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June 25, 2007
The Real Problem With Pakistan
Movies usually tell
a story powerfully, emotionally—and simply. But "A Mighty Heart"
is notable for the nuance it manages to convey. The 2002 murder of Wall
Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl wasn't itself complicated: a group
of jihadists kidnapped him and then brutally beheaded him. But its setting,
Pakistan, is awash in gray tones, which the movie paints skillfully. To
fully understand this story, we must recognize the utter ruthlessness
of Pearl's killers but also the complexity of where they came from. Now,
with Pakistan undergoing its greatest crisis since 9/11, the United States
would do well to take that complexity into account.
There is a simple story line: Pakistan's President
Pervez Musharraf has abused his authority; he faces massive street protests
and should be nudged out in favor of a civilian government. It's a tempting
view. Musharraf is a dictator, and his regime has not been wholly committed
to fighting Islamic radicals. The Taliban has reconstituted itself in
Pakistan's tribal areas, and Al Qaeda's top leaders appear to be ensconced
along its border. If there is a central front in the war on terror, it
is not in Iraq but in Pakistan.
Now, the complications. Musharraf has, on the whole,
been a modernizing force in Pakistan. When he took power in 1999, the
country was racing toward ruin with economic stagnation, corruption, religious
extremism and political chaos. It had become a rogue state, allied to
the Taliban and addicted to a large-scale terror operation against neighboring
India. Musharraf restored order, broke with the Islamists and put in place
the most modern and secular regime in three decades. Under him the economy
has boomed, with growth last year at 8 percent. Despite the grumblings
of many coffeehouse intellectuals, Musharraf's approval ratings were consistently
high—around 60 percent.
Until recently. Like many dictators, Musharraf has
gone several steps too far. His recent actions—dismissing the chief
justice of the Supreme Court and attempting to change the Constitution
so he could remain president and still run the Army—were wrong and
foolish. Though not unprecedented. Musharraf's predecessor, Nawaz Sharif,
the elected prime minister, dismissed his chief justice in 1997 and tried
to amend the Constitution in equally egregious ways in 1999. But Musharraf
failed to recognize that perhaps as a consequence of his success, ordinary
Pakistanis were becoming less comfortable with military rule. As Indian
commentator Shekhar Gupta has suggested, he would have been wiser to give
up his uniform and run as a civilian in a free and fair election, which
he would have won.
The danger is not that radical Islamists would come
to power if Musharraf goes—as several American presidential candidates
have claimed. Islamic fundamentalists have never gotten more than 10 percent
of the vote in Pakistan. The country's two main political parties are
secular.
The real problem in Pakistan is dysfunction. "A Mighty Heart"
accurately shows that Pakistan's national police forces were trying to
find Pearl's kidnappers. But the central government can claim only limited
and divided authority over the country. Provincial governors, local commanders
and rich landlords are powers unto themselves. Elements in the government
can drag their feet and subvert official policy. Large swaths of the country
are badlands where the state's writ doesn't run. This is a far more backward
country than South Korea or even the Philippines, where the United States
helped usher in democracy in the 1980s.
The only institution that works in Pakistan is the
military. The Army is mostly professional and competent. It is also vast,
swallowing up approximately 39 percent of the government's budget. In
a book published last month, author Ayesha Siddiqa details the vast holdings
of Pakistan's "military economy"—including banks, foundations,
universities and companies worth as much as $10 billion. And with or without
Musharraf, as Daniel Markey ably explains in the current issue of Foreign
Affairs, the military will continue to run Pakistan's strategic policy.
Deeply ingrained in the Army's psyche is the notion
that it was abandoned by the United States in the 1990s, after the Soviets
were driven out of Afghanistan. The generals are worried about Washington's
warm overtures to India and fear that soon they will be abandoned again.
One explanation for why the military has retained some ties to the Taliban
is because they want to keep a "post-American" option to constrain
what they see as a pro-Indian government in Kabul. If Washington were
to dump Musharraf, the Pakistani military could easily sabotage American
policy against Al Qaeda and throughout the region.
Musharraf may be doomed—though were he to choose between the presidency and his Army post, and reach out to the mainstream opposition, he might well survive. Still, it does the United States no good to be seen forcing him out. We cannot achieve our goals—or help Pakistan gain stability—by turning our back on the military. Back in the 18th century, Frederick the Great's Prussia was characterized as "not a state with an army, but an army with a state." So it is with Pakistan. A complex reality.
