A Bhutto in Pakistan

The odds are heavily stacked against Benazir's survival in her own country.

The ecstasy and the agony of Benazir Bhutto's return were all too evident in the first few hours of her second homecoming. She had arrived to a tumultuous welcome and a violent wake-up call, which seemed to have come much too early in the campaign. In the last eight years that she was away, Pakistan had changed immeasurably — maybe even permanently, and much more since her first homecoming in Zia-ul-Haq's time in 1986.

At the time of her first return from exile, Pakistan was on the same side as the US in the Afghan jehad, although the people were running out of patience with Zia. Besides, India was on the backfoot in the Punjab, there was uncertainty in Kashmir, and Pakistan was the internationally-acclaimed frontline State against the Soviets. This time, Bhutto has returned when anti-US sentiment is high on the streets, Pervez Musharraf is seen as an American stooge and her deal with him has been cobbled together in the US. She is being viewed as just another American tool to extricate a sinking Musharraf.

In contrast to 1986, Pakistan is today widely acknowledged as the epicentre of international terrorism. And very few have a solution to this growing problem. Bhutto has returned at a time when Taliban clones stalk the corridors of power in Islamabad and roam the streets of Karachi and Peshawar. Osama has a higher approval rating than Musharraf. And a cricket captain has had to apologise to the "entire Muslim world" for having lost a match to India. What kind of a mindset have they conjured up in Pakistan?

Bhutto wants a role to steer Pakistan away from the abyss at a time when Islamists in Pakistan want all women behind the purdah. Besides, parts of the North West Frontier Province have become safe havens for al-Qaeda, and religious extremism is mixed with the Pushtun nationalism that transcends the Durand Line, with the Pakistan army unwilling or unable to take on the Islamist militants. The army, determined to pacify Balochistan through force, is losing the battle of hearts and minds and relies on the extreme right-wing forces of Jamiat Ulema-e Islam to counter the nationalists. Pakistan may have changed irretrievably into Pakistan Extreme. It is these faultlines that many Pakistanis, Indians and, indeed, the rest of the world seem to deny.

One would imagine that Bhutto would have carefully thought out her return before taking the plunge. Hopefully, she did have the time to go through Robert Greene's book, The 48 Laws of Power. Law 29 ('Plan All the Way to the End') recommends that the ending is everything. Careful planning, taking into account all possible consequences, obstacles and twists would ensure that glory does not go to others. Bhutto has only got the National Reconciliation Ordinance, while Musharraf has not discarded his uniform, has not abrogated Article 58 (2) (b), which gives him powers to dismiss the PM, has not given any indication that a third term as PM would be possible and has not disbanded the National Security Council that gives him extraordinary powers through this super-cabinet. She thus remains at a disadvantage.

Hopefully, there will be elections, where the next lot of leaders will be selected. Musharraf has already given his preference — the PML(Q) of the Choudhry Brothers. The script could be something like this. In case Musharraf finds Bhutto winning the popularity contest in the Punjab, he will import Nawaz Sharif, who began his political life in the Punjab as an army protégé, to counter her. It is still early days, but then, the PML factions could merge and form a government with the MMA or its remnants, maybe with Maulana Fazlur Rahman as Prime Minister. So, unless Bhutto has planned it to the end, glory may go to others.

Bhutto must have taken into account that there will be attempts to assassinate her or frighten her away. One more such attack and Musharraf will certainly order that she be secured in a fortress to prevent any harm. This brings into play Greene's Law 18 — 'Do Not Build Fortresses to Protect Yourself; Isolation Is Dangerous'. This says that isolation exposes the leader to more dangers and security lies in mingling and having allies. A campaign has already begun, saying that innocents are dying because Bhutto has come back despite advice to postpone her visit. Except that there is a slight modification to this. Isolation will be imposed on her to prevent her from campaigning, and will simultaneously portray a frightened Bhutto.

Bhutto has made some very courageous statements about tackling terrorism and extremism. All this would need reconciliation with the army, as terrorism cannot be tackled without its active involvement. Yet, the army has been tutored to fight enemy India and is not trained to battle internal insurgent forces. This could easily cause fissures within the army. Also, there are elements within the army who are opposed to any reconciliation with her. They would demand a price from her, and what would that be? Or would they be happy to have Bhutto as a convenient scapegoat? This would enable them to disassociate themselves with governance at a time when their image has taken a severe beating, and thus come back with their image refurbished. One does not see the army totally receding from the scene in the foreseeable future.

Arrangements worked out in the salons of New York and London are usually about power-sharing among feudal politicians, well-connected bureaucrats and industrialists and the army. But they tend to unravel quickly as they are removed from the ground reality and do not take the people into account. Then, cynics say that after years of subservience to dictatorial regimes, maybe the people have discounted themselves.

Pakistan's current status as a global destabiliser is explained as a manifestation of life-long insecurities. In trying to overcome them, the State has become delinquent, mollycoddled by offshore balancers far too busy in securing their own fortunes. The result is that today, the Pakistan State has to go to a correctional home. It can no longer seek security through adventures in Afghanistan and India. Instead, it has to provide assurance of continued good behaviour towards its neighbours. Only this will buy it security.

Pakistan's benefactors would do well for themselves, for the neighbourhood and the world by insisting on a basic minimum of orderliness accompanied by a high threshold of expectations and a low threshold of tolerance of any transgression. Merely continuing to arm Pakistan with sophisticated weaponry meant to be used against India and not for the global war on terror is not the answer. It reflects a sad lack of coherent policy towards a State that seems to be on auto-destruct. Today, the US assumes a stake in Musharraf's survival in the pursuit of its own strategic interests. India has a stake in Pakistan's survival. The two need not be congruent interests.

Source : Hindustan Times , 30th Oct 2007

A War of Nerves

Iran wants to engage with the world. but the US is in no mood to relent

Richard Perle, known in Washington power circles as the ‘Prince of Darkness’ and associated with the neo-con American Enterprise Institute and the Project for New Century, had authored a book with his associate, David Frum, soon after President George Bush launched his ill-fated Iraq war. The book, An End to Evil, is the Perle-Frum prescription about how to win the war on terror. They recommended that the US must take bold and decisive action against Iran. They said this in 2003 when the duo was still considered (and probably still are) among the most influential insiders in the Bush White House.

It is true that Iran came clean about its nuclear programme only when its clandestine nuclear liaison with Pakistan and the Libyans had let the cat out of the bag. Although Pakistani delinquency has been swept aside, there has been endless high-pitched rhetoric and speculation about when, or if, the US will attack Iran to end its so-called quest for the N-bomb, and to overthrow the current regime. Washington glowers at Tehran, demonising the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad more or less like Saddam Hussein. The US has rejected the IAEA finding that clearly concludes in Article IV(4) that: “The Agency has been able to verify the non-diversion of the declared nuclear materials at the enrichment facilities in Iran and has, therefore, concluded that it remains in peaceful use.”

There are renewed allegations of Iran interfering in Iraq by supplying the Shia militia with money, weapons-training and explosives and weapons to the Taliban in Afghanistan. All this has not galvanised the Iranians into submission. There are other provocations to goad Iran that range from rejection of the IAEA findings, tougher sanctions, which now have the French on board, and if this were not enough, insulting Ahmadinejad after inviting him to address the University of Columbia. There have been leaks about the possibility of a pre-emptive strike that could include thermonuclear weapons, which according to some is harmless to the surrounding human population. Warplanes are said to be in position since 2004 and extensive wargames were conducted in the Persian Gulf and the Eastern Mediterranean in mid-2006. The Pentagon is supposed to have 2,000 bombing targets. The idea is to force Iran to retaliate and then use overwhelming force when it does.

Undoubtedly, Iran must be feeling surrounded these days much more than before. To the north is Turkey, a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) member, concerned about the Iranian nuclear programme. Close to Iran are two former Soviet republics, Armenia and Azerbaijan but now friends of the West. Along with Turkmenistan, they are members of the Nato’s Partners for Peace Programme. Afghanistan in the east is home to Nato and US troops, where the Sunni, radical Taliban are becoming increasingly effective and the President, progressively ineffective. The other eastern neighbour, Pakistan, also hosts US bases, and,US-backed insurgents have used Balochistan as a base for forays into Iran. Across the Persian Gulf are six Arab kingdoms: Oman, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait — all worried about Iran’s growing clout in the region. To the west is Iraq, with its 150,000 US troops and with reports that troops will be moved towards the Iranian border. Finally, the US armada in the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean is poised to pulverise. Encircled thus, it is natural for Iran to try to break the cordon and reach out to Russia and China in a kind of a quadrilateral that includes the other energy-rich nation, Venezuela. The latest in this round of high drama has been another book by Norman Podhoretz, the widely acknowledged doyen of the Neo-Con Corps in Washington. His book — World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism — is the latest neo-con warbook about the battle against global Islamist terror. Podhoretz, who considers that the Cold War was World War III and that World War IV has begun, met President George Bush recently. Word is that he urged the President to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities. Podhoretz is no quaint old man; he is a foreign policy advisor to Rudy Giuliani, who, some say could be the Republican front-runner for the presidential election. Podhoretz may have his reasons to predict that Iran would crumble under US ‘Shock and Awe’ (Iran edition). But it is difficult to accept this prediction after the exposures of the limitations of US military power in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Events in Iraq and Afghanistan have meant that the decline of US prestige and power is the most discerning aspect of the first decade of the 21st century. There has also been a decline in the US’s ‘soft’ power with Al Jazeera challenging the supremacy of BBC and CNN in the region. Apart from Iraq, this loss is most noticeable in Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, the three countries that Henry Kissinger had described as the pivot to the world’s (meaning US) security. No wonder President Karzai of Afghanistan, on a visit to Washington, and, in the presence of Bush, was emboldened to describe Iran as a helper and a solution. At about the same time Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was on an official visit to Tehran buying insurance in case the US found him dispensible. A week after Bush and Karzai had met, the Iranian President was in Kabul calling on his Afghan counterpart.
Given the importance of the region, the decline in the supply of oil in the future and production peaks and the growing needs for energy of other nations like China, the US has to keep the oil-producing West Asia and Eurasia under its control. There has always been bipartisan support for this policy in Washington; in fact, many of the projects and policies that the Republicans are now pursuing in West Asia were initiated by Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. Therefore, it is not easy to dismiss these leaks as simply designed to scare. They have their own momentum should Iran, in US perceptions, continue to be intransigent.

The alternative to bombing is negotiations but this, too, may be difficult now. Four years ago, in May 2003 the Iranian authorities proposed a package deal to freeze their nuclear programme in exchange for an end to US hostility. The Iranians offered full transparency about their nuclear programme and full cooperation with the IAEA, on Iraq, terrorism and even material support to Hamas. In return, the Iranians wanted their country to be removed from the ‘axis of evil’ list, end of all sanctions, US support for reparations from Iraq for the Iran-Iraq war, access to peaceful nuclear technology and that the US pursue anti-Iran terrorists like the Mujahedeen-e- Khalq. Instead, the US rejected this offer and now threatens ‘just’ Wars when things are going horribly awry for them and the Iranian position in the region is much stronger.

This kind of rhetoric in the US has prompted commentators like Philip Giraldi to portray a scenario should the Iranians not roll over and play dead. This would force the US to strike the country. The escalation of conflict that Giraldi depicts in his essay What World War III May Look Like quickly engulfs the entire region, reaches the US and ends with a nuclear exchange between Pakistan and India. “World War III has begun” is the last sentence of Giraldi’s script. He might as well have predicted Armageddon.

Source : Hindustan Times , 16th Oct 2007