Political Turmoil in Pakistan

MARVIN WEINBAUM: Well --

RAY SUAREZ: -- changed in the country?

MARVIN WEINBAUM: -- yes, clearly President Musharraf was not welcoming him, and was able to -- as you say, to deport him to Saudi Arabia. The Saudis apparently were not very happy with this, they didn't want to get involved in domestic Pakistani politics. They also -- the Saudi princes also have a very good relationship with Nawaz Sharif. And, as we know, just a week or so ago they beckoned Musharraf to come to Saudi Arabia, and they told him this is what they were going to do, and they followed through on it.

It was interesting, when he returned, that there was a demonstration in his behalf. This is the very sort of thing that Benazir Bhutto, in recent weeks, when she's tried to lead a procession or have a speech in public forum, they've denied. But they're -- as I -- I agree with Dan Markey entirely, that this is a potentially significant development. Even if he is unable to run, there is some question about whether the attorney general will let him run, in which case, the anticipation would be that his brother, Shahbaz Sharif, would be his surrogate.

RAY SUAREZ: Let's go to our questions from people around the country.

James Bedelk, from Astoria, New York, writes, "Even if elections are held in the near future, conflict seems inevitable in Pakistan for some time. Can the U.S. pursue its security mission in Pakistan without a stable government there?"

Dan Markey?

DANIEL MARKEY: Well, I think that there's no question that the United States needs a stable partner in Islamabad in order to be effective in pursuing the fight against al-Qaida, the fight against Taliban, and this broader effort to mitigate, sort of, extremist ideologies, political violence within the country. There's no question that stability is necessary.

The only real question, though, is whether stability and political transition are necessarily in conflict; and, more broadly, whether stability and democracy are in conflict. And here, I think the tension -- there is a certain reality to the tension, in that democratic transitions, and certainly this transition, have proven to be tumultuous, but, over the longer term a greater democratic accountability is probably the only way that you're likely to see a mitigation of extremism and a reduction, in terms of the popular alienation that's been felt under a military regime. And so, over the longer term, democracy's likely to be a winner, or democratic institutions are likely to be more helpful than harmful. It's just this transitional period that's proving difficult to manage and is exposing a certain weakness and fragility of the -- of the current regime.

RAY SUAREZ: Marvin Weinbaum, are the Pakistanis -- the rank-and-file, the citizens of the country -- paying the price for U.S. interests? Has everything that's happened in the country that meets with U.S. desires for the long term, in the near term -- something that hasn't really always worked in their favor?

MARVIN WEINBAUM: Well, this is the -- you put your hand on the real problem here. So much of what we consider to be our interests, particularly with respect to the borderlands with Afghanistan, which we believe is necessary to, you know, get a -- control over in order to eliminate the al-Qaida cells, and we would like, also, for some action against the Afghan Taliban as they infiltrate, as they carry on an insurgency in Afghanistan -- the difficulty all along here is that we have not been able -- certainly the government has not been able, in Pakistan -- to sell the idea that this is really Pakistan's conflict, as well, that Pakistan has a stake in this.

For many Pakistanis, this has been -- these have been actions of -- on the part of the government -- the military of Pakistan which have been at the behest of the United States. They're not popular. And that's part of the problem why he's been ineffective in delivering for us. It's just that he does not carry the Pakistan public with him in the idea that the war against terrorism is their war.

RAY SUAREZ: Duane Campbell asks, from Sacramento, California, "The news channels are claiming the Bush administration made strong demands on Musharraf and sent Negroponte to meet with him. So, what is the Bush administration's message? What has happened to the independent Pakistani media that we can't know the real story?"

Dan Markey?

DANIEL MARKEY: Well, I think -- my understanding of the Negroponte message was that it was very similar to the message that's been delivered publicly by the Bush administration, which is to say that there needs to be a rollback of emergency rule, that the elections need to be held, you know, as they're now scheduled, that they need to be elections that meet a certain level of freeness and fairness, that Musharraf, in fact, needed to take off his uniform, which he has obviously done. These are the kinds of things that I believe that Negroponte has pushed.

When you get to the question of the media, I'm sure that the message was, "You need to open up the media and allow the independent stations that had been taken off the air to go back on." I think some of them have been allowed back on. I think that there's going to be a continued push to see more of that, you know, in the coming days and weeks. And if they don't see that, the message will continue to be hammered home out of Washington.

RAY SUAREZ: David Chambers asks, from Reston, Virginia, "Marvin, you helped [the Middle East Institute] pinpoint Pakistan as the next hotspot at least 3 years ago, with a long series of special programs. How has the U.S. let political matters in Pakistan slip into such disarray, particularly after Iraq?"

MARVIN WEINBAUM: Well, we certainly took our eyes off that sector of the world while we were pursuing, and continue to pursue, in Iraq. There's no question that we -- in putting all of our marbles with President Musharraf, we were taking a gamble, and that was that he was the person who was going to be able to get the cooperation of the Pakistan military to then meet our needs in the region. We gave lip service, really, to the democracy here. We were mostly concerned about giving priority to the war on terrorism, as we saw that.

And I think that what we fail to recognize here, especially within this last year, is that there is a transition in place. The Pakistani public has become progressively less enamored with their president. His own actions have been part of his problem. You mentioned, early in the program, about his attempt to dismiss, at the time, back last March, the Supreme Court justice, the chief -- head of the supreme court, but he's made a series of actions now which have shown him to be ever more repressive, and he has lost, in the process, and the Pakistan military has, as well. The public's view of them is far -- far less positive than it was last year or the year before.

RAY SUAREZ: And when we talk about the opposition in Pakistan, there's almost this tendency to, sort of, neaten it up and make it something that's uniform and coherent, that I suspect that it isn't. Aren't there really several different Pakistani oppositions that actually don't have much to say to each other even?

MARVIN WEINBAUM: Well, yes, I think that's important to point out, that the opposition -- and this is one of the things that Musharraf has had going for him, the feeling that the opposition -- really, they dislike one another almost as much as they dislike him. And so, he's had this as working for him. There are very bad personal relations between Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, and the failure of the opposition to put its act together now -- particularly at this juncture, I think, has given Musharraf an ability to maneuver them, to manipulate them, and this explains why he is able to carry on, at this point.

But the big -- let me mention, though, that the big issue now -- now is going to -- is going to be the election, because it -- this is going to be a real test case as to whether the opposition is going to be able to work in concert, or not. And if they can't, then they're obviously going to cede a great deal to Musharraf and his party.

RAY SUAREZ: What do you make of that, Daniel Markey? Is there going to be a more united opposition standing up to Musharraf in the coming election?

DANIEL MARKEY: My expectation, at the moment, is that, to the extent that they would stand up to President Musharraf, they would probably still do so in the context of participation in the elections. In other words, right now there's a question as to whether the major political parties would choose to boycott. I don't anticipate that they would be able to work together in a way that would give each of the major leaders enough confidence that the others were boycotting that they themselves would feel comfortable staying out. So, I think they will participate. I think that they will not so much need to coordinate their messages, but they will naturally campaign as opposition to Musharraf. In many ways, this will work to everyone's advantage, and they won't actually have to coordinate.

One of the -- one of the other points I would make, though, about the opposition parties, is the extent to which they are, themselves, rather weak, in terms of -- as being democratic organizations. I think there's a tendency to see them as stronger, more effective, more democratically accountable to their own constituents than, I think, that they really are.

I mean, one indication of this is the extent to which they are really dynastic: Benazir Bhutto having achieved her position in the party by grace of the fact that she's the daughter of the leader of the party; Nawaz Sharif staying in control of the party, despite his extended exile. I think this tells you a lot about the way these parties actually function, and probably also explains a bit about why they're relatively weak when it comes to standing up to somebody like Musharraf, and why they have a tendency to wax and wane, in terms of their ideological platforms, which seem not to be nearly as important as the support for individual, in some cases, charismatic leaders.

RAY SUAREZ: Well --

MARVIN WEINBAUM: Ray, can I --

RAY SUAREZ: Go ahead, Marvin.

MARVIN WEINBAUM: -- just add to that, if I could, that they're working under a very severe handicap as they go into this election, unless there's a change pretty soon. The electoral commission has indicated that the rules for engagement here in this election -- participation -- those rules are going to require that the parties not engage in any demonstrations, any processions, any caravans. But this is the way in which political parties mobilize their followers in Pakistan. Especially if the airwaves are not generally available to them, and there may very well continue to be some restrictions there, it's going to be very difficult for the political parties to really be able to participate in anything like a level playing field.

Musharraf doesn't need that. He has -- with working through local -- the local mayors, in effect -- he has already arranged, now, the kind of support that he needs. He doesn't have to go through the mobilization process that they do.

And I would find -- if that remains in effect, I see a very -- it very unlikely that the parties are going to stick it out. They have been willing to file for the election, but whether they will stay in the contest and not pull out before January the 8th, I think, is a very important question.

DANIEL MARKEY: Yes. I mean, there's certainly what has been known as the MMA, which is a grouping of several Islamist-leaning parties that gains most of its support from the frontier provinces, and is much less effective in the Punjab, which is the most populous part of Pakistan, and also in Sindh. So, in different pockets of Pakistan -- and, as I said, especially along the border with Afghanistan -- you do see a significant portion of the electorate moving towards the MMA, this Islamist Alliance.

I think that I wouldn't want to overstate, though, the extent to which either of these parties are necessarily militant in quite the same way that we would think of the Taliban or certainly al-Qaida. These groups are political parties, they've been in Pakistani politics and been in government over the past years. That doesn't make them moderate or inclined to be in league with Benazir Bhutto, but they're groups that have been worked with in the past.

But I also wouldn't want to overstate their popular strength within the country. Typically, these groups, all told, gain a national electoral accounting of somewhere between 5 and 10 percent; the last election, somewhat higher than that. They're not likely to sweep in or to play anything more than either a regional role -- or, in some cases, a kind of a kingmaker role -- by being, maybe, a pivotal part of a -- of a new coalition government in Islamabad. So, they will have power, but it will be -- through the ballot box, it will be less significant than I think many people might be concerned about, and more indirect in the way that they would exercise that power.

RAY SUAREZ: Tariq Bashir asks, from Rosemount, Minnesota, "The lawyers' movement, major opposition parties, almost all newspapers -- English and Urdu -- in their editorial pages are demanding the restoration of the Supreme Court, and they're siding with the deposed Supreme Court justices. Why is the U.S. not asking for the restoration of the supreme court justices?"

Marvin?

MARVIN WEINBAUM: Yes, well, that is an important issue, because what it means is, in that -- when we call for the restoration of the constitution, we seem to have accepted the fact that pushing Musharraf on bringing back this court, which was, after all, the primary reason why he went to emergency rule -- he had to get rid of that court; it was not only going to rule against him, but it was viewed as being, by his lights -- excuse me -- viewed as being a unpredictable political organ. And, as a result of that, he really drew the line there.

Not only, though, have we failed to make a case that the court has to be brought back, even Benazir Bhutto hasn't made that case. Only Nawaz Sharif has been adamant in arguing that the Supreme Court, as it was, must come back for there to be the kind of playing field that he would like to participate on.

RAY SUAREZ: Patricia, from Pasadena, California, "Benazir Bhutto was the one who sent the Taliban into Kabul to stabilize Afghanistan. Why aren't we holding her accountable for this tragic blunder now? Why should we trust her as a spokesperson for Pakistani democracy? Was she supporting democracy when she sent the Taliban back to Afghanistan in 1995?"

Dan Markey?

DANIEL MARKEY: Well, I think that all of -- I mean, aside from the specific charges leveled against her, because there's some question as to whether this is something that Benazir Bhutto -- or something that she did in conjunction with her military chiefs at the time, and something that she wishes she hadn't done -- but leaving that aside, I think it is important to recognize that all of the various leaders we're talking about are -- at the very least, have severe stains on their records. And, to go beyond that, you could say that both Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif left their positions of power as failures, and made tremendous blunders while they were in office, including significant corruption and otherwise. This does not, obviously, disqualify them from a return.

And so, we have to deal with the reality of who the existing political leaders are, who they -- they are acknowledged to be the leaders of their parties, there's no question about that. And that's not going to change.

So, from a Washington perspective, I think it probably makes more sense to recognize the reality of the situation and look to work with the brighter side, or to see the brighter side, and to try to make something of it. And, in Benazir's case, the brighter side is that she has been very clear, at least in recent years, about her opposition to extremism within Pakistan and her desire to work with, not just the United States, but the international community in general, to combat that. And so, I think whatever her previous failings, that is a bright side and should be seized upon if, in fact, she comes back to power.

RAY SUAREZ: Aren't there still pending political issues that trail her that have to do with her husband's involvement in private business, in government contracts, charges of corruption that surrounded her when she left Pakistan for the first time?

DANIEL MARKEY: Well, there are definitely political issues around all these things. One of the reasons why she was able to come back into the country was -- part of her arrangement with Musharraf and his regime was that a lot of the charges were essentially nullified and dropped against her, charges of corruption and so on. So, her ability to come back in and not be immediately facing court cases and the possibility of going to jail over her prior actions was part of the precondition for her returning to the country in the first place. So, some of that has been removed, but the -- as I say, she remains a flawed and stained character, as does Nawaz Sharif, and now I think we can say the same thing about Musharraf himself, as well as many of the other major players in Pakistani politics. It's not a -- it's a -- it's a dirty, messy business. It's not for anybody -- nobody who's clean seems to last very long.

RAY SUAREZ: Trace Dibble asks, from Diamond Bar, California, "Who holds the nuclear keys? What individual, governmental entity, or combination thereof, is empowered to order their use?"

Marvin Weinbaum?

MARVIN WEINBAUM: Well, we believe what they tell us, and that is that the command and control over the nuclear arsenal is in the hands of the military. This has been the position of the military right along. Of course, when there was seepage from that program, and the -- carried out by [Abdul Qadeer Khan], during the 1990s in particular, even at that point the military was telling us that, "Everything is in hand, there's no danger of this." And, of course, once he was revealed to have done what he did, the military said, "Oh, we didn't know about it."

There's one other interesting development, and that is, very recently, as Musharraf tries to convey the idea that he's an indispensable figure right now, because he can confront terrorism, because he brings stability to the country, he also has said, very recently, "But, of course, without me there, those nuclear weapons aren't really very safe." Well, here we're being told, on one hand, that everything is very much in control, the army is in control, it's not dependent upon any particular individual, which would be very dangerous, and Musharraf is saying, "But I'm the key to the whole thing." So, I think that's very disconcerting.

Is it, Daniel Markey?

DANIEL MARKEY: Well, yeah. I mean, the truth is more complicated, but if you step back and you ask the basic question of, "Why is it that President Musharraf decided to take the step of imposing a state of emergency at the time and in the manner that he did?" and then, "Why did he take the steps -- the specific steps, he and the other institutions of the Pakistani state, to shut down the media, to shut down political protest, to shut down human rights activists, to shut down the lawyers, and to remove the supreme court?" and the answer to all of those questions has a great deal more to do with his concern that the supreme court would rule against him in his desire to continue on as a civilian president, and has rather little to do with anything that was happening in the North-West Frontier Province. So, that, to me, is the core of the dynamic that led to the supreme -- to the state of emergency.

But, yes, all of this does need to be seen in the context of -- President Musharraf is a leader of a country which is embattled on a variety of fronts, one of which is the violence ongoing outside of the federally administered tribal areas and in what they call the settled areas in a part of Pakistan that many Pakistanis considered always to be a place that would be easily -- or relatively easily governed, that was very much a part of Pakistan and not subject to the kind of militancy that they've seen elsewhere. This kind of pressure on Musharraf has certainly forced him into a position where he feels more fragile and probably more threatened by everything, and raised the stakes for all of the decisions that he's taken.

But I think the first order of business was removing the supreme court. Once that was done -- you will probably see, I think, a rollback in many -- at least many of the provisions of the state of emergency in the near future, if not a complete rollback, once Musharraf assumes the presidency.

RAY SUAREZ: Gail Dawson asks, from Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, "My daughter lives in Pakistan, so I keep up with the situation there very closely. Something that's never mentioned in the news is that, in Pakistan, only children from wealthy families can go to school, because they have to pay for education at every level. The boys who are in the madrassas learning to be terrorists are the poor children who have nowhere else to go. Don't they think that if education were free, there would not be a need for the madrassas?"

MARVIN WEINBAUM: Well, you know, Ray, that's not exactly the case. There is a -- it's a -- at least on -- in the paper -- on the paper, there is a state educational system which is free. The trouble is that it's broken. It's a -- it's a -- it's an extremely poor system, and many people who don't send their children to the madrassas do send them to private schools, and some of these private schools are very inexpensive. So, that wouldn't exactly be the case.

But I think the larger point here is that the educational system, as -- and the investment in it by the Pakistan Government has been really quite pathetic, and it's hard to imagine that this country is going to be able to raise what is one of the -- it's an abysmal literacy -- illiteracy in the country. Unless they address education, I think most observers recognize that Pakistan is not going to be able to have, if nothing else, the kind of democratic system where you have a -- an educated electorate that's able to make choices. This is major task, and it's one that we should be spending a great deal more of our money on, rather than, I believe, the subsidization of the Pakistan military.