I WENT to see an old friend during a recent visit to Karachi. After we were done with the “good old days,” we got to the present and, inevitably, to politics. He asked me to write in support of General Musharraf because, as he put it, men as good and capable as he do not come into this world oftener than perhaps once in a hundred years! I said I would think about it.

I asked others in towns I visited if they thought the general had done well by Pakistan. To my surprise, quite a few of them thought well of him. Another one of my old friends, a veteran politician who has won several elections and twice served as a federal minister, contended, apparently in all seriousness, that General Musharraf had been governing the country and serving the public interest much more wisely and effectively than any combination of politicians could have done. Similar assessments of his work appear from time to time in letters to the editor in this and other newspapers.

In my own writing, I have not endorsed General Musharraf’s coup in October 1999 or the means he has since employed to keep power: particularly his referendum, his manipulations during the elections of 2002, his Legal Framework Order, the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution, his occupation of two offices at the same time, and his continuing exercise of powers and functions that do not lawfully belong to him. Other commentators have written in the same vein, but to no avail.

His position at the helm and his style of governance having become “ground realities,” which outsiders (including the MMA) are in no position to change, I suggest that we move on to another stance, namely, that we support such of his actions as appear to us to be in the public interest and dissociate ourselves from those which do not meet that criterion. Since we are stuck with him, we might as well help him gain a better understanding of the ways and means of achieving his goals when these are worthy.

Let us then look around to identify the courses of action he has adopted that we can, in good conscience, support. A distinction needs to be made here between his professions and his practice. With his declared aspirations and intentions we are not concerned, for they get to be the same from one ruler to the next.

Before setting out for her recent visit to the subcontinent, Condoleezza Rice, the American secretary of state, was asked if she intended to raise the issue of his uniform when she met General Musharraf. She said, no, and then went on to recount his accomplishments: (1) he was fighting, and subduing, the terrorists in Al Qaeda; (2) he had reduced extremist teaching in Pakistan’s madressahs; (3) he was carrying forward the peace process with India.

Terrorism poses a grave threat to Pakistan’s own stability and the fight against it serves our own interest as much as that of any outsider. Under General Musharraf’s overall direction the fight seems to be going well. The incidence of terrorist acts within Pakistan does appear to have declined. Bombings of the infrastructure in Balochistan are probably better understood as acts of rebellion than as plain terrorism.

The fight against extremism, the parent of terrorism, is much more difficult to organize, because here one is dealing with attitudes of mind rather than overt acts. Musharraf should get credit for his steadfast preaching of “enlightened moderation.” In a recent statement, he called for “crushing obscurantism,” and asked the moderates to launch a “wave” of mass participation to combat religious extremism.

I may not be the only one who has failed to understand what exactly he has in mind. Moderates, by the very nature of their disposition, are not the kind of people who come out to launch movements. Consider also that, because of the problems relating to the general’s acquisition and retention of power, his credentials as a preacher are not exactly impeccable.

But there are other problems which are within his power to handle. Enlightened is he who understands that diversity of opinions among humans is inevitable and must therefore be tolerated unless we want a war of every man against every man. Musharraf says extremism in Pakistan is religious and sectarian in its origin and impulses. The professional ulema are its purveyors. He must then make up his mind as to where he wants to stand in relation to them. He cannot have them as his partners and as his adversaries at the same time.

His government has adopted the tactic of setting up a bunch of relatively unknown “ulema and mashaikh” as a counterpoise to the Islamic parties. The ministry of religious affairs brings these gentlemen to Islamabad periodically, puts them up in fancy hotels, compensates them in several other ways and urges them to show the true face of Islam (peace, tolerance, equal rights, etc) to the world. They in turn praise Musharraf’s leadership and his services to Islam. Nobody outside their meeting rooms pays the slightest bit of attention to their utterances.

This exercise is entirely futile. These men are not enlightened. They know little of anything outside Islamic studies, and their education even in that area has most likely been superficial. They have never wondered about the veracity or reasonableness of the teachings to which they were exposed. Extremism in the realm of belief is the only attitude of mind of which they are capable. It is foolish to think of them as spreaders of enlightenment.

If the present government is serious about fighting extremism, it will have to stop playing games with Islam. Somewhere along the line it will have to leave Islamization to the people themselves and tell them frankly that it simply does not have the capability of enforcing it. Let us, for a change, be honest: send Ejazul Haq out as ambassador to the Sudan or Nigeria, shut down the do-nothing ministry of religious affairs, and locate the function of helping out the Hajis in a directorate elsewhere in the government.

General Musharraf is to be commended for his part in initiating the ongoing “peace process” between Pakistan and India. It is conceivable that, given patience and prudence, Pakistan will eventually wrest some concessions from India in the matter of Kashmir. Even if that does not happen in the foreseeable future, but mutually beneficial arrangements in other areas continue to be made, that may be good enough. It is clear that the people on both sides are eager to end hostility and move towards cooperation. The general’s policy would then appear to be not only the best that can be had in the present circumstances, it is also one that accords well with the wishes of his people.

The framework in which policy towards India is made should be kept in mind. First, Pakistan does not have the capability, military or any other, to impose on India a settlement of its own liking of any dispute between them. Second, while the outside powers would like to see peace and amity develop between these two countries, they have neither the capacity nor the inclination to compel India to make the concessions Pakistan might desire. Third, the cost of continuing hostility is enormous for both countries, but India’s ability to absorb it is greater than that of Pakistan. It may then be that Pakistan needs peace and amity even more than India does.

Many observers, including my friend (the veteran politician), maintain that General Musharraf’s devolution of authority and power to the district and sub-district level governments is his most significant contribution to our system of governance. Huge sums of money are said to have been made available to these governments and are being utilized to implement local development projects.

Devolution was potentially a great idea and the general is to be commended for it. But it was botched up in the process of implementation. Functionaries at the National Reconstruction Bureau sought to convert local governments into dependencies of the centre, emasculating the provincial governments in the process. This has caused anguish and fury among provincial politicians, and made for confusion and incapacity at both the provincial and local levels. The head of the NRB has recently said that amendments to the relevant law are currently being considered.

At the same time, a larger measure of autonomy to the provinces is under consideration. One should hope that the two sets of considerations will result in taking the centre entirely out of the business of local governments and returning them to the supervision of the provincial governments. Such supervision should have the purpose only of enabling the district and sub-district governments to meet the needs of their people as expeditiously and effectively as possible.

Even the general’s worst opponents do not accuse him of using his office to enrich himself and his family. His self-denial and rectitude in this regard are a boon for the country. The same goes for the man he has chosen to be his prime minister. Admittedly, he cannot abolish corruption at all levels of the government, but it should be possible for him to get rid of ministers whom one of his own trusted agencies, namely, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), accuses of misuse of authority and financial wrongdoing during their earlier tenures in public office. Such cleansing will surely solidify his own reputation for probity and enhance his credibility.

General Musharraf’s heart may be in the right place, and his intentions may be good. But the ways and means of implementing them, without spreading a whole lot of “collateral damage” on the way, are not likely to be found in a closed circle of cronies. He needs the input of a larger constituency, including that of critics. (I wonder if he reads Dawn.)

The writer is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA

Email: anwarsyed@cox.net

A BROAD question hanging over the country since the October 2002 election is who is incharge, if any one is? The question may be awkward for some and irksome for others but it has refused to go away over the past three and half years, nor can it be wished away now. The uncertainty of it travels down the line to the provinces and the districts.

The constitutional position of the power and responsibility vesting in the institutions of the state even after the complex 17th Amendment is quite clear. It is distorted only by personal influence or assertion of authority in contravention of the spirit of the laws. The chief executive of the country is the prime minister and of the provinces the chief minister. Likewise, the head of the district administration under the Local Government Ordinance 2001 is the nazim. In practice, and deliberately, all three are hedged around a great deal by the forces more firmly entrenched in the power structure of the country.

At the centre the president is always required to act on the advice of the prime minister and the cabinet except in making certain appointments (like the governors of the provinces and chiefs of the armed forces) where he may only consult him. He can also dissolve the National Assembly acting in his own discretion if the prime minister loses a vote of confidence or when “a situation has arisen in which the government of the federation cannot be carried on in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution and an appeal to the electorate is necessary”.

Yet another source of overbearing influence, though not of authority, for the president is the National Security Council (created by an act of parliament) which, under his chairmanship, serves “as a forum for consultation to the president and the government on matters of national security”, etc.

Though the Constitution (with the 17th Amendment incorporated) and other laws confer limited powers on the president in national affairs and none at all in politics, General Musharraf continues to dominate the public life as much after the elections as he did for three years after seizing power when there was no parliament or prime minister.

To his own people and to the world at large he gives the feeling as if all authority emanates from him. Pakistan is, thus, still viewed as a country ruled by the army though executive authority now vests in the prime minister and the cabinet and the laws are made by the parliament.

Reconciliation at home would get a stimulus and the country’s democratic credentials would find better recognition abroad if the president were to detach himself from party politics and rise above it. The current street agitation by the clerics and defiance of the government authority by the tribal chiefs of Waziristan and Balochistan will surely lose their vehemence once General Musharraf chooses to act, and is seen acting, as head of state and not as head of a ragtag coalition. Then his army command, too, will rankle less.

Musharraf’s doctrine of checks and balances has indeed left his influence unchecked, nor has real power been devolved from his person under his pet devolution theory. The Constitution and the elections may have reduced his role on paper but not his authority in real terms. The prime minister does only what the president chooses not to do. The chief ministers suffer a similar dilution of authority to varying degrees at the hands of the governors and the local commanders.

Musharraf’s overwhelming presence in politics is not letting the institutions grow. To cap it all, the politicians he has chosen to be in his modernist vanguard are also continuously undermining his concepts of nationhood and governance. This phenomenon can be best illustrated by the manner in which the Bugti defiance in Balochistan and the countrywide marches by the religious parties are being handled.

The government decided to reinstate the column of religion in the passport after going through the motions of recommendation by a sub-committee of the cabinet and approval by the cabinet as if to concede a popular demand but in fact to defuse the MMA agitation. Consider that it was months ago when Chaudhry Shujaat Husain who is President’s Musharraf’s political adviser and Sheikh Rashid who articulates his thinking had publicly committed to bring the column back. Both make no secret of their sentimental affinity with the component parties of the MMA whom they consider the official Muslim League’s natural allies.

Political agitation by the religious parties gave Chaudhry Shujaat a pretext to push through his own parochial agenda ostensibly to appease the agitated clerics. They refused to oblige. Maulana Fazlur Rehman, instead, claimed this as a first victory, while Qazi Hussain Ahmad saw in it an attempt to divert public attention from the real goal of the MMA’s marches which was to topple Gen Musharraf.

The column decision has, thus, proved a double whammy for the government. It was made to retract from a basic principle of the president’s moderation campaign and has, at the same time, alienated the mainstream parties and progressive elements without mollifying the extremists. And it is not the first instance. It takes more than words to turn a theory into a reality. With Musharraf the survival instinct has always outweighed his philosophy of enlightened moderation. Every time he has tried to make laws liberal he has ended up by throwing a new lifeline to bigotry.

The institutional failure and mismatch between the ideal and tactics has been equally evident in handling the secular Baloch sardars as in containing religious extremists. The problem in Balochistan is twofold: the pressing one is the damage to Sui gas installations and, second, the long-standing grievance of denial of civil and economic rights to the Baloch people.

Maintaining law and order is a responsibility of the provincial government and guarantee of constitutional rights that of the parliament. Instead, the first was entrusted to the centrally-controlled paramilitary forces and the second to political emissaries who also became arbiters. The governor, chief minister and the central interior minister were nowhere to be seen.

With the carnage of unconcerned innocent Hindus behind, a bigger crisis seems to loom ahead in Dera Bugti as the Nawab there declares he would decide what needs to be done and the government would only implement it. The deal cut on constitutional issues is a secret between the Nawab Bugti and two politicians. Neither the cabinet nor the parliament knows what it is.

In the prevailing confusion and the brewing crises the only choice for General Musharraf was to stand by his precepts of enlightened moderation and good governance. He has been consistently failing in that because his political allies are opposed to both. He has to enlist the support of the people and parties who subscribe to his precepts if not to his politics. In any case, he should not be in politics at all.

So far, from the national parliament down to the village council it is a scene of inaction or chaos. It is borne out by Gen Musharraf’s own lament the other day that an assortment of 139 ministers, ministers of state and parliamentary secretaries is unable to muster 86 members for the National Assembly to meet in quorum. But the point to reflect is what good has it done when it has met. In 25 months of existence of this parliament it is hard to recall a question asked, a resolution passed or a law made which helped the common man. The stories of corruption and conflict in the provinces and districts daily fill the pages of newspapers.

A story told to the press the other day by nazim Faryal Talpur of Nawabshah is but one typical illustration of the state of governance at the grassroots. As for Musharraf’s enlightened moderation, never were the forces of reaction more pampered and feared than they are now. The whole caboodle might come crashing down much before 2007 if the working of the government is not brought in line with the provisions of the Constitution and accepted principles of parliamentary democracy.

FEW people would now question the proposition that the US under the Bush administration is in an imperialist mode. The victory of the West in the cold war and the disintegration of the Soviet Union have transformed the US into the only superpower, unrivalled by any other country in terms of military and economic power, political clout or cultural influence.

The US is taking advantage of this opportunity to expand its power and influence further with a view to preventing the emergence in the foreseeable future of a credible challenge to its global supremacy.

In so doing, the US has relied primarily on its national power making use, wherever possible, of its allies to lighten its burden (coalition of the willing) and of the UN to gain legitimacy. Numerous statements by the US leaders, senior officials and scholars lead one to the conclusion that Washington would not allow international law and morality to stand in the way of its expansionism. The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 provided a clear evidence of its imperialist tendencies. Its disregard of the UN, rejection of the International Criminal Court and the Kyoto Protocol, and doctrine of unilateral and preemptive military intervention reflect the low esteem in which it holds multilateralism and international law and morality.

It was predictable that the US expansionism would take place in the direction from where the least resistance could be expected. The Middle East, which is the heartland of the Islamic world, offered itself as a soft and tempting target for the fulfilment of Washington’s imperialist designs.

Like most imperial powers, the US has relied on the policy of divide and rule for the establishment of its hegemony in the Middle East aimed at controlling its oil and gas resources and ensuring Israel’s security. Unfortunately, the rulers of the region have easily played into the hands of the western powers led by the US as shown by the Iran-Iraq war and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

Consequently, the whole of the Middle East region is now under the sway of Washington with Iraq under its military occupation, the US military presence in Afghanistan and in the Gulf region, and with most of the governments in the region, falling over each other to comply with the US diktat. Of the two exceptions — Syria and Iran — the former has almost been brought down to its knees while enormous pressure is piling on the latter for the same objective on the pretext of its so-called nuclear-weapons programmme.

Tehran has been clearly told by the US that if it does not give up its uranium enrichment and nuclear reprocessing programmes, it would be hauled before the UN Security Council for possible sanctions. The EU-trio (Britain, France and Germany) has been relying mainly on diplomatic, economic and security incentives to persuade Iran to abandon its uranium enrichment programme. Although Washington, in an announcement on March 11, declared its willingness to drop its objections to Iran’s entry into WTO and to the supply of spare parts for its civilian aircraft as a gesture of support to European efforts, it has, on the whole, adopted a much harder line on Iran’s nuclear programme than the EU-trio.

Top US policy-makers, including Vice-President Dick Cheney and Gen. Abizaid, the head of the US Central Command, have also given hints of military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities by Israel if it persists with its enrichment and reprocessing activities. Significantly, President Bush while expressing his preference for diplomatic efforts, has refused to rule out other options in dealing with Iran’s nuclear programme.

Iran, which had agreed last November to a suspension of its uranium enrichment programme as a confidence-building measure in its negotiations with the EU-trio, has categorically refused to halt it permanently. President Khatami recently stressed that Iran would not develop nuclear weapons. At the same time, he reiterated Iran’s right to muster nuclear fuel cycle technology for peaceful purposes. Earlier, former Iranian President Rafsanjani also told an international conference of nuclear scientists in Tehran on March 6 that Iran would not stop its uranium enrichment programme. It was not surprising, therefore, that Iran rejected the US offer made on March 11. However, it has expressed its willingness to provide additional guarantees to assure the West that its nuclear programme would remain peaceful.

Admittedly, while non-proliferation is an important consideration behind the western pressure on Iran, there are other and perhaps weightier factors driving the US policy on the subject, the most prominent being the concern about Israel’s security whose nuclear monopoly in the region would come to an end unless Iran is checked. It is also possible that in these days of phobia about Islam and the Muslims, the US and other western countries would not like to see another Muslim country besides Pakistan acquire nuclear fuel cycle capabilities.

We have properly defended Iran’s right to develop nuclear energy and technology for peaceful purposes while stressing that it must also fulfill its obligations under the NPT. What is not understandable, though, is our declaration of neutrality in case Iran is subjected to a military strike because of its nuclear programme. Despite the later clarification by the government spokesman that Pakistan will not allow its territory to be used for any military action against Iran, this pronouncement is not in Pakistan’s best interests. An attack on Iran from whichever direction it comes will destabilize the whole region.

Besides, Pakistan in its own best interest and as a matter of principle cannot afford to remain neutral if a neighbouring and brotherly Islamic country is subjected to aggression. How would we like Iran to react if Pakistan itself becomes the target of foreign aggression? Pakistan also should not forget the support that it received from Iran not only during the wars of 1965 and 1971 but also during the crisis in 2002 when India had mobilized a million troops on our border.

It would also be useful to recall that the Iranian foreign minister paid a visit to Pakistan as a signal of support to us a few days after our nuclear explosions of May 1998 at a time when our western friends had imposed sanctions on us. Further, how do we square our declaration of neutrality with our calls for Islamic solidarity and for strengthening the OIC and ECO of which Iran is a prominent and active member.

It was just a few years ago that Pakistan was the target of the US nuclear non-proliferation and democracy sanctions. It was only the reversal of our pro-Taliban policy that endeared us to the US in the aftermath of 9/11. The relevant question here is why our foreign and security policy institutions failed to perceive the serious damage that it was causing to us both internally and externally, so that necessary corrective steps could be taken. It is a pity that we still needed a big push from the US to bring about necessary changes in our Afghanistan policy. The internal adverse consequences of that short-sighted policy on Afghanistan are, however, with us even now as we all know.

In dealing with the growing US pressure on Iran because of its nuclear programme, we cannot rule out the possibility that after subduing Iran Washington may exert severe pressure on Pakistan because of the so-called nuclear proliferation concerns when our cooperation in the war against terrorism is no longer required. It is not without reason that the story about Dr. A.Q. Khan has been kept alive in the western media through well-calculated leaks by unnamed official sources in Washington. It would be worthwhile to remember the example of Saddam Hussein, who was considered a friend by the US in the 1980s when he was serving its interests through the war against Iran, and was brought down when his utility came to an end.

In fact, we should do all that is possible within the framework of our national interests to strengthen our friendship with the US on a long-term, durable and mutually beneficial basis. At the same time, we should make it abundantly clear to Washington that our friendship with it cannot be at the expense of our friendship with other friendly countries like Iran.

We should, therefore, make it clear to the US that we would politically and diplomatically oppose resort to military means by any quarter in resolving the issues relating to Iran’s nuclear programme. Neutrality in the case of an act of aggression against Iran would be morally indefensible, politically undesirable and strategically disastrous as the security and economic well-being of the two countries are closely linked.

One is struck by the total lack of any activity by the OIC on the Iranian nuclear programme at this critical juncture. It appears that the leaders of the OIC member states have lost the capacity to react constructively in the face of the US threats and the western pressure. The situation calls for the convening of an extraordinary session of the OIC foreign ministers conference in consultation with Iran to assess the situation and come out with a united OIC position on the issue.

Dark clouds of a storm with the potential to cause incalculable harm to the security of Iran and Pakistan are gathering on the horizon. In the face of this, the two countries must strengthen their unity and friendship. Unfortunately, the leaders in both the countries made grave mistakes in dealing with the Afghanistan situation during the pre-9/11 period leading to adverse consequences for both sides.

In the face of the external challenges and threats, Pakistan must put its own house in order. This would require a freely-elected democratic government enjoying popular support within the framework of the Constitution. Only such a government can steer the ship of state safely through the turbulent waters ahead.

The writer is a former ambassador to Iran.