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POLITICS-US: Swan Song of “Stand By Your Pakistan”?

Ali Gharib

WASHINGTON, Mar 11 2008 (IPS) - Late last month, when Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s party was vanquished in parliamentary elections, the administration of U.S. president George W. Bush declared that it would be sticking with its man.

But on Monday, when the two parties that took the most seats in the election announced the formation of a coalition government that will likely remove Musharraf from power, Washington’s “stay the course” policy vanished, along with the U.S.’s point man Musharraf’s political career.

Leaders of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) – which won the largest block of seats in the elections – and the second place Pakistan Muslim League-N (PMLN) announced after a meeting on Sunday that they will convene a parliament and, within the first 30 days of doing so, pursue a rollback of the presidential powers consolidated by Musharraf.

“In return for joining the PPP as a junior partner, the Muslim League-N has been granted its chief desire, the pledge to attempt to reinstate the court judges dismissed in 2007 by dictator Pervez Musharraf. The two parties also intend to strip Musharraf of the authority to dismiss parliament. This agreement signals trouble ahead,” University of Michigan professor Juan Cole wrote in his weblog, Informed Comment.

The judges are expected to take up the decision that they were on the verge of delivering when they were dismissed in November; stripping Musharraf of his presidential title because he had violated the constitution by running for office while still in military uniform.

That would bring an end to what has – in lieu of a comprehensive Pakistan policy – been called Bush’s Musharraf Policy. In the immediate wake of the elections, before it was clear that Musharraf would be challenged, administration spokespersons expressed a desire to keep working with Musharraf.

The U.S. support for Musharraf was largely premised on his perceived strength to both protect Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and battle militant Islamic extremism in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas that form Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan – an area in which the Taliban and al Qaeda are reportedly given room to operate. The region was cited by the U.S. director of national intelligence, retired Adm. J. Michael McConnell, in testimony before Congress last month as the most likely launching ground of the next potential terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

“I think we would, as a general proposition, urge that the moderate political forces work together, and of course President Musharraf is still the president of his country, and we look forward to continuing to work well with him as well,” said Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte during Senate hearings in February, expressing hope that the new government would be able to form a power-sharing agreement with Musharraf.

But given the apparent failure of that effort Sunday, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack was singing a different tune entirely Monday.

“My job is to talk about what U.S. policies are and, you know, it is our view that these are issues that need to be handled solely by the Pakistanis, needed to be – they need to be decided on only by the Pakistanis. You know, we don’t have a vote in this nor should we,” he said, backtracking on the commitment to Musharraf while insisting that Washington will deal with the government on U.S. interests such as fighting terror.

A post-Musharraf strategy will still see the U.S. giving aid to and supporting the Pakistani military. That support will likely go through the current head of the military, Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani – who has had a string of top-level Bush administration officials visiting him. But the administration has yet to publicly lay out a plan for dealing with the new government.

Frederic Grare, an expert on Pakistan at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, cautioned that it would be diplomatic folly to continue working strictly with the military.

“Just from the perspective of normal international relations, the very fact that you need cooperation with the Pakistani army doesn’t prevent you from talking to the government,” said Grare. “That’s the normal process. Why should it be any different in the case of Pakistan? I’m not sure that’s the way it’s going to play out. But I think that anything other then just that kind of normal relations will be a big mistake.”

“One way or the other, [the U.S.] will have to accommodate the elected government,” he said.

But that may be easier said than done.

While neo-conservative influence on Bush’s foreign policy has waned, it has not disappeared entirely. Neo-conservative foreign policy thought is dominated by a moralistic worldview that rebuffs negotiations with perceived enemies as appeasement.

The head of the PPP, Asif Ali Zardari, said that he desires something much more along the lines of engagement with militant groups in the tribal areas, the New York Times reported last month.

It was partially the fear of these groups coming to the table in Pakistan that fueled the Bush administration’s unwavering support for Musharraf and caused the complete collapse of Bush’s “Freedom Agenda” in Pakistan. That approach could also inform the lukewarm approach of the administration to the new democratic government.

But Grare insists that the Musharraf approach was itself a failure – calling Musharraf’s military government “totally duplicitous when it came to fighting terrorism” because he only pursued militant factions that opposed him, and never sought to destroy the groups.

The civilian government’s tack, if carried out, could be greatly beneficial if it garners the popular support that Musharraf’s heavy-handed policies failed to achieve.

“We still have to see what the statements of Zardari and others mean,” cautioned Grare. “But if it means simply sparing civilian life by perhaps a slightly more sophisticated approach, then why not?”