Islamabad -
For the United States these comments are seismic. For the past
six months Washington has been brokering a shotgun marriage between the
General and the woman who was once his most vocal adversary.
Two
realities squeezed the trigger. One was mounting civic protests against
military rule in Pakistan, brought on by Musharraf's botched attempt to
dismiss the independent Chief Justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. The
second has been a native "Pakistan" Taliban insurgency, arching from
the Afghanistan borderlands to settled districts in the North West
Frontier Province. Since July -- when army commandos ousted pro-Taliban
clerics from Islamabad's Red Mosque -- nearly 2,000 people have been
killed, including 600 soldiers. There have been twenty-eight suicide
attacks.
From a politician synonymous in the United States
with graft and opportunism, Bhutto became a redeeming angel. But
sainthood came with a price. In return for the withdrawal of corruption
cases against her -- and perhaps a third shot at the premiership --
Bhutto would use the popular might of her Pakistan People's Party (PPP)
to steer Musharraf to the shore of another five-year presidency.
The
tryst was never about dumping Pakistan's military ruler, says analyst
Ayesha Siddiqa. It was about ballasting him with "civilian" legitimacy:
"Benazir provides the political cover while Musharraf and the army
focus on the 'war on terror,' which is the only thing the Americans are
really concerned about."
What caused the divorce? It doesn't
seem to have been martial law. Imposed ostensibly to tame the Taliban,
Musharraf's aim was to purge the Supreme Court of those judges
(including, again, Chaudhry) who were about to rule invalid his
presidential "election" in October. Until recently Bhutto was still
open to negotiations with the General if he lifted the emergency,
restored the Constitution and stood down as army chief. Last Sunday she
lauded his promise to hold elections before January 9.
Two
fears spurred her revolt, say sources. One was Musharraf's preference
that elections be held under martial law -- with the opposition jailed,
the media muzzled and the judiciary shackled. "Emergency rule gives
Musharraf supreme power over the electoral process. With such rigging,
the PPP wouldn't stand a chance," says political analyst Hasan Askari
Rizvi.
The other was the realization that the PPP alone
lacked the power to take on the regime, despite the impressive show it
marshaled for the leader's return to Pakistan in October.
On
two occasions Bhutto has tried to rally the masses against martial law
-- once in Rawalpindi on November 9 and again in Lahore on 13 November
on a "long march for democracy" -- and both times none but hardened PPP
cadre showed. Lawyers, civil society groups, other political parties,
ordinary people, were nowhere. The enormous contradiction of denouncing
the dictatorship while defending the deal was taking its toll. "This
thing won't take off if we fly solo," admitted PPP lawmaker Yusuf Raza
Gilani.
Bhutto says she now wants to fly in formation. She
has reached out to eight opposition leaders, including her old nemesis,
former prime minister Nawaz Sharif. These should form an all-party
alliance based on a "single point agenda," she says, in which Musharraf
is ousted and Pakistan's 1973 Constitution restored, a document that
explicitly subordinates the army to civilian rule. But unless such
unity is translated into agitation it won't mean a thing, says Rizvi.
"If
opposition can sustain street protests against the regime, then cracks
in the army may appear and Washington will have to rethink its policy.
But if Bhutto and the opposition parties simply posture, Musharraf can
hang on."
Hanging on seems to be US policy for now. Sources
say Negroponte will rehearse his master's voice when he meets Musharraf
and perhaps Bhutto at the weekend. George W. Bush has said martial law
should be lifted before elections and Musharraf should step down as
army chief, "since you can't be head of the military and the president
at the same time." (This of course is what Musharraf has been for the
past five years, with never a demur from Bush.)
Musharraf is
already moving on the latter, signaling he will resign his army
position once the "new" Supreme Court rules valid his election. And
Washington has signaled it won't make a big deal if a quisling
judiciary does the ruling. A week ago Bhutto may have been amenable to
such a remarriage, says Rizvi. It's harder now. "The opposition and the
lawyers have made the reinstatement of an independent judiciary a key
demand. If Benazir ignores it, she's doomed."
And so would
be Pakistan, says Nasim Zehra, another analyst. She says the root of
the problem is not so much democracy as "the rule of law." She sees two
roads out of the current crisis. One is the "Pakistani way that says
you cannot have genuine democracy with a dismantled judiciary. The
other is the American way that says let's get Musharraf out of uniform,
have elections and lift the curbs on the media, i.e. let's have the
trappings of democracy but not the substance."
If the first
road is taken, says Zehra, Pakistanis may finally be able to tackle the
issue that has blighted their state almost since its inception: "the
exercise of power without accountability." If the American road is
taken, "the polarization will deepen and extremism and political
violence will increase. It's a recipe for disaster."
Graham Usher,
a writer and journalist based in Islamabad, is the author of Dispatches
From Palestine: The Rise and Fall of the Oslo Peace Process (Pluto).
Copyright ©2007 The Nation
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Released: 17 November 2007
Word Count: 1,034
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United States Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte lands in Islamabad this weekend "hopeful that moderate elements [in Pakistan] can join together to have increased dialogue to work through this political situation," said the White House.
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