A year of confusion and uncertainty

PAKISTAN enters the New Year with doubts surrounding one major question: will the general election this year be fair and transparent? The question is important, because the year 2006 ended yesterday without any clue as to the direction in which the nation is headed. Will the end of 2007 see Pakistan take its place among democracies, or will the nation feel frustrated once again with regard to its cravings for a democratic dispensation? The last 12 months have been one big disappointment, for the confusion among the generals became worse as the year drew to a close. Throughout 2006, the ruling party bigwigs, including Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, had been dropping hints that the existing assemblies would re-elect Gen Pervez Musharraf as president for another term. On Dec 28 Minister of State for Information Tariq Azeem not only repeated the establishment’s re-election strategy but also outlined a time-table for it. Three months before the election, he said, the outgoing assemblies would act as an electoral college to re-elect Gen Musharraf as president. The general election would be held on Jan 15, 2008, and Mr Shaukat Aziz would be the Muslim League’s candidate for prime minister.

Mr Azeem had not said anything new. But a day later, Information Minister Mohammad Ali Durrani contradicted the junior minister categorically, denied that dates had been chosen for the general election and said no decision had been made with regard to Mr Aziz’s future political role. Mr Azeem had not committed anything blasphemous, but the denial of something that other Muslim League leaders had said repeatedly served to highlight the confusion in the ranks of those who are at the helm of national affairs. With less than one year left for the tenure of the current assemblies to expire, one still does not know whether there will be a free and fair electoral exercise and whether the presidential election itself will conform to the recognised democratic norms. Unless the generals end the ambiguity by committing themselves categorically to a fair and free general election, including the composition of the electoral college for choosing the head of state, the nation will continue to be in a state of confusion and perhaps ready itself for suffering another five years of undiluted military rule.

The election wasn’t the only realm of confusion; we could see plenty of fog in many other vital areas — the dams, for instance. On April 26, President Musharraf performed the ground-breaking ceremony of the Diamer-Bhasha dam, signalling his government’s determination to go ahead with the construction of big water reservoirs in the north. However, what the Nov 27 meeting of the Central Development Working Party did or did not do became a source of confusion. Initial reports said the CDWP had withheld clearance of the three mega dams — Diamer-Bhasha, Kalabagh and Akhori. The next day, the Planning Commission had to issue a clarification saying that the CDWP had not withheld clearance and that it had sanctioned money for the assessment committee to report on the environmental and other aspects of the projects that together will cost a staggering Rs1.027 trillion. Then on Dec 12 President Musharraf reiterated his government’s resolve to go ahead with the three dams. That the country needs new hydro-electric projects to produce more power and bring more land under the plough goes without saying. But, true to form, the military made no attempt during the last 12 months to develop a national consensus on the issue of big dams and address the reservations of the small provinces, especially Sindh.

Balochistan, the big “small” province, continued to remain in ferment. The aftermath of Akbar Bugti’s death “in action” on Aug 26 proved that the insurgency was not a one-man show, for the province continued to see skirmishes between militants and security forces, besides bomb blasts and acts of sabotage. Regrettably, the government seemed to pay less attention to the need for political pacification to solve the problem and relied more on force. Nothing was done to implement the recommendations of the two parliamentary committees to address the Baloch people’s grievances. The government, of course, seemed serious about Balochistan’s economic uplift and concentrated on implementing several ‘mega’ projects, including the second phase of Gwadar’s development, the Mirani dam, and gold and copper mining. But what most Baloch leaders wanted was a revision of the quantum of provincial autonomy — something for which they had support in the other small provinces. However, the one area where the government seemed to have realised the importance of putting politics in command was the tribal belt. On Sept 5, the authorities and the militants signed an accord under which the latter pledged to stop cross-border movement and refrain from attacking government installations. The deal, no doubt, led to serious criticism at home and abroad, and the government was accused of letting the Taliban have a “safe haven”. But there was no doubt that there could be no strategy other than that which sought a negotiated solution to what basically was a political problem created by the presence of foreign militants in the country.

Two gory incidents shook the nation. On Oct 30, 82 people were killed when the Pakistan army hit a religious seminary at Damadola in the Bajaur agency. Sections of the opposition claimed that it was the American military that had attacked the madressah, but the government insisted that it was the army that had hit the seminary and that those killed were getting trained in terrorism. Eight days later, the militants had their revenge when a suicide-bomber blew himself up at a military training camp in Dargai killing 40 soldiers and wounding 20 others. This criminal act robbed the religious right of the sympathy it had gained over the Damadola carnage.

The fact that government policies had done nothing to break the power of religious extremists became clear when the earlier part of the year saw mob violence over the blasphemous cartoons published in a Danish newspaper. The protests degenerated into violence at several places, including Lahore, where on Feb 14 two people were killed, and the angry demonstrators indulged in arson and vandalism. However, in one respect the religious parties suffered a political setback because of over-reaction and bad strategy, and this was on what for many people was a non-issue. After much dithering and having made every effort to appease the fastidious ulema, the ruling party finally mustered courage and had the Women’s Protection Bill passed by parliament in November. Given the fact that the MMA was in a minority and in no position to block the bill’s passage, especially when the PPP was for the new law, it should have exercised restraint instead of adopting an uncompromising attitude which, as events showed, hurt the MMA. What followed the bill’s passage was a spectre of disunity in which Jamaat-i-Islami chief Qazi Hussain found himself isolated, many MMA leaders declaring that the high command of the six-party alliance had never agreed on quitting the assemblies. Thus the threat to quit the assemblies and launch a movement against the government fizzled out. The only consolation for the right was the revised Hasba bill, which the MMA government pushed through the Frontier Assembly on Nov 13.

On the whole, the outgoing year had its quota of tragedies and disasters, including the Fokker plane crash near Multan which killed 45 people, the bomb blast at the Sunni Tehrik ‘milad’ on April 11 at Nishtar Park, Karachi, killing 47 people and the murder of Shia divine Hassan Turabi also in Karachi. It was only a matter of opinion whether President Musharraf’s book, In the Line of Fire, was a success or an ill-timed venture promoted at state expense.

Iraq: Bush reluctant to try diplomacy

THE recent effort by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to get a dialogue going with the Palestinians by announcing a unilateral ceasefire, was aimed more at creating an enabling environment for an exit strategy for the US to speed up a withdrawal from Iraq than for a serious solution of the Palestine problem. The rapid succession of events since then has shown that Mr Bush is not mentally prepared to make adjustments that might end the blood-letting or facilitate a series of measures that might rescue the volatile Middle Eastern region from a larger conflict.

As the result of the mid-term elections in November showed the US electorate rejects the continuation of the policy of persisting in direct military involvement in Iraq until victory. Despite the special operation launched with a larger US force, the country has fallen prey to uncontrollable violence in which insurgency against the occupying foreign forces is exacerbated by sectarian conflict and a total breakdown of law and order resulting in a virtual state of anarchy.

Immediately after the election, President Bush seemed to be ready to adjust to the new realities, and met the newly elected speaker-designate to underline the need for a bipartisan approach towards foreign policy issues. The Iraq Study Group, created by the president to examine all aspects of the Iraq policy and whose 10 members comprised five each of some of the most experienced and respected members of the two main parties, took up its mandate which it had delayed until after elections, It submitted a detailed and compressive containing 79 recommendations in early December.

The Iraq Study Group’s report got a positive reaction within the US congress, as well as in thinking circles all over the world. It went into considerable detail on all aspects of the Iraq problem and offered well thought out and step-by-step measures to deal with each crisis spot involved. It stressed the primacy of resolving the Palestine Israel problem on an equitable basis, based on the two-state solution contained in the roadmap that Bush had proposed in 2002 and which had won the support of EU, the UN and Russia. The Arab and Islamic countries had been dismayed and alarmed over the growing aggressive and arrogant behaviour of Israel which always had US backing, thus increasing hostile feelings towards the US.

The US claim that it stood for democracy and human rights lost credibility as it vetoed resolutions proposed in the UN Security Council over excessive use of force and indifference towards the sufferings of the Palestinian people. The war in Lebanon that was launched by Israel to teach Hezbollah a lesson ended in a virtual defeat for Israel despite the latter’s use of excessive force. This boosted the morale of militants in Arab and other Muslim countries.

Insurgency and total hostility towards the occupation forces in Iraq shows that the early exit of foreign troops would help achieve the objective of restoring peace and stability in Iraq. President Bush has revealed a stubborn resolve to stick by his existing policy of “staying the course” until victory. He is virtually seeking an alternative opinion from other sources such as the Pentagon and the State Department that would provide for continued US military involvement in Iraq since Iraqi security forces appear to have been penetrated by sectarian militias so that even the retiring UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, has warned against the terrible consequences of a precipitate US withdrawal.

Even the Iraq Study Group’s recommendations envisage major US withdrawals in early 2008 and call for the US to shift towards improving Iraqi capability to assume responsibility for security duties and US diplomacy to take a series of actions in other countries of the region to improve the political environment.

Unfortunately, even though Mr Rumsfeld has resigned as defence secretary, Vice-President Dick Cheney is still there to defend the power-based US policies in the Middle East that have the Bush stamp on them. Peace in Palestine depends upon the US throwing its full support behind the two-state solution. However, Mr Bush shows few signs of countering Israeli tactics and goals. Similarly, on Lebanon, Syria and Iran, Mr Bush continues to be defiant, and has not shown signs of flexibility in dealing with countries placed on the “axis of evil”, namely Syria and Iran, even though their leadership is willing to help in stabilising the situation in Iraq.

US public support for Bush’s Iraq policy has fallen further to 20 per cent, but despite the outcome of the mid-term elections, and the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group for a change of course, the president is not reconciled to the new realities. He is inclined to opinions like those of key generals as well as of senators like John McCain, a presidential hopeful, calling for an increase in US forces in Iraq.

Views that unless the US changes course it may face a bigger disaster than it did in Vietnam are not making an impression on the president who still worries about his place in history and still feels that with his time-table for democratic elections completed in Iraq, it requires only a little perseverance for the Iraq venture to end on a positive note. He has spoken to leaders of major Iraqi factions who have responded in a manner he finds encouraging.

The next four or five weeks will be crucial. The state of the union speech for 2007 will be a major milestone when he must spell out his vision and plans for the final years of his presidency. The hope that he will get it right, and opt for diplomacy and realism does not look like being fulfilled, and his unmistakable preference for staying the course may prove to be a recipe for disaster.

At this point, perhaps one should try to put the attitude of President George W Bush, with regard to the post Cold War and post 9/11 evolution of world affairs in a historical perspective. The two World Wars fought in the first half of the 20th century had exposed the failure of reliance on force to determine the order of things and the US showed its commitment to democratic principles by advocating first the establishment of the League of Nations, and after the Second World War, of the United Nations.

The first quarter century after 1945 saw some of the most positive changes on this planet. More than a hundred colonies were liberated, and the UN system expanded to deal with the real problems of mankind relating to poverty, health, the environment and other issues requiring global cooperation.

Unfortunately, the US and the Soviet Union entered into a Cold War, which was partly ideological and partly geo-political. The last proxy conflict between them was fought in Afghanistan, but after the Soviet defeat and disintegration, when communism as practised by Moscow was discredited, the US, now the lone superpower, took a 180 degree turn, proclaiming that the new threats the West faced were from Islamic extremism and nuclear proliferation.

The neo-conservative doctrine was first spelt out by Paul Wolfowitz (now World Bank president) and Lewis Libby (former chief of staff to Vice-President Cheney) in 1992, which was the last year of Bush elder’s presidency. The two terms of Democrat President Bill Clinton saw the US follow a more traditional pattern of diplomacy when the US intervened in Bosnia and Kosovo against Serb expansionism, and gave a leading role to the UN.

The Bush victory in 2000 saw the neo-cons in control, and the US adopted a power-based policy that sought Washington’s complete hegemony. The 9/11 terrorist attacks in late 2001 enabled Bush to propound his doctrine of pre-emption, assuming the right of pre-emptive attack and regime change anywhere in the world. The UN-backed intervention in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks was followed by the war on Iraq, launched in March 2003 without UN support or approval.

Despite failure to achieve victory in Iraq and the growing disenchantment with the US, Bush is reluctant to abandon his doctrine of pre-emption, and to return to a more traditional approach as recommended by the Iraq Study Group report. No doubt there are neo-cons like Cheney, and army commanders who believe that their aims of dominating the region are still achievable.

The latest developments in Palestine constitute an obvious effort to reduce the influence of militants like Hamas and Hezbollah and to impose a settlement tailored to Israeli goals. The West is also facing an intensification of resistance in Afghanistan and counts on India’s support and Pakistan’s assistance to suppress the traditional Afghan resistance to foreign occupation forces.

The apparent resolve of Bush to continue his strong-arm approach threatens peace and stability in the larger Middle East region. The Pakistan government needs to tread carefully in the emerging situation that may be marked by conflict and confrontation, with most of the pressure and suffering falling on the Muslim world.

The writer is a former ambassador.