A 'Maybe Ally'

Mahnaz Ispahani is the Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow on South and West Asia and Co-directorof a Council-Asia Society Independent Task Force on India and South Asia.

How important a trip was this for Musharraf? Is he returning to Pakistan withsomething substantive in his pocket?

It was an extremely important trip for Musharraf and, actually in terms of symbolism, it was very importantfor him. The Pakistani government lobbied very hard [for him] to be received at Camp David. He is the firstSouth Asian leader to visit an American president there. Musharraf needed to demonstrate to his othercommanding generals as well as to his opposition in Pakistan, which has been growing substantially, that hereally does have absolutely clear-cut support from the United States. [Moreover,] Musharraf, before the trip,downplayed what might come out of it. He said, "Certainly, we will discuss [the Pakistani-Indianterritorial dispute over] Kashmir, but that's really not going to be central to the agenda. Certainly, we'llask for these F-16s [fighter plans, which he did not get], but really what we're going to do is talk aboutsmall trade agreements and things like that."

And then he ended up with more than he indicated ahead of time he would get?

Yes. He got $3 billion over five years in straight aid. When the United States made the agreement to gainPakistani support for the war in Afghanistan in 1980, [Pakistan's then-leader] General Zia al-Haq got $3.2billion over five years. It was a very similar amount to what Musharraf got. If you tally up what [formerPrime Minister] Benazir Bhutto got over the years, it comes close to this. [Bush's pledge to Musharraf] is agood amount of money. It puts Pakistan among the top recipients of U.S. assistance. But for some of hisopponents, of course, nothing would have been enough.

Is this U.S.-aid package a plus or minus for Musharraf, given the anti-Americanism in Pakistan?

It is both. Given American power, which everyone understands and recognizes in Pakistan today, this wasvery important for Musharraf. The second point is that Musharraf has no other base of support right nowoutside of the army. He really does need U.S. support. Even [Pakistan's] religious parties recognize thatAmerican support has some meaning. As it is in most countries these days, American support is a double-edgedsword, of course. But I wouldn't say that it has no positive elements. It is also important because it allowsMusharraf to demonstrate that the United States is not only a pro-Indian power in the region. It is veryimportant for Musharraf's constituency, which is the military.

Can the United States count on Pakistan as an ally on terrorism and a backer of its policy in Iraq andelsewhere?

My answer to that is, maybe. If you simply focus on the al-Qaeda and Arab terrorist component of theproblem--will Musharraf help in hunting down al-Qaeda members remaining in Pakistan?--I would say yes. Thereis too much at stake for him with the United States, and [the Pakistanis are] willing to [root out al-Qaeda].To a great extent, they are doing that already. On Afghanistan, Musharraf, with a lot of pushing and prodding,has agreed to be as helpful as the United States is going to need him to be. A tripartite commission ofAfghanistan, Pakistan, and the United States has been set up to pursue Taliban remnants in the border areas.The answer there is yes.

The reason I said "maybe," is that, in the last few years, there have been allegations, which arefairly serious, that Pakistan is continuing to trade with North Korea in nuclear know-how and material. It isnot clear if that will stop. President Bush has insisted on that stopping.

Has Musharraf denied that Pakistan trades with North Korea?

He doesn't deny it. He says things like, "that's all in the past." Or, "if it happened, itis in the past." Where I think there is a fundamental divergence in American and Pakistan interests isaround Kashmir and nuclear weapons. These are two areas that are important for the United States, particularlyin South Asia, if [Washington] wants to pursue its relationship with India--an important and growingrelationship.

The Indian government in early May made a proposal to lessen tensions with Pakistan. How have thePakistanis responded?

Slowly. On both sides, it is going to be a very slow process. Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee'sinitiative to resume direct talks was very important and was recognized across both India and Pakistan asbeing that, but even some of Vajpayee's own bureaucrats were, I think, taken by surprise, as were thePakistanis. And now, the Pakistanis are reciprocating, but a small step at a time. I think the Pakistanis arelosing hope that the United States is really going to involve itself in the Kashmir dispute in any significantway. Musharraf recently said there may need to be some compromises made over Kashmir.

Does the professional middle class, which seemed to rule Pakistan in its early years, back Musharraf?Isn't that an important secular group and wouldn't it support him?

A much smaller community of people controlled a much larger arena of politics in those years. Now, thatsmall group has broken down into multiple different political communities and some of those professionals,particularly middle-class and lower middle-class, have gone into the religious parties. They're educated,often in the West, but also in religious traditions. They have gone primarily into the Jamaat-e-Islami, whichis a very important party. Some of those professionals are in the Pakistan People's Party (PPA) [the secularparty of Benazir Bhutto, who is now in exile]; some of them are in the Nawaz Sharif party [the Pakistan MuslimLeague party of the former prime minister overthrown by Musharraf in 1999 and sent into exile]. They are notnecessarily anti-Western. You can be anti-Musharraf and not be anti-Western. I think Musharraf has made someimportant mistakes since he assumed power in that bloodless coup in 1999. Perhaps if he had not made thosemistakes, we might be in a somewhat different place, but he chose a very specific political route.

What were those mistakes?

Everyone in Pakistan was critical of the April 2002 referendum in which he won 98 percent of the vote.Musharraf was the only candidate.

That was a referendum for Musharraf to stay in power?

To be named president. But more important, he agreed to have national elections in October 2002, and a lotof the international community, particularly the Commonwealth states, put a great deal of pressure onMusharraf to make this transition [toward restoration of democracy]. So he holds the elections, but heabsolutely refused to permit two very important leaders, whatever their flaws and weaknesses, Benazir Bhuttoand Nawaz Sharif, to play any role whatsoever in those elections.

Unfortunately, his absolute blind spot regarding these two leaders meant you had two headless partiesthat--though they may be incompetent--were basically pushed out of the scene to the maximum amount possible.The end result was that the Islamic parties did better than they had ever done in the history of Pakistan.

This was a unique development, and one that I profoundly believe is a very serious development in thehistory of Pakistan because--for reasons related to how Pakistan was created, the way the constitution wasdrafted, the role of Islam in public life in Pakistan over the years--you cannot take an Islamist step forwardand assume there will ever be two possible steps backward.

It's very difficult to reverse Islamic laws. Religion, in any community or country, has a very powerfulhold on people. You cannot defame it or disparage it. It is very difficult to critique, except internally. AndPakistan has sadly not thrown up a single liberal theologian or thinker of any stature in its entire time asan independent country. In North Africa, by comparison, states from the Sudan to Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeriaare producing modernist thinkers. There isn't any of that in Pakistan.

Have Pakistani Muslims adopted the strict Islamic practices of some Arab states, like the Wahabbism ofSaudi Arabia?

No. South Asian Islam is, in one sense, very different. These are Muslims who have spent severalgenerations on the subcontinent, which was, up until 50 years ago, primarily Hindu, with a large Muslimminority population but ruled by Muslims. Many in South Asia worshipped saints and mystics as well as followedtraditional religious practice. You have a very large percentage of Shiites in Pakistan--some 20 percent. Theremainder follow several schools of Sunni thought. The difficulty is that the politically organizedconstituencies and communities are ultra-fundamentalist parties. There are vast multitudes of people who areMuslim who have no particular political organization, but the ones who are currently powerful follow a verystrict, puritanical version of Islam.

Ispahani was interviewed by Bernard Gwertzman, consulting editor for cfr.org, on June26, 2003 and this interview appears here, courtesy the Councilon Foreign Relations