Last week I heard Ahmed Rashid, author of a good book on the Taliban, on the BBC asserting that Musharraf would be gone within a year. He’s been a good observer of reality in that part of the world and lives in Pakistan.

EW – thanks for focussing on the extreme danger that Pakistan poses to the world, instead of the pseudo-threat of Iran. I could say, with tongue only partly in cheek, that if only Pakistan would call for the destruction of Israel, perhaps everyone would start paying attention to them instead of Iran. Pakistan is in many ways as artificial a country as Iraq, both being constructs of post-British colonialism and having proved equally unstable, and only really maintained by periodic military dictatorships such as those of Saddam or Zia ul Haq. The Two Nation theory of Jinnah, that a homogenous Muslim society would be more stable and that preservation of Muslim minority rights would be impossible in a majority Hindu state, was the basis of the post-British division but it was subsequently disproved by the Bangladesh secession and the relative success that many Muslims have had in integrating into modern India. The divisions on the surface between Hindus and Muslims are far greater than those among Sunni and Shia, and yet they manage in India to avoid civil war and have elections in a profoundly poor and hugely populous country. In other words, the political solutions reached in Indian society, while far from perfect, are far better than the military brutality and ethnic divisions that are the glue holding Pakistan together, along with American military aid, and which seem to be what America is thinking will be the case for the next 50 years or so in Irag. I think that the neocons would like to imagine that Pakistan is like Turkey, and that as long as the military stays in the background, the transition from Musharraf to some candidate acceptable to the military and Washington, everything will be fine. Again, as Josh Marshall says, history only repeats itself for people who don’t know the details. Turkey is a secular country, with generally good relations with its neigbours, is a member of NATO and its populations is generally well disposed towards Europe, if not the US, and aside from unhappy Kurdish and Armenian minorities, is stable and not expansionary or meddlesome with its neighbours. On the other hand, Pakistan has longstanding problems with India, with China, and with Baluchistani and Waziristani secessionists, it is provoking Iran with the Baluchis, it is worsening the situation in Afghanistan by providing the Taliban with a safe harbour from which they retreat from NATO forces in Afghanistan, there are periodic blow-ups with India that may yet get out of hand, and I haven’t even begun to address the problems that they created with their nuclear proliferation. The idea that Bush and Cheney can manage this tiger ride without a disaster is laughable, except for the horrible consequences that may result.

Hmmm, interesting. Why now? What is precipitating this?

Events around the world are too often inspired by personalities and events here in America. What here would relate to that change?

Qui bono?

Great diary, great thread. One of the ironies of this situation is India’s interest in facilitating a strong role in the next government for the current Pakistani military leadership, as now headed by Musharraf. These are known players, and the past several of years have been reliably stable in the Indian-Pakistani relationship. Beyond supporting efforts to replace Musharraf with an analogue, I can imagine India working against forces trying to unseat Musharraf at all, especially if it means shuffling the army leadership.

Meanwhile, any thinking that a Musharraf transition will be more like Marcos or Pinochet’s sounds silly to me. Neither had nukes. Apples and oranges, I think.

I agree it is rather apparent Musharraf is on his way out. I think the visits by leading Generals that Ackermann reports probably are about arranging â€soft landings†all around. And one part of that would be to put some daylight between Bush and Musharraf.

What’s interesting in the current situation in Pakistan is that it is the middle class groups, Journalists and private media owners and the Judiciary and Legal Community that are leading the protests. In some ways these have common interests with the Military — in other ways they conflict, but it appears the basis for return to civilian control may be common. And it isn’t just a Civilian in Islamabad — it is about making legitimate political parties in the next election (the majority in Pakistan actually identify with semi secular parties). So few really recognize some of the detail here, and what it means. In the last election, Musharraf made it illegal for candidates to run under the banner of these major parties — and he excluded from the ballot all who did not have higher education, but he then classified finishing at a religious school as equal to a secular college — a ballot qualification system that essentially excluded the parties and much of the middle class. This overly empowered the religious coalition, and it went from less than 5% to approaching 20% representation. Who knows, in the current environment, what a reasonably fair, parties have ballot access, election would produce.

Pakistan really needs an internal debate about national interests so as to change or revise policy that is much influenced by the situation Pakistan faced during the Cold War. Those verities, in many ways, are actually gone. For instance, while I don’t expect Pakistan and India to become buddies in the near future the analysis that ascribed to India a near ally of the Soviet Union given its non-alligned status, is a very dead doornail today. No Soviet Union, and India is pushing to join the World Economy. Likewise, the traditional Pakistani analysis of its interests in a weak and disordered Afghanistan needs fundamental questioning. Each of these policy doctrine questions raises self interest ones for the Pakistani military establishment — for it is only with India as dangerous permenant enemy that the power of the military establishment in Pakistan makes sense. The question is whether a true elected civilian government could first, make continuous progress in normalizing relations with India, and second, whether the Military would allow the emergence of other institutions that would potentially mitigate and change their key role in sustaining any government. As we well know, Military-Industrial Complexes do not willingly give up power easily.

From our point of view, in the short term we might be successful in pointing out the danger of US short term fixes, and single issue diplomacy and economic engagement. We should have a significant agreement in the US that the blank check approach to â€Russians in Afghanistan†came back to haunt us, as we handed over to Haq and the ISI the use of US resources in the 1980’s. (Rather like giving the Sunni tribals who have been shooting us up for 5 years in Iraq, a new infusion of arms — or letting Bandar run policy supporting Islamists in Lebanon.) We too have a problem focusing on long term national interests — and it is going to be difficult to execute change, particularly given the attention defecit disorder we seem to have regarding foreign policy.