Musharraf Rule in Pakistan

Source: www.pinr.com

Musharraf's Rule Destabilizing Pakistan	22nd November 2007
Intelligence Brief - www.pinr.com: 5th Nov 2007

In March 2007, after Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf dismissed the country's chief justice, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, PINR argued that "unless Washington has found a credible successor to Musharraf who will continue to support U.S. policies in the region, its interests call it to continue to work with Musharraf despite his shortcomings." [See: "Despite Shortcomings, Musharraf Remains a Key U.S. Ally"]

According to that report, "supporting pro-democracy factions against Musharraf risks plunging Pakistan into chaos, which would provide a freer reign to anti-U.S. insurgents in the border regions," directly threatening U.S. interests in Afghanistan. With Musharraf's November 3 decision to declare emergency rule, the dynamic has changed.

While Musharraf remains the only horse on which Washington can place its bets at this time, his decisions in the past year have made his rule increasingly destabilizing for Pakistan. On March 9, Musharraf's dismissal of Chief Justice Chaudhry began the current sequence of events. That action led to intense protests by the country's professional class, and on July 20 Musharraf was pressured to reinstate Chaudhry. Then, on September 10, Musharraf refused to allow the popular former prime minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, into the country, deporting him four hours after his plane landed in Islamabad. These actions alienated much of the country's professional and political class.

At the same time, Musharraf's policies were alienating most of the country's religious elite and Islamist sympathizers. In July, Pakistani security forces stormed the Red Mosque, an Islamist stronghold, which led to a series of suicide attacks, including in areas outside of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the North-West Frontier Province; both Islamabad and Rawalpindi suffered attacks. Then, in October, as former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto returned to the country, suicide bombers targeted her convoy in Karachi, killing more than 100 of her supporters. All of these incidents demonstrated that the ongoing insurgency in the border region was spreading deeper into the country, raising questions about Musharraf's claim that his leadership was preventing the country from descending further into chaos.

With the November 3 decision to declare emergency rule, Musharraf has alienated the professional, political and Islamist forces in the country. His ability to remain in power comes from the support of the military, which itself appears to be divided.

Throughout this entire process, he has remained a key U.S. ally in the region, since, as PINR explained on March 30, "maintaining stability in Pakistan -- even if that stability is retained through an authoritarian government -- is a critical interest of the United States as long as its operations in Afghanistan continue."

The bottom line is that the United States has supported Musharraf because he has been the most stabilizing factor in the Pakistani equation. However, now that it is clear that Musharraf's rule itself has become a destabilizing force, Washington will likely seek alternatives to its policy of supporting Musharraf even though few, if any, exist.