The US and Democracy in Pakistan
By Bobby Ghosh
Pervez Musharraf's resignation has set Washington's chattering classes aquiver over the uncertainties now facing Pakistan. Bush Administration officials and foreign-affairs columnists alike are wringing their hands over questions about Pakistan's stability, the security of its nukes, the conduct of its military, the reliability of its politicians, the intentions of its extremists and, not least, the extent of the country's enthusiasm for the global war on terror.
The most pertinent question, though, is one that Washington should ask itself: Can the United States work with a democratic government in Pakistan?
Musharraf's replacement will be the choice of the country's elected representatives, and for the first time in nearly a decade the Pakistani military will not have direct control over the most important democratic institutions. If history is any judge, that doesn't bode well for relations between Washington and Islamabad. A succession of U.S. presidents has found it hard to deal with democratically elected Pakistani leaders, who must balance the demands of electoral politics with U.S. interests in the region. For much of Pakistan's history, Washington has preferred doing business with military dictators, who don't answer to voters and, at least on the surface, seem more eager than their citizenry is to cooperate with Washington.
That's not to blame the U.S. -- although many Pakistanis do -- for the many instances in which a general (most recently Musharraf, in 1999) has overthrown an elected government in Islamabad. The generals and Pakistan's elected leaders are responsible for their own actions. But it certainly doesn't help the cause of Pakistani democracy when the country's most important ally greets every coup d'etat with studied indifference, and then embraces the general who appoints himself dictator. The message Washington sends to Pakistanis -- politicians, generals and ordinary folks alike -- is that the U.S. doesn't care how the ruler in Islamabad got into power, as long as he is amenable to the American agenda. (Ironically, Pakistan's military rulers invariably let the U.S. down; Musharraf, who seemed initially a keen soldier in the war on terror eventually turned soft on extremism, allowing the Taliban and Al-Qaeda to regenerate on Pakistani soil.)
It's time for a new message. The Bush Administration, having been led up the garden path by Musharraf, must recognize that America's best interests in Pakistan are not served by a military dictator professing friendship. The White House, now and next January, needs to send a clear signal to Pakistanis that the U.S. will respect their democratic choices, and will not countenance another coup.
Doing so won't be easy, because democracies are messy, and Pakistan's is messier than most. Many Pakistanis believe their country should not be involved in the war on terrorism, so their elected leaders may not always pursue policies that hew to American interests. It doesn't help, either, that these leaders are often too consumed with political feuds to pay attention to governance. Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif, old enemies who lead the two main parties in the ruling coalition, have long track records of self-serving political irresponsibility and administrative ineptitude. And both men's behavior since the February election has not suggested any newfound maturity or competence -- the parties remained deadlocked on Tuesday over a replacement for Musharraf, and over the key issue of reinstating the judges he ousted.
A common hatred of Musharraf allowed Zardari and Sharif to suppress their mutual loathing; now the dictator is gone, they will swiftly be at each other's throats. Expect lots of political chicanery in the months ahead. Governance will suffer. Many of Pakistan's problems -- extremism, economic hardship, joblessness -- will likely get worse.
At some point, the military will be tempted to step in. Thus far the military chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani, has stayed well away from the fray, but many of his officers have a deep-seated contempt for the country's democratic leadership -- and now nurse a grudge over the politicians' hounding of Musharraf, their former commander-in-chief. With every slip by Zardari and Sharif, more pressure will grow on Kiyani to follow in the footsteps of so many of his predecessors and mount a coup.
What can the U.S. do to prevent Pakistan from following this familiar, dysfunctional path? First, it must forge close relationships with the elected leadership. This will be easier to do with Zardari, the widower of Benazir Bhutto, than with Sharif, a former prime minister who resents the U.S. for having done business with the man who overthrew him, Musharraf. Washington has long been suspicious of Sharif, whose support base includes some virulently anti-American Islamists. But while Sharif can be as opportunistic as the next politician, he's no extremist. He deserves Washington's attention, even a modicum of respect befitting an elected leader. If the Bush Administration invests some serious diplomatic energy on courting him -- even half of the effort it has spent over the past year on trying to save Musharraf from humiliation -- it can build a working relationship with Sharif.
The trick will be to get the two men working together -- or at least prevent them from undermining the democratic government. This will require a carrot-and-stick approach. The carrots will come in the form of development aid; after wasting billions on the Pakistani military in the past seven years, the U.S. must ensure that the majority of future aid goes to economic and civil society projects, supervised not by generals but by politicians. The U.S. doesn't need to brandish a stick because that's already there in the form of the ever-present threat of another military takeover.
Encouraging democratic government raises the delicate challenge of how to maintain long-standing U.S. ties with the Pakistani military. Those ties will be tested when the civilian government inevitably butts up against the military leadership, for instance over what to do about pro-Taliban elements within the ISI, the intelligence agency. In the past, contests with the civilian leadership have usually seen the military prevail, with at least tacit American endorsement. But the best hope of reining in the rogues comes from supporting the civilians.
None of this will be easy; nothing in Islamabad ever is. But Pakistan's democracy is worth preserving, not least because we've seen the alternative, and it doesn't work -- not for Pakistan, and not for the U.S.