Undermining Musharraf

General Pervez Musharraf, the President of Pakistan, is in a difficult predicament which President George W. Bush and his advisers have made even more thorny with their recent insensitive and undiplomatic public statements. The Musharraf government has been performing a high wire act from the time the United States military buildup in South Asia began. Violent anti-American street demonstrations have rocked Pakistan with thousands of supporters of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden participating. The Pakistani military has shot to death nearly a dozen protesters, including a 13-year-old boy, since the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan began.

11President Musharraf, who came to power in a military coup two years ago this month, has attempted to mollify his citizens, 62 percent of whom oppose the U.S. war in Afghanistan according to a recent poll, by publicly stating that he had received"definite assurances" from American officials that the U.S. military campaign against the Taliban would be a short one. When reporters subsequently asked President Bush whether he had promised Musharraf a short war against his neighboring Islamic state, Bush replied:"I don't know who told the Pakistani president that. Generally, you know, we don't talk about military plans." Those of us who have noted that Bush's intelligent quotient is lacking now have grave and serious proof: Islamic militants in Pakistan will certainly use Bush's words against Musharraf leading to more demonstrations and unrest which could destabilize the government of this Islamic nuclear-armed nation of 140 million people.

There have been steady reports of high-level Pakistani military officers, and government operatives tied to the shadowy Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI), who support the Taliban regime and might eventually make a move to oust Musharraf. Indeed, Musharraf has been forced to shuffle the deck of his own military's officer corps and the ISI to isolate the Islamists within his government; he also had to place under house arrest several charismatic Mullahs associated with the Jamiat Ulema Islam party who millions of Pakistanis see as spiritual and political leaders. Officers within Musharraf's military have cautioned that the military government's commitment to Washington could quickly evaporate if the air campaign goes on too long, if errant bombs or missiles strike civilian targets, or if street protests in Pakistan build to the point where the army and police have trouble containing them. Bush, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, and other Administration mouthpieces have made Musharraf's predicament all the more precarious by saying publicly the action against the Taliban would be"a long one." Rumsfeld said the U.S. military effort will"likely have to be sustained for a period of years, not weeks or months."

Also, senior U.S. officials have not acknowledged Pakistan's vehement opposition to the Northern Alliance coming to power in Afghanistan. The Bush Administration has publicly raised hopes that the U.S. military would assist the Northern Alliance to oust the Taliban and install a government friendly to the United States. Senior Pakistani government officials have stated that if there are signs that the Northern Alliance is moving to fill a vacuum left by collapsing Taliban power, this development would be unacceptable. The Bush Administration seems to consider Pakistan a kind of"banana republic" that can be shoved around at will, instead of an unstable military dictatorship and the latest member of the nuclear club.

Less than four days into the war against Afghanistan, the Bush people were already displaying what the late Senator William Fulbright, Democrat of Arkansas, who chaired the Foreign Relations Committee during the Vietnam years, called"the arrogance of power." For example, when asked about the leaders of the Al Qaeda terrorist network in Afghanistan, an official close to General Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, told reporters:"They are dead, they just don't know it yet." Such bellicosity will only serve to shake up allies such as Pakistan and other Islamic members of the anti-terrorist coalition while playing into the hands of the Taliban and their supporters.

To complicate things further, on October 1, 2001, pro-Taliban Pakistani militants, in a car bombing, blew up the Parliament building in the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir, Srinager, killing 38 people and wounding dozens more. A Pakistan-based group, Jaish-e-Mohammed, claimed responsibility. India's government of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, which was one of the first nations to support the United States against the Taliban, (reflecting India's own agenda in Kashmir), issued a stern warning to Pakistan in the wake of the October 1 assault promising military action against Pakistani-controlled Kashmir in the event of another terrorist attack in the Indian zone."The United States and the United Kingdom must tell Pakistan in unmistakable terms, publicly, that their support of terrorism has to stop," a senior Indian official from the Ministry of External Affairs said,"Otherwise, I'm afraid the situation could get out of control." The Musharraf government, in turn, has stated that any attack by India on Pakistan-held Kashmir would lead to war:"Let there be not illusions," the General said,"Pakistan knows how to defend its borders." In an extraordinary move that illustrates the degree of tension between the two nations, Musharraf phoned Vajpayee and invited the Indian leader to come to Islamabad for talks; so far, Vajpayee has not complied. India and Pakistan, the two nuclear-armed nations with a bitter history, and have fought two bloody wars over Kashmir.

The Islamic extremists in the region who are now suffering the wrath of the American military might employ terrorism to foment more violence and unrest in Kashmir (to create a diversion for their Taliban allies), and possibly draw India into another war with Pakistan. Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Tony Blair has shuttled back and forth between New Deli and Islamabad, and Secretary of State Colin Powell is planning to do the same thing next week, no doubt hoping to stave off another hot war between these two rivals at a time when the U.S. is pursuing its own military interests in the region.

Is it possible that the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were part of an elaborate plan by Al Qaeda to draw the American military into a draining land war in Afghanistan? If so, President Bush's simplistic calls for"wanted" posters and his impolitic and undiplomatic public statements threaten to lead this nation to disaster in South Asia.