How Long Can President Zardari Survive?

The humiliating retreat by the deeply unpopular President of Pakistan, Mr. Asif Ali Zardari, on the question of restoring Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry is reminiscent of a similar debacle by his equally unpopular predecessor, former President Musharraf, in 2007. Both leaders seriously miscalculated the public outrage against their actions. In addition to mass protests on the streets, both men had to face tremendous pressures by foreign powers, including Americans and Saudis, as well as strong private rebuke by the ultimate arbiters of power in Pakistani military. As the events unfold further, it seems that Mr. Zardari has been so badly weakened that he will be forced to resign in not too distant a future. Until that happens, Pakistan will continue to face significant instability and continuing and serious security threats from within and outside.

As the political turmoil reached alarming new heights in Pakistan over the last few days, Obama adviser Bruce Riedel said in a report, prepared in conjunction with the National Security Council (NSC), that he believed that unless serious action was taken, Pakistan would become a ‘terrorist university’, representing a far greater threat to the security of the US and Europe than Afghanistan did before 9/11.

“Recent apocalyptic intelligence on the situation in Pakistan has shocked the Obama administration and convinced Riedel’s review team that radicals trained in Pakistan are the greatest threat to western security,” the Daily Telegraph reported.

It said the Riedel review had reportedly concluded that seven out of 10 Taliban and other militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan were “reconcilable”, who could be bribed, cajoled and persuaded to turn away from extremism. This appears to be a vindication of Pakistan's policy of reconciliation with elements among the Taliban.

“The review, likely to be published within days, will recommend that non-military aid to Pakistan is quadrupled. Payments to Afghan tribal chiefs will also increase. In return, the Pakistani government will be expected to agree to a wholesale overhaul of its military which will see US special forces retrain Pakistani soldiers in counter-insurgency warfare,” The Telegraph added.

There is a great deal of urgency being felt in Washington to try and resolve political tensions in Pakistan without jeopardizing government support against the Taliban and Al Qaeda militancy. The U.S. faces a serious dilemma here. While the U.S. has found Zardari quite pliable in support of American policy in the region, a weakened Zardari and less than friendly Sharif and Kayani are seen as significant roadblocks by Washington. It will be interesting to see how Americans attempt to keep Zardari at the helm when he has become almost as unpopular as Musharraf was in his last few months in office.

In a December, 2008 poll conducted by the US-based International Republican Institute (IRI), 88% of the respondents said Pakistan is moving in the wrong direction, while 73 per cent said the economic situation had worsened in the past year.

A total of 76 per cent rated the PPP-led government's performance on key issues as poor, up from 51 per cent in a survey conducted by IRI in June.

67 per cent replied in the negative when asked if things would be better now as there is a democratically elected Parliament and President in Pakistan.

While 59 per cent of Pakistanis surveyed said they would prefer Sharif as President, only 19 per cent backed Zardari for the job. 63 per cent also said they disapproved of Zardari's performance while only 19 per cent approved it.

So what does the future hold for Zardari? Since the IRI poll was taken before Zardari's unpopular actions in Punjab, it is very likely that his support has further eroded recently. With such low level of support, it is likely that he will face a revolt within his own party. Moving forward, there are two distinct possibilities that will further hurt Mr. Zardari's chances: (1) The Iftikhar Chaudhry court could repeal President Musharraf's NRO, the executive order granting amnesty to Zardari that would force him out as president and/or (2) the repeal of article 58(b) of the constitution by parliament that would turn the president into a powerless figurehead.

Thinking beyond the Zardari era, I see many Pakistanis, such as Professor Adil Najam of Boston University, hoping that a "new politics may emerge in Pakistan around the faces and frameworks of the lawyers movement and that it will remain true to its aspirations rather than succumbing to political temptations".

While I abhor the feudal politics of Pakistan and share the hope of new politics based on civility and rule of law, I do think that the lawyers movement and the case of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry has been exploited by cynical politicians to achieve their own objectives of destroying their opponents. The violent and uncivil methods used by this movement are also highly questionable and unjustified in a democracy. What Pakistanis need more than anything now is a period of relative stability to allow economic and civic activity to resume so the poor and hungry can take care of themselves. Make no mistake about it, the lawyers’ fight for higher ideals is being fought at the expense of those who can least afford it. As long as there is serious economic deprivation and resulting violence in Pakistan, it will be extremely difficult to achieve true democratic ideals. Instead, we’ll be dealing with rising insurgency and expansion of “Swats” in Pakistan.

Related Links:

Justice Chaudry's Address to New York Bar

Has Lawyers Movement Gone Awry?

Lawless Lawyers of Lahore

Lawyers Liars

Feudal Democracy in Pakistan

Obama's Point Man on South Asia

Lately, Senator Barack H. Obama has been taking a tough, even hostile stance toward Pakistan. He is threatening to send US ground troops into FATA if there is "actionable intelligence" to end "terrorists' safe haven" inside Pakistan. His opponent, Senator John McCain has said Obama "doesn't understand" the situation in FATA and chided him for being naive and "talking loudly" about Pakistan. Many Obama supporters dismiss Obama's tough talk as merely designed to assert his commander-in-chief credentials to appease his critics.

Is Obama's tough talk just an act? Or is it based on considered advice from the experts of the liberal think tanks to whom Democrats generally outsource policy? While there is a small chance that Obama does not really mean what he says, it is also a fact that foreign policy experts such as Bruce Reidel are advising Obama on South Asia policy.

Riedel says that there will be a renewed focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan under an Obama presidency. “Obama is determined to put a lot more resources into the war in Afghanistan — and it’s overlapped into Pakistan — than either a McCain presidency would or the Bush administration did.” He adds that Obama sees Afghanistan and Pakistan as “the central front of the war against al Qaeda and the war against extremism.” Translation: The war in Afghanistan will escalate and expand into Pakistan.

Who is Bruce Reidel? What are his credentials? How does he view US role and policy in South Asia? Bruce Riedel is a Senior Fellow in foreign policy at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy of the Brookings Institution. He served with the Central Intelligence Agency for 29 years and retired in 2006. Riedel served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Near East Affairs on the National Security Council (1997-2002), Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Near East and South Asian Affairs (1995-97), and National Intelligence Officer for Near East and South Asian Affairs at the National Intelligence Council (1993-95). His areas of expertise include counter-terrorism, Arab-Israeli issues, Persian Gulf security and India and Pakistan.

Riedel says Obama will take a tougher line with Pakistan, and make military aid conditional upon Pakistan’s performance in combating the Taliban and al Qaeda. But he disagrees with the view, prevalent in Pakistan, that Obama dislikes that country. Instead, he says that Obama is a strong critic of the “Musharraf-centric Pakistan policy” pursued by the Bush Administration. He believes that Obama is likely to be supportive of the present PPP-led government, unless it were to engage the Taliban, a move which would prove extremely unpopular in the United States.

On India policy, Reidel says, “The Democrats are much more likely to want to revisit the nuclear proliferation implications [of the nuclear deal]". He adds, "That would complicate the relationship with New Delhi.”

“There’s talk of a strategic partnership with India. The Obama campaign buys into that,” says Riedel. “As president, he will place the same priority on India as Bush did, and Clinton did before him.”

In his speech to the Democratic National Convention, Obama pledged to halt tax sops to companies that ship jobs overseas. If Obama sticks to this promise, it will mean trouble ahead for India's IT industry. India's software and services exports stood at about $40 billion during the financial year 2008, a growth of 29%, with US as its largest market. Can Obama really curb outsourcing? It seems unlikely.

In an interview with Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, Riedel's candidate Obama seemed to agree with the narrative of the Indian lobby when he accused Pakistan of "preparing for war with India".

“If Pakistan can look towards the east with confidence, it will be less likely to believe its interests are best advanced through cooperation with the Taliban,” Mr. Obama wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine last year.

In a recent article, Riedel wrote that “fear of India is the driving force” behind Pakistan's pursuit of relationships with Islamic fundamentalism and Islamic terrorism". He added, “The conflict with India affects all aspects of Pakistan's worldview and its self-image.”

"Coming to grips with Pakistan's obsession with India and Kashmir is critical to killing the monster," and the "time may be ripe in 2009 to move," Riedel writes, hinting at the likely policy of the new administration that is likely to be in office next year.

Answering a question about Pakistan and the war on terror at a meeting of Council on Foreign Relation, Riedel said, "Pakistan is an extremely dangerous and unstable country. We need to tread carefully. We need to get the Pakistanis to see this as their war. And that's going to require some major new initiatives on the American side. Commando raids and Predator strikes are not a long term solution to this problem".

If history is any guide, it can be fairly safely predicted that the a Democratic administration will pursue a punitive policy toward Pakistan while tilting heavily toward India, much more so than the Bush administration. Given the caution sounded by Bruce Reidel about Pakistan, the hope is that better sense will prevail in the potential Obama administration on policy toward Pakistan. However, if "President" Obama does follow through on his tough talk on Pakistan, there will be an expanded regional war involving Afghanistan and Pakistan leading to massive destabilization of the entire region and extremely dangerous consequence for the world.

Here is a comprehensive video on the origins and the positions of various parties involved in the Kashmir dispute presented by Pakistani Peace Activist Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy:



Related Links:

Reidel Interview at Council on Foreign Relations

Sunil Adam on Obama's Kashmir Policy

Who is Bruce Reidel?

Obama on Renewing American Leadership