Look past Musharraf
President Bush has a lengthy checklist to follow if Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf is to get back into the United States’ good graces.
Shedding a uniform and taking an oath are not enough. Musharraf must hold credible parliamentary elections in January, reinstate an honest judiciary, lift emergency rule, free thousands more critics from jail and end the media crackdown. Otherwise, the man who took over Pakistan in a 1999 coup is a liability, not an ally.
Instead of investing more money and wishful thinking in the nasty habit of backing a strongman in the name of stability, the U.S. ought to be encouraging and promoting the options of true Pakistani democrats. Tap into the spirit that filled the streets with lawyers when Musharraf arrested the Supreme Court’s chief justice. Even the 53-nation Commonwealth suspended Pakistan until the rule of law is respected.
The U.S. has sent $11 billion in military aid to Pakistan since 2001, when this country subcontracted pursuit of Islamic radicals to Musharraf. No one has stepped forward to brag about his performance and vigilance in the task.
Pakistan has nuclear weapons, and there are grave doubts about how secure the country has kept that devastating technology. Musharraf refuses to let U.N. weapons monitors interview a key Pakistani scientist.
Yet again, the U.S. has invested extraordinary amounts of political capital in one leader to the detriment of a freedom-hungry nation.
The only original thinking regarding Musharraf’s intentions has come from Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Instead of pinching off aid to the Pakistani military, Biden proposes to sharply increase money for economic and political purposes.
Spend more to nurture democracy and ensure the U.S. commitment to Pakistan goes beyond one general shopping for civilian clothes.