Pakistan's Uncertain Future

After the shootout at Islamabad’s Red Mosque, the pro-democracy demonstrations against Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf in the months preceding it, and Islamists’ rallies and suicide bombings following it, the United States finds itself in a familiar situation, aligned with a general who grabbed power in a coup but has become politically isolated, perhaps beyond repair. The difference is that Pakistan is now a more dangerous place than it was under the three prior military strongmen, Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan, and Zia ul-Haq.

Although the upsurge of radical Islam began under Zia (a patron of the Red Mosque) the threat now posed by terrorist groups and seekers of a sharia-based society is unprecedented, even though they are a minority with thin public support. In their eyes, secularism and democracy are apostasy, the United States the prime enemy of both Pakistan and Islam, and Musharraf its lapdog. The new political landscape is particularly perilous now that Pakistan has nuclear weapons and is a haven for Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Musharraf’s victory at the Red Mosque will prove no more than tactical. The radical Islamists, who have already tried to kill him twice -- three times if the recent firing of a missile at his plane was their handiwork -- will now gun for him with greater determination, using the "martyrs" of the Red Mosque to mobilize their supporters and to gain more as witness the call to arms by Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda’s deputy chief, and Pakistani fundamentalists. And while the parties and organizations demanding a return to civilian rule and democracy by and large supported his storming of the mosque, they will continue their campaigns.

What lies ahead? Four scenarios seem probable.

One is the continuation of the status quo, with Musharraf retaining power but becoming weaker as his political standing continues to erode. The radical Islamists will remain as much , if not more of a problem. While the Bush administration will continue to proclaim (in public) that Musharraf is a stalwart ally against terrorism, Al Qaeda will continue building its bastion in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal areas and the Taliban will keep crisscrossing the border with Afghanistan. The rift between Musharraf and the democratic will widen. Musharraf might attempt to reassert control by instituting martial law, but that would not solve the underlying political problems.

Mounting upheaval could lead to Musharraf’s ouster by another general who amasses support from the institutions that have been Pakistan’s true power brokers, the army and Inter Service Intelligence, but this second scenario won’t be a better one, and it could be worse. The jihadists won’t quit, the democratic political parties won’t be satisfied, and the new ruler, busy consolidating power, may prove less effective against hard line Islamists and their foreign partners.

A drift toward a civil war between the jihadists against the government is a third possible outcome. Pakistan would suffer more violence and terrorism, and its high economic growth rate would slow. Al Qaeda and the Taliban would be strengthened, and the danger of war in South Asia would increase because groups that have masterminded terrorist operations in Kashmir, and indeed elsewhere in India, operate with considerably greater freedom.

A fourth possibility is a compact between Musharraf and the opposition political parties. The result would be an interim national unity government that schedules elections that would be held under terms acceptable to all sides and monitored by international observers to verify their fairness.

Regrettably, Musharraf has spurned the moderate opposition parties rather than reaching out to them. For all their faults -- which include running inept and corrupt governments -- Pakistan’s democrats, whether secularists or moderate Muslims, regard the extremists as a dire threat (as does the majority of the public, despite its opposition to Musharraf’s participation in the White House’s "war on terror"). They urged action against the Red Mosque militants for months while Musharraf temporized, allowing the radicals to become ever more brazen, and applauded him when he finally moved.

This scenario is hardly perfect. Apart from the record of Pakistan’s elected governments, Islamist parties could do well in the elections (though they have not in the past and are not all of one mind; some even support Musharraf), and the extremists will surely persist.

But the only plausible outcomes for Pakistan in its present state are bad, terrible, and uncertain ones. If anyone has a plan for a better result, it’s a good time to present it.