Civil society movement is the last hope for Pakistan

To say that Pakistan is in dire straits is to state the obvious. Extremists stalk the land and the writ of the state does not run on chunks of strategic territory in Balochistan, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the North West Frontier Province.
While its army seems to be biding its time in the barracks, its civil society is in despair over the antics of its politicians who are unable to move forward from their historic achievement of having replaced a military dictator through largely peaceful means. But like all events that are too close to be viewed accurately, there is another side to this.
This is in the achievement of the Pakistani civil society and mainstream political parties in successfully replacing a brazen and mendacious military dictator through entirely peaceful means. Their pressure achieved the impossible — a coalition of rivals, the Pakistan People’s Party and the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz)— to form the government. Now they must ensure that these parties find some way of ensuring that their rivalry does not provide another opportunity for the army to intervene in the affairs of the country.

Narrative

Ever since General Pervez Musharraf seized power in 1999, we have been presented with two discourses — that the general is the best means of saving Pakistan from itself. Given the Taliban in Afghanistan and the undercurrents of jihadi violence in Pakistan, the only person who could deliver was the man who had the only functioning instrumentality — the army — under his control. In that sense he was good for the US, and from 2004 onwards he also became good for India. He was the man who preached “enlightened moderation” and had the guts to articulate a non-traditional solution for the Jammu and Kashmir dispute and the person who was able to order a ceasefire along the Line of Control.
The second discourse, the one that demanded the rule of law, accountability and democracy was seen as a dangerously unstable development that could lead to the mullahs gaining control of the country and its nuclear weapons. So it was not surprising that the US ignored Musharraf’s refusal to doff his uniform as promised in 2004 and remained unconvinced by the evidence that he was playing fast and loose with them in relation to the Taliban thereafter. The Americans more or less remained silent through 2007 when he dismissed the Chief Justice of Pakistan and later declared Emergency. They ignored the lawyers movement which captured the imagination of the country’s civil society. Musharraf remained their stable ally in the war against terror and their hope for a moderate Pakistan.
Now both those story lines have come to an end and a new one must be started. The only problem is that it refuses to get going. Yet its outline is visible. In the past six months the Pakistani civil society has created a massive movement that has managed to oust a mendacious dictator without a general breakdown or strife. This movement has been largely secular and one of its great achievements has been to marginalise the mullah parties of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal. At the end of the day, a nation’s character depends on the resolve of its citizens and Pakistanis have shown that they are as determined as any people to seize their destiny and shape it on their own future as a democratic and secular state.
This is the problem that Asif Zardari confronts as he makes his move to become the President of the country. The powerful upsurge that overthrew Musharraf was in great measure shaped by the civil society movement demanding the reinstatement of Chief Justice Ifthikar Muhammad Chaudhary. Without his reinstatement, the restoration of democracy will not be quite complete. Yet Zardari knows that he confronts a great hazard in reinstating a Chief Justice who may have been removed by Musharraf for his maverick ways, but whose removal has transformed the Pakistani judiciary and civil society and steeled their demand for a reinstatement of the rule of law and accountability.

Equations

The new equations shaping up in Pakistan seem to have excited a great deal of interest. The report that US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Richard Boucher has rebuked US Ambassador to the United Nations, the Afghan-American Zalmay Khalilzad, is one manifestation of the situation. A day later comes the news that the White House has backed Mr. Khalilzad, who has had impressive credentials as a Bush administration insider.
Memories tend to be short and people have probably forgotten that the return of the Bhuttos to Pakistan was negotiated by the United States. This involved Musharraf invoking the National Reconciliation Ordinance through which the Zardari-Bhutto financial peccadilloes were overlooked. So with the departure of Musharraf, the US is no doubt hoping that the erstwhile consort of Benazir Bhutto will be their point man in the region.
The US needs to worry about the fate of its war in Afghanistan, just as India has to worry about Kashmir and the terrorist offensive emanating from forces within Pakistan. The elements in the equation are the same. Some call them rogue agents, others say they are within the Inter Services Intelligence itself. I would argue that they are what is today termed as the “deep establishment”— an informal network of military leaders, politicians, bureaucrats and intellectuals. All of them are Pakistani patriots who see destabilising neighbours as a means of shaping and protecting their own country’s shaky identity.

Reconciliation

In all this, one figure stands out — Mr. Nawaz Sharif. His estrangement with the Army seems to be quite deep considering how close he came to the guillotine in 1999. His alienation from his erstwhile allies, the Jamaat-e-Islami, ensures that he is isolated in the present set-up. His present predicament does not brook easy answers. Having been outmaneuvered by Zardari who has his own man as governor in Punjab where the PML(N) runs a minority government, he does not have too many options at this juncture. On the other hand the PPP has managed to retain the loyalty of the Mohajir Quami Movement and Awami National Party which are supporting its presidential candidate Asif Zardari.
The task of the civilian set up is not easy. The 2008 election outcome in the National Assembly and the Provinces do not give much room to either the PPP or the PML(N). Even then, their political quarrels are only the side-show in a country which is in the throes of severe internal strife and is already witnessing a flight of capital and surging inflation.
In the 1990s, the PML and the PPP ran alternate governments. Both used the opportunity of being in power to undermine the other side. The net gainer from their conflict was the army which then kept them out of power from 1999 to February 2008.
The Pakistan Army is lying low because, first, they have lost a great deal of credibility with the people of the country. Second, they need to conserve their energies to deal with the challenges to Pakistan’s internal security, given what virtually seems to be a Pakhtun uprising on their western border. And third, they are aware that each time a general takes charge, it becomes that much more difficult to hold on to it. Like their South Asian cousins, the Indians, Pakistanis, too, seem to have developed a taste for democracy.
This article was first published by Mail Today August 28, 2008

Pakistan elections

We must take the outcome of the poll in Pakistan in the context of its inauspicious beginnings, principally the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. In that perspective, the outcome of the elections in Pakistan has been a pleasant surprise. There were no horrific suicide attacks, considering the situation, the polling was peaceful, there were no visible signs of rigging. Voter turnout was low, but that was to be expected given the fear of violence, and, more important, the past experience of vote fraud. The big surprise of the election was that it defied prognostications that it would be rigged against the opposition. One major factor was the heroic role of the Pakistani media especially the visual media which showed its clout and value for the first time in this election.

I disagree with people who think that the verdict was a major blow to Musharraf. After all, given the events of the past year, he would have to be remarkably sanguine to think he could actually pull off a victory. Indeed, given the circumstances, the King’s party, the Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-e-Azam) has done remarkably well. Indeed, the outcome as it is—requiring the Pakistan People’s Party and the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) to cobble together a coalition is the best Musharraf could have hoped, and he has got it. PPP as the largest party will lead the coalition anyway, but also because it is the only party to have a presence in all of Pakistan’s provinces.

Musharraf’s great advantage will be that the control of the PPP rests in the hands of the somewhat shady Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of Benazir Bhutto. In his first and rambling press conference, Zardari has signaled that his agenda is not the removal of the general.

According to Dawn, “Mr Zardari parried several questions on issues like reinstatement of deposed judges, possible impeachment of President Musharraf and the party’s nominee for the office of the prime minister.”

After all, don't forget that Benazir had returned to Pakistan as part of a deal through which she would provide legitimacy to the general's crumbling regime, in exchange for the waiver of corruption charges against her and Zardari. Benazir may be gone, but the deal remains. My hunch is that even though large sections of his party men are deeply suspicious of the general’s inability to protect their beloved leader, Zardari will carry the day.

Though his performance has been spectacular, considering where he has come from, Nawaz Sharif lacks the numbers. But he has a clear agenda, one that understands that the election outcome is only the beginning of the battle for democracy in Pakistan. He wants the restoration of the 60-odd judges who were forced out of office by Musharraf in November. He is also seeking the removal of a amendments that make a mockery of the country’s 1973 constitution. Above all, Sharif who has clearly matured in his exile, also understands that the country needs to set clear limits for its army. It is too late to make the army apolitical as in India. But there could be mutually agreed institutional arrangements such as the ones that obtain in Turkey. Nawaz, too, has come back through some kind of a deal. Though not a direct one, but one operating through the Saudis.

The showing of the Awami National Party in the North West Frontier Province has been outstanding . They have bearded the mullahs in their own dens. They have given the lie to the belief that all Pakhtuns want is war. As Afsandyar Wali Khan, the leader of the party has pointed out, the Pakhtuns want “talim” or education, and everything else associated with development. The victory of the party could begin the process of getting back the allegiance of those who have been misguided into thinking that jehad is the only answer to their problems.

The outcomes in Punjab, Sindh, and NWFP suggest that governments there will have to be in the form of coalitions. This is not a bad thing, because it will help kick-start the process of reconciliation. The PPP, as the party which has a presence in all three states will have special responsibility since it will also run the national government.

That other stakeholder

This said, we need to point out that the elections only related part of the stakeholders of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. There is another part, some say the larger, that wields power that was not up for arbitration through an election. In the coming months, the attitude of this party, the Pakistan army, will be the key to the restoration of democracy in Pakistan. At present, the army has adopted a low profile because its reputation has sunk along with its erstwhile chief Pervez Musharraf. But though the army has delinked itself from Musharraf, it is unlikely to allow the politicians to bully him either. All said and done he is one of theirs and everything he did had the sanction of the Corps Commanders Conference, Pakistan's other parliament.

There are some habits which will take time and effort to overcome. In some areas—nuclear weapons and support to terrorism—only the attitude of the Pakistan army matters. There is an abundant record to show that civilian prime ministers and presidents were denied any information on these issues, even when they formally held power.

So, all said and done, Pakistan has made a good beginning, but it still has a long way to go before it becomes a “normal” state.

2008 Could Be the Year of the Suicide Bomber in India

For the past twenty five years, almost as if in keeping with our millennia old history, India’s major security threat has come from the north-west. We are not talking about the Pakistan armed forces, which are a given, in the India-Pakistan context. The problem has seen the Pakistan army’s proxy war against India using a powerful mix of religious fanaticism and simpler incentives like money. We have dealt with successive waves of terrorists, each with more skills than the previous. We may now be standing at the cusp of an even more terrible future. The coming year could see India confronted with suicide bombers.

The attack on the CRPF camp in Rampur is only a warning of things to come. It points to the depth of the roots that the jehadis have been able to establish in India’s Muslim population. Till now, cells with extensions reaching out to Jammu & Kashmir and Bangladesh have conducted strikes using improvised explosive devices. Launching an attack on an armed police camp would have involved much more sophisticated planning and logistics—identifying and checking out the target, sheltering the attackers, providing the weapons and conveying them to the launch site.

History

While suicide attacks have a history going back to the first century AD, modern suicide terrorism began on October 23, 1983 when two massive explosions destroyed the barracks of the American and French contingents of a peace keeping force in Beirut. Both attacks were carried out by Hizbollah members who drove trucks loaded with explosives into the compound before setting off the bombs and killing themselves as well. Though this tactic was thereafter employed against US and Israeli targets in the region, it was not a “Muslim” thing. Between 1980-2000, the Liberation of Tigers of Tamil Eelam launched as many as 168 suicide strikes in India and Sri Lanka. The Hizbollah actually were a distinct number two with 52 attacks, with the Kurdistan Workers Party at number three with 15 attacks. The Palestinian groups—the Islamic Jihad and the Hamas— used the weapon sparingly at the time. .
Another watershed was Nine- Eleven, itself the most devastating suicide attack till now. About 400 suicide bombings have shaken Iraq since the U.S. invasion in 2003, and suicide now plays a role in two out of every three insurgent bombings. In Afghanistan, too, the suicide bombings have come in the wake of the Iraq experience, with the first attack directed against German forces in June 2003.
The first suicide attack in Pakistan took place when, in 1995, an Egyptian bomber rammed his explosives-laden truck into his country’s embassy in Islamabad. In the following years, such attacks were few and far between, though always deadly when they occurred. In 2007 the number of attacks went up sharply to an estimated 65 attacks that have taken the lives of nearly 1000 people.

Psychology

These are not the suicide terrorism of the Islamic Jihad and Hamas, born out of a sense of helplessness in front of relentless Israeli power. This is a weapon of choice, used well before the others are even employed. But unlike the inanimate gun or lump of explosive, this weapon has to be shaped with great care. But once you have the methodology, you can mass-produce it. Many of the Pakistani bombers are unemployed, illiterate, and poor. They are easy prey to their “handlers” who convince them that not only are such attacks religiously sanctioned, but that in carrying them out, they will be fighting the kafirs of the west who are killing Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places. According to reports in Pakistan, about a dozen master handlers or motivators have emerged in the NWFP to train people identify and train people to carry out such attacks. Many of these are local imams or madarsah teachers who should know that suicide does not have any sanction in Islam. But the people they are targeting are either semi-literate, or young and impressionable. These “handlers” are proficient in human psychology and will use emotional crises, such as the death of a near and dear, to push a potential recruit to make a commitment to the “cause.” Once identified, the recruit is isolated and provided “spiritual training” to make him feel that he is one of the chosen. Once the person is fully brainwashed, he may be assigned any task—driving a truck bomb at an army convoy, blowing himself up to kill a target, launch fedayeen attack on police or army checkposts.
Suicide attacks are an attractive tactic for terrorist groups. That the attacker is expected to die ensures that he or she is not captured, tortured and made to disclose the larger conspiracy. It also minimizes the effort the group needs to put in to plan the getaway of an attacker.
So far, only Israel has been able to reduce the number of suicide attacks. They have done this by ensuring physical separation of the Palestinian and Israeli populations and harsh measures such as destroying the houses of people involved in such attacks. In a multi-religious and multi-ethnic democracy like India such tactics will not be either feasible or desirable. But these need not be the only tactics. Suicide terrorism can be challenged by disrupting its organisational chain—the recruiters, handlers, bomb-makers, the safe-houses. In addition, there is need to make police and security personnel across the country aware of the need to build their camps and establishments with the presumption that they, too, could be targeted.
In the past few years, attacks in Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, Varanasi and elsewhere have shown that terrorist cells have struck local roots. Terrorist strategy run by faceless leaders and organizers has become much more sophisticated. Because terror strikes are followed by often mindless repression, gross violation of the rule of law and due process, an army of new recruits is always available.
Unfortunately, India’s battle is being fought tactically, rather than in pursuit of an established strategy. The country’s security forces have won many tactical engagements. But, as Sun Tzu famously said, “Tactics without strategy, is the noise before defeat.” Insulated in their security cocoons the political and bureaucratic establishment do not realize that their tactical war against terrorism is merely pushing terrorists towards an escalating cycle of attacks.

Strategy

So what is the strategy that we must follow ? Clearly it must be a mix of the political, economic and social. But most important, it requires consensus between those like the BJP which believes that only harsh repression will yield results and others, including many in the Congress who feel that unless the root causes of poverty and alienation of the minority community are addressed, nothing will change. Both the Congress and the BJP have in the past contributed to the climate in which terrorism is flourishing by ignoring issues like the 1984 Sikh massacre in Delhi, the Babri Masjid demolition and the 2002 Gujarat killings. Good strategy requires an acknowledgment, even an implicit one, that this is a problem. Only then can the mainstream parties work out a set of consensual policies which may range from measures for the uplift of poor Muslims, more effective legislation to tackle terrorism, as well as the creation of a federal instrumentality to combat it.

This article appeared in Mail Today January 2, 2008

Book Review: Ayesha Siddiqa's great book on Pakistan's military economy

It is not every day that an author is forced to flee her country because of a scholarly book. But then neither is Pakistan is your usual country, nor is Ayesha Siddiqa's book dealing with a common subject. The political and administrative role of the Pakistani Army and its influence on Pakistan is no secret. Except, arguably, for the first decade of independence, the army has been a major force in Pakistan's polity , with its chiefs directly ruling the country for more than 32 of the last 60 years. What Siddiqa tells us is the Pakistani Army's economic spread. And what a spread it has become.

If a Supreme Court Chief Justice could be peremptorily dismissed because he posed a challenge to Pervez Musharraf 's plan to have himself reelected by defunct assemblies, it is not surprising that an independent scholar's book has been construed as a red rag in front of a bull.

Military Inc. is not a journalistic book. Siddiqa, a former Director of Naval Research in the Pakistani Navy, is a serious scholar, perhaps one of the best on South Asian militaries. Her first book, Pakistan's Arms Procurement and Military Build-up, 1979-99, published in 2001 has looked at the issue through the prism of Pakistan's polity dominated as , it is by a praetorian elite, and is an absolute must for any analyst of South Asian security issues.

She has led off her latest work with an extensive explication of the concept of ‘Milbus' - a neologism from combining military and business - or the "tribute drawn primarily by the officer cadre... from public and private sectors to individuals, primarily through the use of the military's influence". By definition, says Siddiqa, this is the armed forces' internal economy, which is hidden from public view. Milbus is also prevalent in countries other than Pakistan, like Indonesia and Turkey Even . China's People's Liberation Army had an extensive Milbus prior to the decision to modernise it in the mid-1990s.

Siddiqa's description of the growth of the Pakistan's Milbus is in a sense also a history of contemporary Pakistan. She has outlined the legal and extra-legal methods adopted by the Pakistani Army to develop its corporate profile and protect it against any civilian encroachment. The military is now into everything from fertiliser and sugar factories to the agro-industry banks, , insurance, transportation and cargo handling. The Milbus expanded in the Zia years (1979-1988) by providing rural and urban land to service personnel, setting up cooperatives for their benefit and allowing their subsidiaries to expand into any and every civilian sector.

Take urban land. As a point of reference Siddiqa reveals that Musharraf owns eight properties, including a 2,000 sq yard plot in Karachi, a 1,200 sq yard plot in Rawalpindi, a 900 sq yard plot in Peshawar, 50 acres of land in Bhawalpur, a 600 sq yard plot in another part of Rawalpindi, a 1,200 sq yard plot in Gwadar and a farm house in Islamabad. Not bad for the son of a refugee from Delhi. The more important point being that these have been acquired legally through processes open to any Pakistani military officer.

While such salacious details are interesting, the more important issues relating to Milbus is the cost Pakistan pays for it, and the more baleful consequences of keeping it up and running. Siddiqa has shown that by using financial data from audit reports, the military's commercial ventures such as the Army Welfare Trust, the Fauji Foundation and the Frontier Works Organisation are indeed inefficient and have needed many a government bail-out, whether the government of the day was civilian or military.

The enormous power and perks enjoyed by the armed forces make them an attractive career move - in contrast to the situation, say, in India. In that sense Milbus does benefit Pakistan by attracting high-quality officers recruits for its officer cadre. But the country's polity pays the more serious price.

Siddiqa has shown that Milbus consolidated itself during the regime of Zia ul Haq when the army made common cause with religious fundamentalists to consolidate its hold over the State and society. But she leaves open the question as to whether the rise of religious extremism and xenophobia in Pakistan in the past decade should be seen as part of the cost to be paid for Milbus, or whether there is a more direct link between the consolidation of the military corporate elite and the rise of religious extremism.

Ayesha Siddiqa, Military Inc.: Inside Pakistan's Military Economy Pluto Press £ 19.99, pp 292

Islamabad versus Pakistan

Pervez Musharraf's predicament is not new. He has bent the Constitution, broken promises, and not paid political debts. The country seems to want the payment for the next set of promises upfront, ie. before it re-elects him President. This article appeared in Hindustan Times May 16, 2007

There comes a time in the life of every political leader when things pall, words and gestures that once fascinated appear flat and tested techniques of teasing public opinion lose traction. When this happens in the democratic world, the leader is replaced, sometimes mid-stream, as in the case of Tony Blair. In other cases, there are term limits that ensure that the once wildly popular leaders, like George W Bush who have lost it, are quietly put to pasture. But what does a dictator like General Pervez Musharraf do?

The very act of toppling a civilian government and seizing power meant that he has decided to ride a tiger, and getting off one, it is said, is never easy. Two of his predecessors, Ayub Khan and Yahya Khan, were effectively eased out of office and ended their lives in comfortable retirement. Zia-ul-Haq died in harness, though in an accident, or by assassination, we will never know. Musharraf, for one, is signalling that as of now he does not contemplate retirement from either his post as President or Chief of Army Staff.

But this is crunch time, and not just because of a wildcard in the form of a Chief Justice who refuses to play ball. Ever since he seized power in October 1999, he has managed through a variety of semi-legal devices, and a string of broken promises, to buy time till 2007 to remain President. The promise to doff the uniform by December 2004 has been long forgotten. But to continue as President after October 2007, he needs more than just promises and sleight of hand. How he manages to do this will have huge implications for Pakistan, as well as its various friends and foes — India, Afghanistan, the US and so on.

As dictators go, Musharraf has been a fairly mild one, his only major failing an overweening conceit. He set himself up as ‘Chief Executive’, rather than the Chief Martial Law Administrator when the army seized power from the ham-handed civilian Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif. Even after he dumped figurehead President, Rafiq Tarrar, and appointed himself President, he did take some pains to get himself endorsed by a referendum in 2002 which, however, was so overzealously managed that he won an improbable 98 per cent of the votes.

Musharraf’s present status rests on reasonably legitimate grounds. ‘Reasonably’ because in the Provincial and National Assemblies’ elections of October 2002, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif were barred from contesting and many difficulties were placed in the way of these two mainstream parties. The result was that the pro-Musharraf faction of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML(Q)) came first, Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party parliamentarians second, and an alliance of Islamists, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, surged to third position. In December 2003, through the 17th Amendment to the Constitution, Musharraf’s coup was legitimised, in exchange for a commitment that he would shed his army uniform by December 31, 2004. In addition, the National and Provincial assemblies elected him President for three years, till October 2007.

Musharraf did not keep his promise. There cannot be two centres of power in Pakistan. Musharraf knows that the moment he takes off his uniform and becomes a civilian president, he will have to contend with that other centre of power— his successor as Chief of the Army Staff. While Prime Ministers and Presidents have been persons of straw, the Army Chief in Pakistan has always been a real figure of authority, barring perhaps for a brief period when Jinnah was alive and when Z.A. Bhutto was supreme. So, now, it is all or nothing for Musharraf, hence the decision to continue to remain on the back of the tiger.

What Musharraf does with his uniform is something that will be decided in consultation with his army colleagues, and as of now they do not appear to be questioning his authority. But he must be re-elected as President by October 2007. His problem is that he cannot be sure that the result will be anything like that of 2002. In the past few years, the MMA that backed him in 2004 has frayed and anti-American feelings in the country increased manifold. The PML (Q) is not particularly popular and so the General has hit on a plan to have the outgoing National and Provincial assemblies re-endorse his candidacy before they are dissolved.

Can he be elected President by the same electoral college that elected him in January 2004 ? The possibility that this unusual procedure will be challenged in the Supreme Court has led to the pre-emptive strike on Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. The Supreme Court, like the National Assembly and other formal State institutions, have so far proved quite complaisant. In fact, the Supreme Court took the oath under the Army’s Legal Framework Order, rather than the Constitution, after the October 1999 coup. Later, it rendered a judgment accepting the military rule on grounds of “State necessity”, even though it ordered elections by 2002. But for some reason Chaudhry has turned out to be a maverick, and the result is great turbulence in Pakistan’s establishment.

Though he positions himself as an advocate of “enlightened moderation”, Musharraf has also displayed a streak of ineptness that defies his otherwise deft handling of difficult situations. The no-win Kargil operation preceded his arrival on Pakistan’s political stage. But there have been several instances — the tough crackdown on Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, the handling of the Mukhtaran Mai case, and now that of Chief Justice Chaudhry — that have revealed critical weaknesses in his political temperament.

The outcome of the current ‘war’ between Musharraf and large segments of Pakistan’s civil society is difficult to predict. Suffice to say that history is littered with generals who had to learn that it is easy to start a war, but quite difficult to predict how it would unfold. Pakistan is not your usual polity, because its army is not your usual army.

In a recent book, Ayesha Siddiqa has argued that the “burgeoning economic empire” that the Pakistan army has developed “establishes the officer cadre’s interest in retaining political control of the State.” It has so skilfully interposed itself in the system as a guardian of the Pakistani State and the vehicle of its nationalism that there is little opposition to its hegemonic political role. But though he gets the loyalty of his officer cadre, the Army chief’s primary responsibility is to the corporate interests of the entity he heads. These are not merely professional but also political and economic. And these have traditionally never been centred around one individual.

Unlike some of his predecessors, Musharraf has had to deal with an uncommonly difficult set of circumstances. He has had to join the American war against terrorism over the opposition of the average Pakistani, curb the jehadi struggle in Jammu & Kashmir in the face of Indian military pressure and contend with the biggest nuclear proliferation scandal in the world. He has had to face bitter sectarian and ethnic conflicts within Pakistan and attempts on his own life. He tried to turn some of these events into opportunities for transforming his country, but clearly so far, despite the best wishes of many, even in this country, he has been found wanting.