Pakistan Afghanistan United States and Musharraf

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Despite Shortcomings, Musharraf Remains a Key U.S. Ally	30th March 2007

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's decision on March 9 to dismiss the country's chief justice, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, sparked country-wide protests, with some demonstrators calling for Musharraf to leave office. Chaudhry was charged with abuse of power and nepotism, but it appears he was removed from power due to the threat that Pakistan's independent judiciary poses to Musharraf's rule. The political conflict sparked by this decision put international attention again on Musharraf's dictatorial leanings, and caused pro-democracy activists in the United States to criticize Washington's close relations with the country.

Critics of Musharraf argue that the United States should cease relations with him and put into action efforts to find pro-democratic forces to take power in Islamabad. The problem with this criticism, however, is that 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 core interest of the United States in South Asia is preventing al-Qaeda and related Islamist elements from using the territories of Afghanistan and Pakistan to launch terrorist or conventional operations against U.S. interests. Aside from this primary security interest, there are also political reasons behind Washington's desire to prevent Taliban elements from establishing control in Afghanistan, since such a development would appear to mark a partial failure of the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan. To achieve both of these interests, U.S. involvement with Afghanistan's neighbor Pakistan is critical. Unless the United States is confident that a change (or collapse) of government in Pakistan will not affect these interests negatively, then it is not in a position to encourage a change of government in Pakistan.

The reason that involvement with Pakistan is critical for U.S. operations in Afghanistan is due to the role that Pakistan plays in Afghan affairs. Since the majority of the Taliban ranks are drawn from Pashtun tribes, Taliban insurgents have ties in both Afghan and Pakistani territory. The Pashtuns who live on either side of the border do not recognize the demarcation line that separates the two countries, and therefore "Pakistani Pashtuns" also become engaged in fighting foreign forces on Afghan soil. Moreover, the border between the two countries is mountainous and, therefore, quite porous, making it difficult for security services to prevent illegal border crossings. As a result, insurgents are able to conduct operations in Afghanistan, yet then make their way across the border to seek safe haven in Pakistan. Pakistan is also an important recruitment hub for Taliban operations since the Pakistani border regions have a number of Afghan refugee camps where Taliban insurgents are known to recruit fighters to wage "jihad" against foreign troops across the border.

As a result of these factors, it is clear that the U.S.-led coalition's difficulties in defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan are partly due to the role that Pakistan's territory plays for insurgents. While U.S. and N.A.T.O. forces maintain air superiority throughout Afghanistan, they are not able to conduct similar operations in Pakistan due to political sensitivities.

While Pakistani territory impacts U.S. operations in Afghanistan negatively, it is not official government policy in Islamabad to encourage the Afghan insurgency. After the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, Musharraf made a drastic change in Pakistani foreign and domestic policy by cutting its support for the Taliban and assisting the United States in putting Northern Alliance leaders into power in Kabul. His motives behind this change of policy was that he recognized that refusal to support the United States in Pakistan would put Washington squarely against it and would threaten his hold on power.

Since 2001, however, Pakistan's policy toward the Taliban has changed. For one, Islamabad has not proved able to consolidate control over its tribal areas, which are located on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. These tribal regions -- known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the North-West Frontier Province -- have been relatively autonomous historically and have not been under the complete control of the federal government in Islamabad. Musharraf's attempts to dispatch his military to these regions to tighten the border and to rout out al-Qaeda and other threatening elements have been explosive, as tribal fighters, Taliban insurgents, Baluch separatists, and al-Qaeda militants have targeted Pakistani troops. The tight tribal networks make it difficult for the security services to penetrate the region.

In addition to Islamabad's tactical difficulties in suppressing the border regions, strategic concerns have also now come into play. Five years after the U.S.-led intervention in Afghanistan, coalition forces have failed to destroy the Taliban, and the movement is now on the ascendancy. The government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai has grown increasingly unpopular, and it is not clear at this point whether the Taliban will be defeated in Afghanistan in the coming years. In fact, if they continue to increase their popularity and control in southern Afghanistan, it could force Kabul to accept some form of a power sharing agreement with Taliban political elements.

This change in the political conditions in Afghanistan has also altered Islamabad's security perceptions. For Islamabad, which was a key supporter of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan before 2001, burning its relationship with the movement could prove strategically costly if the Taliban manages to regain some form of power in Afghanistan. Therefore, since it is no longer clear that the movement will be defeated, keeping lukewarm ties with Pashtuns and Taliban militants makes strategic sense, provided that they conduct attacks solely in Afghanistan.

Separately, Islamabad sees the current Kabul government as a threat to its interests since it is made up of Northern Alliance leaders who were enemies of Pakistan during the Taliban reign. Moreover, these leaders have warmed their relations with India, Pakistan's strategic rival; indeed, one of the main reasons for Pakistan's past support of the Taliban was because the group had no ties with India and gave Pakistan what it called "strategic depth" against its eastern rival.

All of these factors should be taken into account when considering whether a change in government in Islamabad would serve U.S. interests. Musharraf's authoritarian rule is strictly secular in a country that is increasingly Islamist.

Removing Musharraf from power and engineering a more democratic government could put into place a leadership that opposes strong U.S.-Pakistan ties. Religious sentiment is high in Pakistan, and the country's population has one of the lowest opinions of the United States anywhere in the world. An increase of democracy in Pakistan could uncork these forces, thus risking U.S. operations in Afghanistan and its ability to pressure Pakistan into taking action against top al-Qaeda fighters hiding out in its territory.

Replacing Musharraf with another strongman that would better serve U.S. interests is another possibility, but it is not clear whether this solution is workable due to the lack of suitable leaders.

A collapse of Musharraf's government and general instability in Pakistan is another potential outcome, and this scenario would allow the United States to conduct operations in Pakistani territory, perhaps removing the problem of Pakistan serving as a safe haven for Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters. Yet aside from air strikes on leadership targets that only occasionally hit their mark, it is hard to imagine that U.S. forces would be any more successful operating in Pakistan's border regions than have the Pakistani forces before it. Furthermore, the complete collapse of government control in the border regions and the involvement of U.S. forces there could cause a rebellion among the Pashtun tribes and throw the entire border into chaos, thus making Afghanistan even more unstable.

The bottom line is that having a pro-U.S. government in power in Pakistan is an important interest for the United States as long as operations continue in Afghanistan. Supporting pro-democracy factions against Musharraf solves a short-term problem of authoritarianism in Pakistan yet risks plunging Pakistan into chaos, which would provide a freer reign to anti-U.S. insurgents in the border regions. Unless Washington has found a credible successor to Musharraf who will continue to support U.S. policies in the region, then its interests call it to continue to work with Musharraf despite his shortcomings.