U.S reaction to Musharraf coup shows sublime absurdity of Bush policy
(Note: further down in this entry I quote and discuss several news and opinion articles about the Pakistan situation.)
Gen. Pervez Musharraf came to power in Pakistan in a military takeover in 1999, and has been an important if ambiguous ally of the U.S. in its “war against terror” ever since September 11, 2001. At the same time, the U.S. government with its commitment to spreading democracy has been uncomfortable with Musharraf’s non-elected status, and has pushed him to return Pakistan to democracy. This never made any sense, since it was precisely Musharraf’s non-democratic power base that made it possible for him to be in office. On one hand, we were immensely appreciative to have our ally Musharraf, rather than our jihadist enemies, leading a Muslim country with nuclear weapons. On the other hand, we were out of sorts over the fact that Musharraf had overthrown Pakistani democracy. But how did we think this leader for whose existence we were so grateful had got into power? By overthrowing Pakistani democracy.
Also, given the fact that something like half of Pakistan’s population supports bin Ladinism, popular elections would likely mean a pro jihadist, pro-Taliban government. At the same time, the only national, stable, and relatively responsible institution in Pakistan is the military, which is why there have been repeated military coups in that country against unstable and incompetent elected governments, such as the coup that brought Musharraf himself to power. According to Musharraf in his Saturday night tv speech announcing the crackdown, it was in order to prevent jihadists from taking over Pakistan that he has abruptly halted his reluctant moves toward constitutional elections, and taken direct power once again.
And now, in the full tide of American schizophrenia (we are half unprincipled pragmatist, half starry eyed idealist), the Bush administration, at least at first, was in a great tizzy over Musharraf’s coup. (See NY Times article further down in this entry to see U.S. offical response.)
The two below comments underscore the absurdity of the American position.
Mark A. writes:
We are truly led by fools. Why is democracy a panacea? This is insanity. We should thank the man Musharraf in Pakistan. He is potentially saving millions of lives. Is Bush truly so stupid as to want a democracy in Pakistan that would elect al-Qaeda as their leader? Ignored by Bush (apparently) is that Pakistan has nuclear missiles. Not just bombs. Missiles. Very advanced stuff. Do we really want a democracy over there?
I do not know whether Bush is insane or stupid. Yes, that may sound crass and is not meant to be a cheap insult. I just cannot fathom what he could be thinking.
N. writes:
What’s worse than a civil war between Musharraf’s army and a coalition of home-grown Taliban, al-Qaeda and others?
A takeover of Pakistan and loss of its nuclear weapons (rumored to be at least 50) to the jihad, resulting in a nuclear armed “Al Qaedastan” would be worse, much worse.
Also, an Indian living in the West sent me this comment by Steve Schippert in a
FrontPage Magazine symposium last March on “The First Nuclear Terrorist Power”:
The fall of the Musharraf government—and with it, Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal—to a murky cabal of the Taliban, al-Qaeda, the ISI and other Islamist fellow travelers would be a horrifying potential turn of events. As I have said, the face of the conflict we think we know would change in horrific fashion overnight. It must be acknowledged, however, that this is a worst-case scenario and not an absolute certainty. That said, the consequences would be so grave that it must be considered soberly and with greater urgency than that currently afforded the Iranian nuclear crisis.
LA replied to ILW:
This was one of David Yerushalmi’s main arguments in his debate with me about what to do about Islam. I agreed in principle that if a jihadist regime took over Pakistan we might have to destroy that regime—or at the very least destroy its nuclear capacity. But how do we attack a jihadist regime that possesses nuclear weapons and delivery systems aimed at India?
* * *
By the end of the weekend, as reported in the November 5 New York Times, the pragmatist side of the American psycho-drama seemed to have asserted itself, as the Adminstration clearly affirmed that keeping Pakistan as an ally (however imperfect) against the jihadists was our top priority, meaning that the coup was not a relationship-killer. But that means that we, the friends of democracy, are friends with a military dictator who is currently arresting hundreds of democracy supporters! Will the contradiction finally break down our American schizophrenia, in which we live alternatively inside two different rooms in our brain, the utopian idealist room and the hard-headed pragmatist room? Nope. Even as we perforce go along with Musharraf’s strong-arm seizure of power and his rounding up of innocent political opponents, we (meaning our insane leaders) will assert all the more fulsomely our commitment to spreading democracy, and our impatience with the fact that Musharraf is not democratic. Then we will push him again toward democratic reforms, he will reluctantly go along, the release of democracy will also release jihadism and terrorism, Musharraf (or his spiritual successor) will pull another coup, we’ll get unhappy again, but then we’ll adjust. And not once through this whole charade will we (meaning our insane leaders and the journalist hacks who sell them) acknowledge the reality that Muslim democracy does not defeat jihadism but liberates it. For heaven’s sake, hasn’t a single member of this Administration, hasn’t a single neocon, read Federalist No. 10? Political liberty is oxygen to the fire of faction, writes Madison. The moment there is liberty, there is faction. And in a Muslim country, faction means all the variegated factions of Islam, including the jihadist factions that (because they are backed by the Koran) are more convinced and passionate and violent than the other factions and so take power.
The American schizophrenia, the American inability to look reality in the face without avoidance, will continue until that day when the American mind is no longer ruled by liberalism.
* * *
Excerpts from New York Times article, “Pakistan Rounds Up Musharraf’s Political Foes,” November 4, 2007:
The government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani president, making no concessions a day after seizing emergency powers, rounded up leading opposition figures and said Sunday that parliamentary elections could be delayed for as long as a year.
Security forces were reported to have detained about 500 opposition party figures, lawyers and human rights advocates on Sunday, and about a dozen privately owned television news stations remained off the air. International broadcasters, including the BBC and CNN, were also cut off….
Police officers armed with tear gas broke up a meeting at the headquarters of the Pakistan Human Rights Commission in Lahore and took dozens of people away in police vans, including elderly women, schoolteachers and about 20 lawyers, according to people at the meeting. In all, about 80 lawyers were detained, and many others who faced arrest warrants remained in hiding, according to members of a nationwide lawyer’s lobby that has grown increasingly influential as an anti-Musharraf voice.
The head of the human rights commission, and one of Pakistan’s most prominent democratic figures, Asma Jahangir, was placed under house arrest on Saturday night. Among others arrested were Javed Hashmi, the acting president of the political party of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, and workers of the political party of the opposition leader, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Ms. Bhutto remained in her Karachi home on Sunday.
Despite repeated warnings by the United States and other Western nations over the past several days, the Musharraf government also appeared set to put off parliamentary elections that had been scheduled for January….
As the Bush administration has seen General Musharraf, one of its closest allies in fighting terrorism, become increasingly unpopular with the Pakistani public in the past several months, American officials have urged the general to abandon his military post and hold fair elections to bolster his standing. But even though he promised from time to time to step down as Pakistan’s military leader while remaining as president, he never did so….
Sympathizers of Ms. Bhutto, who came back to Pakistan with the backing of the United States and the specific mandate of bringing a democratic face to Pakistan, said her options for influencing the situation were limited.
Ms. Bhutto’s potential to rally large numbers of demonstrators, her most potent weapon, was now in severe trouble, said Najem Sethi, the editor in chief of The Daily Times. Organizing large protests under emergency rule, and after the bomb attack on her arrival procession Oct. 18 that killed 140 people, would be very difficult for her, he said.
Sympathizers of Ms. Bhutto, who came back to Pakistan with the backing of the United States and the specific mandate of bringing a democratic face to Pakistan, said her options for influencing the situation were limited.
Ms. Bhutto’s potential to rally large numbers of demonstrators, her most potent weapon, was now in severe trouble, said Najem Sethi, the editor in chief of The Daily Times. Organizing large protests under emergency rule, and after the bomb attack on her arrival procession Oct. 18 that killed 140 people, would be very difficult for her, he said.
And this, my favorite:
One of General Musharraf’s main justifications for suspending the Constitution and firing the members of the Supreme Court was the need to combat extremists sympathetic to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. In his address, he blamed the Supreme Court for hampering the government’s antiterror efforts by releasing terror suspects.
Yet America thinks Pakistan, a country filled with jihadists and terrorists, ought to have U.S. type freedoms!
* * *
Here’s the headline of the New York Times article from Sunday, November 4:
“Pakistani Sets Emergency Rule, Defying the U.S.”
Isn’t that funny? In order to save Pakistan from the reign of chaos and jihad, Musharraf had to
defy the U.S. Has there ever been a world power as foolish and stupid as us? How can other countries stand dealing with us? How can foreign leaders contain their exasperation when the idiots Rice and Bush and Karen Hughes get in their faces telling them that they must embrace democracy, or else?
Here are excepts from the article:
By DAVID ROHDE
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Sunday, Nov. 4—The Pakistani leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, declared a state of emergency on Saturday night, suspending the country’s Constitution, firing the chief justice of the Supreme Court and filling the streets of this capital city with police officers.
The move appeared to be an effort by General Musharraf to reassert his fading power in the face of growing opposition from the country’s Supreme Court, political parties and hard-line Islamists. Pakistan’s Supreme Court had been expected to rule within days on the legality of General Musharraf’s re-election last month as the country’s president.
The emergency act, which analysts and opposition leaders said was more a declaration of martial law, also boldly defied the Bush administration, which had repeatedly urged General Musharraf to avoid such a path and instead move toward democracy. Washington has generously backed the general, sending him more than $10 billion in aid since 2001, mostly for the military. Now the administration finds itself in the bind of having to publicly castigate the man it has described as one of its closest allies in fighting terrorism.
In blunt and brief comments on Saturday, American officials condemned General Musharraf’s move. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice demanded a “quick return to constitutional law.” And in Washington, the White House spokesman, Gordon D. Johndroe, said, “This action is very disappointing,” and he called on General Musharraf to honor his earlier pledge to resign as army commander and hold nationwide elections before Jan. 15.
You should be applauding him, you idiots. He may very well have just saved Pakistan.
* * *
The editorial in National Review Online has a very different take from mine. It says that Musharraf, despite or rather because of his seizure of power is really in trouble as too many elements in Pakistan have turned against him. This was why the alliance with Benazir Bhutto was a good idea, it would give him more of a democratic profile and widen his base of support, which he urgently needs. NRO urges that Musharraf make his emergency rule as brief as possible, reviving the deal with Bhutto.
Meanwhile, Stanley Kurtz’s far more thoughtful treatment is in line with my approach. He thinks Pakistan is under a historically unprecedented threat from jihadists and that Muharraf had to take action to save the state. Kurtz sees the following possibilities:
1. Civil War between the government and the jihadists.
2. Democratic revolt:
… the Monitor here is buying the analysis of Musharraf’s opponents, and something about that analysis doesn’t quite ring true. According to the critics, puffing up the terrorist threat is just Musharraf’s way of duping gullible Americans into supporting him. The truth, these critics say, is that, to the extent that terrorism is a problem, this is a function of the lack of democracy. Give the people a peaceful outlet to vent their grievances, and they will turn away from violence. Musharraf’s opponents insist that the way to staunch the spread of Islamism is to take power away from the army and hand it to a secular middle class capable of transmitting modern and liberal mores to the country as a whole.
3. Was Musharraf Right?
Unfortunately, there are reasons to doubt all this. Granted, Musharraf’s emergency does replay a long-standing Pakistani pattern of anti-democratic military coups. And massive public opposition could, as before, prompt the military to (partially) restore democracy. Yet this well-practiced Pakistani pattern is now playing out in a decidedly novel environment. Pakistan’s government has never faced armed, independent, organized, and territorially based Islamist opposition on today’s scale. That is likely to give Pakistan’s recurring political history a radical new twist. In calmer circumstances, a stable democracy guided by a secular middle-class might have headed off the specter of Islamist radicalism. Today, however, given the size and strength of the Islamist threat, and given the unique social role of Pakistan’s army, a military government may be the only real bulwark against the potential disaster of a nuclear-armed al-Qaedastan.
It would have been better if the power-sharing deal between Musharraf and Bhutto had held. If such a deal can still be rescued and genuinely made to work, that would certainly be welcome. Yet contrary to the claim that terrorism was just an excuse, I fear that Musharraf’s invocation of the state’s critical vulnerability was all too valid.
Jonathan Forman at NRO
sums up the suicide bombings that were happening all over the place in Pakistan last week and says, “Whatever Musharraf’s actual motives, I can think of lots of countries where this level of violence might prompt a state of emergency….The State Department response—calling for immediate free elections—is idiotic.”
Here’s Victor Hanson at NRO:
It would be hard to think of a bigger mess than Pakistan: nuclear; half the population radically Islamic; vast sanctuaries for the architects of 9/11; a virulent anti-Americanism in which aid and military credits are demanded but never appreciated; dictatorship at odds with America’s professed support for Middle-East constitutional government-all the while doing little to hunt down al Qaeda while assuring us that the possible radical alternative, with some reason, is far worse.
The Democrats talk about us “taking our eye off bin Laden” but rarely offer any alternative policy since the proverbial bad/worse choices are all there are. That said, support for consensual government is ultimately our only choice, and in the long run-if a rushed one-vote, one-time plebiscite can be avoided-the only consistent American position, as well as holding out the greatest hope for improvement. American soldiers are dying in Afghanistan and Iraq to secure a constitutional government, so we can hardly oppose it in nearby Pakistan.
Hanson pictures the impossible mess in Pakistan, then says our ideology and policy require us to keep pushing democracy there. But isn’t he really demonstrating the impossibility of our trying to direct or influence the developments in a Third-World, Muslim country?
The separationist policy seems a much more logical way of dealing with this mess: we steadily get Muslims to leave the West and we confine them within the Muslim world [see NOTE]; we limit our contacts with Muslim societies to a minimum; and we interfere in Muslim countries only for the purpose of eliminating threats that are intolerable to us. The only things that concern us in Pakistan are (1) terrorism that can be used against the wider world; and (2) nuclear weapons that can be used against the wider world. If we thought in separationist terms, the problems we face in Pakistan would become much narrower and easier to handle.
NOTE: Yes, removal of Muslims from the West sounds extreme and impossible. But tell me this: why is a multi-generational war to democratize 57 Muslim countries possible and doable, while simply removing Muslims from the West (most of whom are immigrants) is impossible and undoable? And just think, once the return of Muslims to their home countries is done, it’s done, and doesn’t have to be repeated, while democratizing all the Muslim countries and keeping them democratic would require our intense involvement in and direction of the inner workings of the Muslim world forever.
- end of initial entry -
Sage McLaughlin writes:
Thanks for staying on top of this. I’m afraid that we’re heading for another break of the kind we suffered with Uzbekistan (which was a strategic setback of the worst kind in South and Central Asia). The Chinese will be all too willing to patronize the Musharraf government and fully back its efforts there in the name of stability.
Ironically, it is turning out that the Russians and the Chinese, through the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, could become far more powerful forces in the fight against jihadism in Asia than is the United States. Sure, they’re forming a kind of dictator’s club across Asia, in which ruthless and antidemocratic gangsters watch each others’ backs and ensure one another’s security against internal threats. Sure, they’re indifferent to the ways and means that each of them uses in that effort. But our utter lack of balance and perspective in demanding liberalization and democratic accountability from leaders whose societies are in no way prepared for the effects of a breakdown in centralized rule has left us on the outside looking in. Now, several key regional governments are becoming so fearful of our intentions that we are rapidly losing whatever leverage we may have had to press for political reform (assuming that’s a good thing in itself), so even a moderate degree of “progress” on the democratization front is impossible.
But then, we’ve put ourselves into such a difficult bind with our constantly playing up the democratization angle—now every time one of our partners in Asia does something brutal, we’re forced to demand a stop to it all just so we can stay consistent with our unending promises never to cozy up with dictators for the sake of convenience. During the run-up to the Iraq war, all we heard was that “realism is no longer realistic”—the policy of playing ball with unsavory regimes was a total failure, it didn’t work, etc. I knew at the time we were painting ourselves into a terrible corner. One reason we don’t want somebody else taking up the scepter of “anti-extremism” in Asia is that the Russians and Chinese are far less capable of projecting power across those kinds of distances, so in the end things could get much, much messier before they get better.
In the end, the Pakistani ruling faction may decide that American sponsorship is a poisoned pill, since it comes with the demand to open the doors to political chaos and internal strife. Again, China, who has after all done more than any other country to provide for Pakistan’s missile and nuclear weapons capabilities, will be more than willing to provide for Musharraf’s security if we won’t do it. And they’ll do in part out of a desire for stability and security in the region generally, something I would have thought we would have made our top priority. But remember that Rice has said we can no longer separate democratization from our other, more pragmatic goals—that realism can never be allowed to trump our idealism, since our security finally depends on the political freedom of Muslims everywhere. If Beijing and Moscow—who after all have a much more direct and immediate stake in the consequences of political meltdown in Pakistan—can see that this is madness, then the least our establishment media can do is to question it.
A reader writes:
As Putin told an acquaintance of mine, “At least we have a foreign policy, like it or not. The U.S. has none and are forever screwing their friends.”
Ken Hechtman writes:
“According to Musharraf in his Saturday night tv speech announcing the crackdown, it was in order to prevent jihadists from taking over Pakistan that he has abruptly halted his reluctant moves toward constitutional elections, and taken direct power once again.”
I wouldn’t take his claim at face value. Benazir Bhutto, who had just returned to Pakistan, was far more likely to take power and push Musharraf out than the jihadists. Further, she was likely to do it with Western support and in the name of democracy. Go back to the NY Times article and look at who’s being rounded up in this coup. It’s not jihadists. It’s members of Bhutto’s and Sharif’s parties and their civil society allies.
“The head of the human rights commission, and one of Pakistan’s most prominent democratic figures, Asma Jahangir, was placed under house arrest on Saturday night. Among others arrested were Javed Hashmi, the acting president of the political party of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, and workers of the political party of the opposition leader, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Ms. Bhutto remained in her Karachi home on Sunday.”
You could make arguments against Bhutto. She can’t do the balancing act with the jihadis that Musharraf has pulled off for the last decade, using them as an expendable, deniable arm of foreign policy but using all necessary force to deny them local control. She has the support of maybe 20-30 percent of the population and everybody else hates her, including the army and the ISI. Her party robbed the country blind when she was in power. She personally stole $2 billion and people who live on a dollar a day don’t forget that. So she may want to pursue a much more pro-American line than Musharraf but she doesn’t have the capability to deliver on it.
LA replies:
So did Musharraf keep Bhutto’s party from coming to power just in order to keep himself in power, or did he do it in order to prevent the jihadists from coming to power, which he feels would soon happen if Bhutto came to power?
Ken Hechtman replies:
A bit of both, I suspect. Musharraf believes he’s the only guy who can look out for Pakistan’s national interest and he’s probably right about that. At the same time, he’s always looked after his own interest as well. He mounted the 1999 coup, not because there was any danger of a jihadi takeover at that time, but because he personally was about to be fired.
LA replies:
“and he’s probably right about that.”
Then the self-interested aspect of his motivations is of secondary importance. If even a guy on the left like yourself agrees that Musharraf is probably the only one who can hold Pakistan together in the midst of the horrible dangers it faces, that lends weight to the conclusion that his seizure of power was necessary and justified.
Mark P. writes:
You wrote:
“But how do we attack a jihadist regime that possesses nuclear weapons and delivery systems aimed at India?”
You surprise-attack such a regime, possibly with tactical nuclear weapons, right after you’ve jammed their radar systems.
LA replies:
Imagine a U.S. government that instead of saying, “We will never allow realism to trump our democratic idealism,” said, “We will never allow any sharia-based Islamic regime to possess nuclear weapons.”
Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 05, 2007 11:41 PM | Send