The Online Reflector

By Professor Woodwell
Guest Writer
Assistant Professor of International Relations

There are few more nightmarish scenarios imaginable than a nuclear-armed, Islamic-oriented state collapsing into civil chaos and war. In the case of Pakistan, this scenario is plausible. The Bush administration faces a number of tough choices and challenges in the coming year as the political situation in Pakistan continues to unfold.

Unlike the case of Iraq in 2003, the presence of WMDs and top al-qaida leadership are both established facts in Pakistan. Meanwhile, the central government can barely maintain control of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, let alone far-flung wilderness “tribal” areas believed to serve as a hideout for Osama Bin Laden and his associates.

At the center of the current instability is the country’s President, Pervez Musharraf, who was recently re-elected (by a less than free-and-fair voting process) to a second five-year term. Although he recently “took off his uniform,” giving up his second role as the country’s head military general, Musharraf’s past eight years have been spent ruling as a military dictator – albeit a rather lenient dictator as dictators go. After his re-election this past fall, Musharraf almost immediately declared a state of “emergency rule” and began a crackdown on civil rights and political opponents throughout the country.

Despite his undemocratic credentials, the current administration has considered Musharraf a key ally of the American effort to fight al-Qaida and bring stability to Afghanistan.

While critics have sometimes argued that Musharraf’s support for counterterrorism efforts has often been half-hearted at best, he generally has been considered the least-worst option for the United States since 9/11 and has managed to maintain a precarious stability while overseeing the arrest of several top al-Qaida leaders.

Unfortunately for President Musharraf, his declaration of emergency rule simply accelerated a trend whereby his popularity among Pakistanis has continued to fall and the legitimacy of his government increasingly is called into question. His days are numbered, and it’s almost impossible to imagine that Musharraf will be able to maintain his hold on power by force alone for another five years.

Two major questions follow. First, will the widespread opposition to Musharraf lead to an increasingly volatile situation within the country? Second, what future course should the U.S. navigate in terms of its level of support for the current government versus its cultivation of support for potential opposition figures?

The good news is that while worst-case scenarios involving nuclear weapons and religious fundamentalists are scary in their implications, it is unlikely that either presents much of a current threat.
Pakistani nuclear weapons are crude, heavy and large—hardly the easy-to-smuggle, suitcase-style bombs you might see on TV. Thus, the idea that someone will obtain and smuggle a fully built nuclear weapon out of the country seems unlikely.

More worrisome would be a wholesale take over by Islamic extremists able to assume control of a functioning nuclear arsenal. This possibility seems remote, however, given the rather limited support that mainstream Pakistani society has offered fundamentalist political groups in the past.

The most militant segment of Pakistani society—those that are sheltering al-Qaida types while lending support to Taliban extremists across the border in Afghanistan—are largely bottled up in isolated areas of the north and west of the country. They are unlikely to present a threat to the country as a whole despite recent forays outside of their traditional region.

The biggest civilian threat to Musharraf’s continued rule has not come from Islamic fundamentalists, but rather from members of the legal profession.
Judges and lawyers agitating and protesting for the rule-of-law have done more to damage the credibility of the government than any other segment of society. This bodes well for the moderate majority of Pakistanis that eschew extremism and genuinely want a return to democracy.

In terms of U.S. policy, the Bush administration could simply cut ties with Musharraf and declare its support for full democracy in Pakistan, and nothing less. Unfortunately, this idealistic course of action would be the most likely to lead to greater instability in Pakistan, at least in the near term, and would result in the end of cooperation by Musharraf in the fight against al-Qaida and Islamic extremism if he remained in power.

More realistically, it would be best at this point for the United States to continue to press for an end to emergency law and urge the initiation of a free-and-fair election process, while at the same time, continuing to cultivate close ties with the Pakistani military.

There are few countries in the world in which the civil-military divide has remained weaker than in Pakistan. It is likely that Pakistani military leadership will step in and assume control of the government at some point in the coming year or two, just as Musharraf himself did as head general eight years ago.

High-ranking army officers represent the true center of power in Pakistan, and these officers will not forever abide being associated with Musharraf’s increasingly illegitimate and unpopular rule.

When the time comes, the U.S. must be prepared to support military leadership in favor of reform in the short term with the intention of promoting the restoration of both stability and democratic institutions to Pakistan in the longer term.