issues relates to the corruption charge that was leveled against her husband who could have spent an extended time in jail if she hadn’t embraced the forced choice of exile. If she hopes that the best way to simultaneously protect her husband and return to power is to lend herself and her party to the US gamble to save Musharraf and his regime, she needs to be told that she might not be that lucky.

She and the Bush White House ought to be aware that the circumstances that got Musharraf and his regime to where they are at the moment in Pakistan’s perilous political landscape were made possible by other actors who are highly unsympathetic to US desires in both Pakistan and the sub-region. They should listen to and not ignore the lawyers who successfully saved the Chief Justice from Musharraf's over-reach. That Musharraf’s over-reach was responsible for triggering the situation that gave vent to the anger in the civil society that subsequently produced the defiance that encouraged the Supreme Court to reinstate the Chief Justice and the ruling that exiled former Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif has the right to return to Pakistan as a citizen is insufficient grounds for either the US or Musharraf, talk less of Bhutto to presume that they can successfully cash in and benefit is far from the truth. More than the Islamists, who have allied themselves in the past with Musharraf when they deemed it convenient, it’s the secular elements in the civil society who have the upper hand at the moment in the unfolding power game in Pakistan. They were responsible for mobilizing the agitation that compelled Musharraf to blink. They can and will do that all over again if and when they discern that the ploy to save Musharraf in power is about to be off-loaded on Pakistan by the troika of Musharraf, Bhutto and the US.

Even if Musharraf, Bhutto, and the US succeed in installing the former as president, and Bhutto prime minister in a power-sharing deal predicated on Musharraf’s removal of his general’s uniform, there’s no guarantee that the resultant truce would be durable, to say the least. How will they handle Sherrif, the civil society and a Supreme Court, which has found its constitutional voice and place as an independent player? In its quest to isolate Pakistan’s Islamists, the US will certainly ignore the need to ponder this question. But it is a question that will not go away. At the end of the day, the only guarantee for durable stability in Pakistan is a democratic arrangement, which encompasses the secularists and the civil society and places the military under civilian control in Pakistan. Anything short of that will simply sustain a perilous situation that will someday produce a regime controlled by Islamists.

No Disregard

When IkengaComments debuted on April 6, my conscious decision from that outset was to devote it completely to those objectives that I spelt out in the first posting. In other words, the other commitment that I made to myself remained silent. That commitment was to completely remove myself from the postings. That commitment influenced my decision to keep my whereabouts off the blog. The commitment might be reviewed in the future. After a period of silence, which began after the last posting on July 10, IkengaComments has returned. We urge the reading audience not to misconstrue the unannounced absence as a disregard.

US Military Leadership Failure in Iraq

On at least two counts, it seems like the war of choice that the US embarked on in Iraq has quickly turned into another Vietnam for the Bush White House. First, it has become a war which many people believe can no longer be won. Secondly, for members of the US military top brass, the war has increasingly exposed their inability to exhibit leadership expectations. One would recall that some analysts of the Vietnam war argue that long after it became obvious that the US military would be unable to dominate the situation in Vietnam, rather than find the courage to convey that assessment to their civilian leaders, the top brass preferred to play along in what became known as card-punching all in the bid to protect their careers. It is happening again, this time in Iraq.

Since General Shinkeshi gave his candid opinion during Congressional hearings on what he felt were the right estimates of the number of troops he thought was needed in Iraq, and was retired for it, no other serving members of the top brass has been willing again to convey their candid assessment of the situation of things on the ground in Iraq. A front-page story in the USA Today yesterday indicated that attacks on the transportation of supplies for the military in Iraq have been on the increase. From the military point of view, the implications of that story are enormous. As skilled managers of violence, US military top brass are not unaware of the fact that the inability to guarantee supplies to a highly complex outfit like the US military in a theater of operation is not a child’s play after all. There are other related indicators of the inability of the US military so far to dominate the situation in Iraq. Those are in the sense that the US military even at this stage still finds it difficult to move around the entire theater of operation in Iraq—in the air and on the ground—without hindrance. Yet, it does not seem as the top brass have summoned the courage to convey the true implications of that to their civilian leaders. If they do, there is little doubt that Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and their advisers will certainly be showing some inclinations towards modifying their insistence that they will not accept anything short of “victory” in Iraq. Military victory is unlikely under the aforementioned state of affairs.

The only members of the top brass who have expressed their candid assessment of the situation of things in Iraq are those who are no longer in active service. The inability of the top brass who are still in active service to express such candid assessment is plainly a failure of leadership. One is at a loss as to what the US military establishment and the Bush White House are hoping to make out of the deteriorating situation in Iraq. Someone recently mentioned in a conversation that he would not wish the military situation of things in Iraq today on his worst enemy. The top brass must help with the right leadership.

How Is the General Doing So Far?

Here at IkengaComments, our informed assessment has been that US support for Pakistan’s dictator, General Pervez Musharraf is a misguided gamble that has very high chances of unraveling in a manner which could shift US geopolitical calculations in that part of the world into a pitiful situation. Staking so much on the continuity of an individual, a dictator for that matter who is in power in such a precariously volatile society cannot but merit such a bleak assessment.

Mr. Musharraf’s travails since he sacked the Chief Justice have not fared that well. He has faced increasing open challenge to his regime from several sections of the Pakistani civil society ever since. If the US is less jittery about the opposition that lawyers and other notable members of the Pakistani civil society have mobilized against him in response to that singular action, the opposition that he is now facing from radical Islamists will be serious cause for worry for the Bush White House given the conviction that the end of his dictatorship will not be good for the success of the War on Terror, WoT.

The stand-off currently going on between his regime and a radical mosque in Islamabad, is not likely to unfold and end favorably for him. The opposition that his removal of the Chief Judge fanned could have emboldened the Islamists who are involved in this stand-off. The heavy gun shots fired at the aircraft he was flying in yesterday is a clear escalation of the uncertainty he is faced with. Knowing how dictators function, Musharraf will occupy himself henceforth with the task of survival. He will do that by using every trick at his disposal to manipulate the US for support even as he strives to suppress those who are opposed to his dictatorship in Pakistan. The US will be quite eager to aid his efforts to suppress the Islamists. But the unfortunate thing about that is that the General may not be quite willing to go after the Islamists in a decisive manner. The Islamists will make life increasingly difficult for him if they sense any shift in what may have been a secret pact between him and them. In other words, there is a clear risk in pressing the General to move decisively against the Islamists. On the other hand, if the status quo ante sustains, it may not last that long. The non-Islamist opposition may not relent that easily in their quest to curb what it considers the General’s excesses. In deed, so far, the General is not doing that well.

Humanity Must Protect Itself

Critics of the Bush administration’s War on Terror, WoT in general and the invasion and occupation of Iraq insist that it is so ill-conceived, wrong-headed, and ill-executed that rather than achieve their executors’ proclaimed outcomes of making the world safer from Islamist terrorism, will and are exacerbating the scourge by doing otherwise. It does not take the services of a seer for an honest observer to discern from the deluge of news reports each week that the world is far from being safe from the heartless individuals who wrap themselves with the jihadist banner of Islamism and present themselves as willing zealots ready to embark on any manner of terrorist acts that unleash terror on unsuspecting people.

The recent terror-related events in Britain involving well-educated individuals from Iraq and India do not just underscore the view that the world is increasingly unsafe; they should also be cause for worry for every sensible person anywhere in the world. For one, Britain was never a target of Islamist terrorism prior to its involvement in the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Apart from Spain, which under the previous government was also a member of the clique of three that embarked on the invasion of Iraq with Mr. Bush, no other society has been targeted by Islamist terror as much as Britain since the invasion of Iraq. The lives of unsuspecting members of society have been turned upside down in virtually every part of the world because of the looming prospects of terrorist attacks. International travelers and other users of air transportation are so concerned of their safety these days that some of them resort to executing or updating their will each time before they embark on trips. We know where it all began, but we do not know when it will end.

Meanwhile, US politicians, particularly the ardent Republicans who blindly lined up support for the invasion and continuing occupation of Iraq are finding it just expedient to re-calibrate their position on the occupation just to suit their political survival. In the last few weeks the gradual shift in the support of the occupation noticed in some Republican Party senators is evidently inspired by fear that they might loose their seats in their re-election bid next year. The latest shift in stance of support was expressed just yesterday by New Mexico’s Pete Domenici who is facing re-election next year. Earlier, it was the turn of Virginia’s John Warner, who is also billed for re-election next year. The troubling aspect of the shift in the support of these individual US senators for the occupation of Iraq is that it is just enough to enable a campaign stance that could translate into a message to win as many votes from many of the voters whose initial support for the invasion and occupation has completely soured. Mr. Domenici who is “not calling for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq or a reduction in funding for our troops” merely railed against an “Iraqi government [which] is not making measurable progress”. He is calling “for a new strategy that will move our troops out of combat operations and on the path to continuing home”. How that path will unmake all the wrong-headed aspects of the policy of invasion and occupation is yet to be figured out.

It is high time for the rest of the world to rally and come up on their own with anti-terror policies capable of succeeding. Someone mentioned the other time that such a policy will necessarily not involve the US so along as it is intent on waging the WoT as it currently conceived it. Humanity cannot afford to continuing living in fear and stress. The world must rally and begin the task of protecting and saving itself.