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The Destabilization of Pakistan
The debate is heating up between those who favor and oppose sending more troops to Afghanistan. Put me in the latter camp – I cannot support escalation without first hearing a clear explanation of the strategic changes that would accompany the escalation, along with an explanation of how we’ll address issues of government and development sector corruption. In other words, I think that pumping in more troops without addressing the structural flaws of our approach will yield no results.And since we’re a long way away from solving those problems, I think we should hold off on troop increases.
Building an argument for or against more troops involves answering a number of questions. I’m only going to deal with one sub-point here,but it’s an important one: we need to define more carefully what political and social consequences escalation in Afghanistan might have for Pakistan.
One point that everyone on all sides of the debate loves to make is that x, y, or z maneuver by the US might ‘destabilize Pakistan.’ I think we’re reaching a point where we can talk more precisely about what that means. It’s easy to talk about ‘destabilization’ – it’s a nice buzzword that makes you sound authoritative, and an intimidating prospect to scare your audience or your opponents with. It’s a bogeyman. I myself have used it that way in the past. Admittedly,’destabilization‘ can be shorthand for a range of phenomena that are understood by the parties involved in a debate, but I think in this case we need to bring our use of the word back to more concrete details. The debate about Afghanistan/Pakistan needs to be accessible to as many Americans as possible.
Pakistan Politics on the Brink Again:
By Shuja Nawaz
August 19th, 2008
As Pakistan lurches into another paroxysm of power politics with the threatened impeachment and expected resignation of President Pervez Musharraf, the post-Musharraf picture is not as clear or rosy as the authors of this move may want it to be. The unelected leaders of the coalition government of the Pakistan Peoples’ Party and the Pakistan Muslim League (N), Messrs. Asif Ali Zardari and M. Nawaz Sharif respectively may yet find themselves facing a political mess even after Musharraf is gone. There is much that may yet split their on-again, off-again alliance and bring the country to the edge of a new political crisis. In the meantime, the country is sliding into economic chaos and there is no sign that the government has a credible strategy to cope with the impending disaster.
After two weeks of travel and conversations with citizens, civil leaders, military officials, and journalists in Pakistan, a complex picture emerges: a country beset by serious economic woes, a growing insurgency, and a fractured polity. In the shadows sits the powerful Pakistan army, the historical arbiter of Pakistani politics, headed by a publicly inscrutable but privately engaged and engaging new chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.
What a shameful last three days we’ve had. The media fabricated the story of Musharraf’s departure in a plane to ‘a neighboring country.’ The sad thing is that the rest of the good media is going to suffer when our politicians lead us to the next military takeover. Friends of Pakistan used to wonder why we’re so suicidal. Now they wonder why we’ve also reduced ourselves to a joke. This is the truth: Nawaz Sharif and the Musharraf-hating gang are getting desperate. Chances of taking revenge from Musharraf by using the hapless ex-CJ have all but receded. Zardari has cleverly got them mired in a 62-point bill that could take months if not years to materialize. Now they’re trying to play with the military. They tried once and got burned. Now they are trying again. This time there will be no U.S. president or Saudi crown prince to the rescue. My advice: Stop playing with fire.
By HUMAYUN GAUHAR
Monday, 2 June 2008.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—One could concoct a tale out of anything. Here’s one.
The president explained to me the other day the sort of generator or UPS I should put in my house. How could a president know such things? Conclusion: He must be thinking of moving to his private home soon and is therefore studying alternative electric supply options. Scoop!
What a shameful last three days we’ve had. Our friends were wondering why we’re so suicidal. Now they wonder why we’ve also reduced ourselves to a joke. A daily comic that passes for a newspaper and the comic TV channel associated with it deliberately started the rumor last Thursday that President Musharraf would be leaving in hours.
It ran a ticker in its UK broadcast that the president was under “protective custody” when he was actually hosting a dinner at which the army chief was also present.
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