Strategic Paradigms by Ehsan Ahrari

It is hard to decide whether the news of the victory of Asif Ali Zardari for the presidency of Pakistan should be celebrated as a victory for democracy, or be viewed as a cause for concern.  Better known as “Mr. Ten Percent” for allegedly receiving his cut from contractors doing business with the Pakistani government during the administration of his wife, Benazir Bhutto, his sudden prominence is only an historical accident.  Otherwise, he has been known as Benazir Bhutto’s “insignificant other.”  Zardari spent many years in jail, while his wife was in exile.  Throughout the stormy career of his wife, he largely stayed in the background.  As daughter of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, she was supposed to be the “daughter of destiny,” and was to become the Prime Minister of Pakistan.  However, her life was cut short when she was assassinated on December 29, 2007.

 

That tragedy thrust Zardari into the limelight.  As the interim Co-Chair of Pakistan’s Peoples Party (the other co-Chair is their 19-year-old son Bilawal), he handled himself with ample adroitness and class.  But Zardari also has a clouded (some say shady) past, which includes an accusation that he might have been behind the murder of one of Bhutto’s brothers. 

 

As a politician, he is a totally unknown quantity, aside from serving as a minister of environment in Bhutto’s government (1993-1996), when he earned the moniker “Mr. Ten Percent.”  In his new position as President, which is not a powerful office in Pakistan, he is expected to indulge in a balancing act with the Prime Minister, parliament, and, above all, the Army, which remains the most powerful entity in Pakistan.  How sophisticated is he likely to be is one source of concern.  The other is whether he will become just another tool in the hands of the Army, or whether he will push Pakistan toward another crisis, if he is not to get his way in the power game with the Army.

 

From its very creation, democracy has been in a constant power struggle with the Army in Pakistan.  In that struggle, the Army has always won.  However, Pakistan’s current volatility stems from the fact that, since the 1970s, the phenomenon of “Islamization” has emerged as the chief challenger of both democracy and the Army. 

 

Benazir’s father, former Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, initiated this phenomenon, and it was brought to a point of no return by General Zia ul-Huq.  Both Bhutto and Zia used Islamization purely to achieve objectives of solidifying their political power and sabotaging democracy.  Bhutto was fearful of the Army, whose chief—Zia—eventually hanged him on a trumped-up charge in 1979.  Zia was fearful of democracy and went through all sorts of shenanigans to postpone its return.  He planned to stay in power indefinitely, only to be assassinated in 1988.  In the interim, Pakistan emerged as a place where democracy faces a grim future.      

 

In the domestic politics of Pakistan, Islamic parties emerged as major players as a direct outcome of Islamization.  The educational institutions—which were never given primacy in the government’s expenditure priorities, suffered even more in the sense that religious education emerged as a major requirement in the curricula.  Scientific education was given a secondary role, while the Mullahs became increasingly vocal about the primacy of religious education.

 

Islamization came in handy as a tool for the United States, when it entered Pakistan for the purpose of defeating and expelling the Soviet Union from Afghanistan, starting in 1979-1980.  America militarized the doctrine of Jihad to the hilt to fight and win that war.  Ultimately, it was the fighting zeal of the Mujahideen, the doctrine of militant Jihad, and American weaponry and money that defeated the Soviet Union.  Pakistan was the chief facilitator and a major player in that bloody war.

 

After the Soviet ouster from Afghanistan, America left the battlefields of Pakistan-Afghanistan, but Islamization of both countries became a permanent phenomenon.

 

After the 9/11 attacks on the United States, the lone superpower realized that Islamization had to be curtailed in Pakistan by, inter alia, introducing curricular reforms.  However, the top priority was given, once again, to fighting and defeating the Taliban-al-Qaida nexus. 

 

General Pervez Musharraf, who came to power in 1999 by ousting democracy, agreed to fight the Taliban-al-Qaida alongside the U.S.  But he took no earnest and sweeping measures to eradicate Islamization from his country.  In fact, he followed a duplicitous policy of forming a political alliance with the Islamists in the Northwestern Frontier Province and Waziristan regions domestically, while maintaining the façade of fighting them, for external consumption.

 

Indeed, in the post-9/11 era, Pakistan has continued its march toward becoming “Talibanistan.”  That is a phenomenon that made that country a battleground between Islamic radicals of the Taliban and their ilk, and the Army.  The decision of the Pakistani Army to fight the Taliban—taken under Musharraf—is the chief reason why it is envisaged by the Islamists as the “enemy” of Islam.  The Taliban forces of Pakistan have been accused of carrying out two assassination attempts on Musharraf.  They could very well have been responsible for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December 2007.  

 

The worsening political climate, American schizophrenic demands of fighting the Islamists, and bringing democracy back to Pakistan forced General Musharraf to retire as the Army chief.  On that very same day, he also signed the death certificate of his political career as the strongman of Pakistan.  He clung to power a little longer and maintained the bravado of fighting the growing demand of impeachment, only to succumb to the reality that his rule has been formally put to rest.

 

Now the baton of American demands to fight the Islamists has been passed to a civilian government, with Zardari as the new President, and the Army.  Under Musharraf, the Bush administration had a target to heap on rewards and anger whenever the circumstances deemed necessary.  Musharraf received billions of dollars in aid and assistance and was also blamed often for “not doing enough to fight al-Qaida.”  Now, Washington will be hard-pressed to place that blame on any one actor in Pakistan. 

 

The current Army chief, Ashfaq Kayani, though portrayed as a pro-American General, will be well advised to remember the fate of Musharraf.  Anyone—civilian or military official of Pakistan—who sticks his neck out for the United States, will sign the death certificate of his career, a la Musharraf.  Zardari, even though he is also described as pro-American, will be forced to rethink his own course of action in dealing with the Islamists.

 

The good news about Pakistan is that it has just started a new phase of democracy.  The bad news is that U.S. officials will find it hard to deal with the democratic Pakistan, as they have been finding out in democratic Iraq.  Anti-Americanism in Pakistan is also on the rise.  Zardari will have to keep that fact in mind while he sets the course of his country’s policy toward the lone superpower.  In this interaction, the Army will also remain an important but very cautious player.  A democratic Pakistan may someday emerge as a stable and serene place.  Sadly, that day seems to be in its distant future.