The Musharraf Dilemma

When 2,000 Pakistani troops were captured in Waziristan last year, General Pervez Musharraf made a deal with the terrorists that in return for the release of troops Waziristan would be a virtual sanctuary for extremists. Alas, this region is now a hotbed of terrorist training and planning and most likely the place where the assassination of Bhutto was planned.

Now pressure has arisen all through the country and in nations that provide aid to Pakistan to abrogate that understanding. Musharraf will have to demonstrate that no territory within Pakistan’s border is safe for terrorism.

Moreover, he will also have to show that the ISI has been purged of Taliban influence. It has long been known that this branch of the military has elements sympathetic to the Taliban and, while hard evidence isn’t available, there is suspicion that ISI, while not complicit in Bhutto’s assassination, did not do all it could to protect her.

Musharraf will also be obliged to prove that he is committed to a democratic process, even if the result leads to the legitimacy of extremist parties. U.S. aid will be calibrated to this State Department injunction and Musharraf can ill afford to ignore it. He is now in the awkward position of navigating between the Scylla of democratic elections with unknown outcomes and the Charybdis of overarching security concerns.

This brings me to the last and, most important, dimension of this analysis: Musharraf himself. Musharraf is a military man inserted by history into a political maelstrom. Having spent some time with him, I believe he is an intelligent man with reasonable political instincts. But I cannot attest to his trustworthiness. He has made deals that reflect a certain pragmatism, but not a vision. As a military man he understands the need for order, but not the need for openness.

In the end, he may not be an ideal leader or the one we would prefer, but under the present unsettled circumstances, he is the only reasonable option available to promote American interests in the region. At a recent presidential primary rally Governor Richardson of New Mexico called for Musharraf’s ouster claiming he did not do enough to cleanse his nation of terrorists. What Mr. Richardson did not propose, because he couldn’t, is an alternative to the present leadership.

There is the dilemma. With Bhutto’s death there isn’t an alternative to Musharraf. Despite all the criticism that has been leveled against him, he is the only slim reed on which the future stability of Pakistan can rest. Either we help to make Musharraf’s government work or we look darkly into an abyss in which extremists gain control of the country and possession of nuclear weapons.

Herbert London is president of Hudson Institute and professor emeritus of New York University. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001).