America's guided democracy for Pakistan

Nasim Zehra

The writer is an Islamabad-based security analyst

Washington's current high profile 'engagement field' is Pakistan. The US lame duck administration is deeply engaged in guiding the present Pakistani regime on how to tailor Pakistan's future political and security framework.

Washington is now tutoring Islamabad in another kind of jihad. It's the secular, the moderate jihad. It is without weapons but it will involve less than a total commitment to the legal and constitutional requirements. There are four specific elements of this moderate jihad. One that the Pakistani state takes steps to enforce a moderate persona of the Pakistani society, to end intolerance read anti-Americanism. Such a step would include changing the school curriculum in a direction that the US sees as moderate. Two that in the forthcoming national elections moderates are victorious over the 'extremists.' This is a divide that Pakistan's ruling regime has also bought into.

Three that Pakistan's present regime led by President General Pervez Musharraf is able to be victorious in the war against terrorism for which it needs a political partner. Four that it is convinced that Benazir completely agreed with Washington's view on how to tackle terrorism; the Bush administration picked her as the political cushion Musharraf needed. Washington moved from its earlier position of believing that Musharraf "an indispensable partner" alone could deliver on the war on terrorism to the fact that he needs a political cushion to execute the anti-terrorism war.

Washington let this be known at the highest level to Pakistani officials. No amount of denials can hide the fact that the Musharraf-Bhutto engagement at this level was Washington tutored.

All Pakistanis seeking genuine democracy know that without engaging with Benazir and Nawaz Sharif simultaneously and promoting national reconciliation, the elections cannot be free and fair. But Washington promoted selective engagement.

Significantly Washington's track record on managing political crises, on defeating terrorists, on reducing political fault-lines, on mediating contending forces, on picking up 'winning horses' and on improving security situations is no less than disastrous. The current state of affairs in both Iraq and Afghanistan testifies to this fact. Battles multiply and killing fields expand. There is now talk of replacing Washington-backed Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government. Early this week, the chairman of the US Senate's Armed Services Committee said after a two-day visit to Iraq that a compromise settlement which would keep Maliki in power was close to being ruled out. It has been recommended that Iraq's parliament replace Prime Minister Maliki.

Bush's critics are framing the near failure in Afghanistan as a case of negligence. Recently Senate Democrats said in a statement titled, "The Forgotten War" that despite reassuring words from the White House, it is undeniable the president has dropped the ball on the real front in the war on terror -- Afghanistan." At the core of the failure is the inability within Washington and especially the Bush administration that the first step towards peace in Afghanistan must be a serious engagement with the Taliban and the induction of a credible external mediator. Instead Washington has inducted itself as a partisan indeed a lead partisan in Afghanistan's Washington-led armed battle. The country needs Afghans to make compromises, it needs a healing touch as well as a collective vision for peace and security. Washington cannot lead that charge of peace and security. Its paramount concerns flow from its largely militaristic understanding of the terrorism threat.

In Pakistan, too, Washington has again shown its ability to make a mess of the political affairs of a country that it engages with. Its advice has already back-fired. It has already created greater cracks between General Musharraf's regime and Pakistan's political forces and also between the Pakistani political forces. Entering into a public dialogue with Benazir Bhutto, going easy on corruption cases and talk of her support post elections for General Musharraf, and furthermore PPP not opposing his re-election but abstaining and opting for a coalition government with the PPP has only further damaged Musharraf politically. Since the negotiations have not been conducted across the board with all politicians and since it has been viewed as a Washington-led move it is viewed as a move to get himself re-elected and to please Washington.

Meanwhile Benazir too has not gained politically. It remains unclear what she will gain politically and what the regime will give her in exchange. Instead she is being viewed as a US-ally in their often blundering anti-terrorism policy and as someone who has broken from the political ranks of the ARD engaged with a military ruler to get herself off-the-hook on her corruption cases. This then is the early fall-out on the participants in Washington's moderate jihad which it has sought to promote within Pakistan.

Today Pakistan is a deeply divided polity troubled by multiple sources of rage and discontent. This rage and discontent has translated into armed rebellious and violent militias. In some cases the external factor e.g. the US policies and the political turbulence in neighbouring Afghanistan have added a more deadly dimension to these divides. Clearly the use of conventional and non-conventional force and intelligence to tackle the deadly dimension of these divides is necessary. Yet the principal tool of reconstructing the divided socio-political fabric of the Pakistani society is restoration of rule of law and of genuine constitutional democracy.

The principle challenge is establishing rule of law and therefore for all those who genuinely care about peace and progress in Pakistan, should know that the trump card of our times has to be rule of law. It can be second to none. Not to 'stability' nor to 'law and order' or to progress or to promoting moderation and fighting extremism. All these problems after all flow from the absence of rule of law. In Pakistan we have attempted to solve these problems through martial laws, emergencies, civilian dictatorships, and guided democracy. None have effectively worked.

What has improved in times of military-led democracy, as under General Musharraf, have been the economy, foreign policy with neighbours and infrastructure development, and our creative arts. But our defining context has remained unsettled. We have opted for constitutional democracy yet we have practiced martial law and constitutional dictatorship. And today when on the one hand the state and society are threatened by violence, turbulence and sabotage there is a widespread realisation that our salvation lies in rule of law and fair play. Today there is no cause big enough or compelling enough which must steer us away from our journey towards rule of law; neither the battle against so-called extremism nor economic development or the "war on terrorism.".

The trump card for Pakistani state and society is rule of law and genuine democracy. The July 20 judgment restoring the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was the first significant step in that direction. The second will be the holding of completely fair and constitutional presidential elections to be followed by genuinely fair national elections.

Washington's paramount concern in Pakistan is defeating the 'extremists'…mostly the non-PPP and non-PML-Q candidates. From Washington's vantage point the principal challenge that Pakistan faces is of defeating extremists, militants and the Taliban. Hence its advice essentially does not involve a level playing field for the contestants given that the head of the state chooses to engage with one political opponent and seeks victory of the moderates. Washington and Islamabad's interests on democracy do not converge. Washington wants guided democracy in which one group should be victorious over the other. This is not only blatant interference but also a recipe for political turmoil within Pakistan.



Email: nasimzehra@hotmail.com

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=69168