of interest remained between Washington and Islamabad. Nevertheless, the
37 News Transcript, “DoD News Briefing with Adm. Mullen at the Pentagon,” July 2, 2008, http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=4256.
38 Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “Pentagon Worries Led to Command Change,” Washington Post, August 17, 2009, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/16/AR200
9081602304_pf.html.
39 “The Terrorist Threat to the U.S. Homeland,” National Intelligence Estimate (July 2007), www.c-span.org/pdf/nie 071707.pdf.
40 Pervez Musharraf, In the Line of Fire: A Memoir (New York: Free Press, 2006), p. 1.
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assassination attempts encouraged the prevailing American aversion to policies
that might put Musharraf at greater risk.
That aversion manifested itself in a range of ways. Washington’s muted pub-
lic response to Musharraf’s handling of the A. Q. Khan affair in early 2004 was
one of them. Khan’s forced confession, official pardon, and house arrest all
came just weeks after the attempts on Musharraf’s life. The Khan denouement
followed a string of public reports that Pakistan had been the source of nuclear
technologies and know-how to Iran, Libya, and North Korea.41
Musharraf had assured top American officials, including Colin Powell, that
Pakistan was not involved in such nuclear smuggling activity. Yet when the
truth came out, he was let off the hook. Publicly, Washington accepted his
cooperation in shutting down and investigating Khan’s activities as a sign of
good faith. Nuclear nonproliferation activists around the world howled.42 As
a practical matter, Bush administration officials saw greater utility in focusing
on pressing threats – like the possibility that al-Qaeda had made contact with
Khan’s network – than in turning up the heat on Musharraf to unravel the
nature of the historical relationship between Khan and the Pakistani military.
All of this might have been entirely different if Washington had not invested
so heavily in the Pakistani president. The unhealthy personalization of the
U.S.-Pakistan relationship was widely derided at the time by Pakistanis and
American critics alike. As many observers pointed out, Musharraf was hardly
a lonely defender of Pakistani stability. Even if Musharraf disappeared, the
Pakistani “establishment” – the army and its political allies – would end up
following a path similar to the one Musharraf had taken, driven by a powerful
instinct for self-preservation.43
By this logic, the alternative to Musharraf was not a bunch of wild-eyed
jihadists but a look-alike from the all-powerful Pakistani army. Therefore, it
did not make sense to worry too much about Musharraf per se. Then again, it
also did not make much sense to seek change, since Musharraf’s replacement
was not likely to be a major improvement and might even be slightly worse.
Moreover, any political shift in Islamabad risked an undesirable, if temporary,
disruption to patterns of interaction that had emerged since 9/11.
A harsher critique, and one that got louder the longer Musharraf remained
in office, held that he and his army were the primary obstacles to Pakistan’s
41 For the former CIA director’s version of this episode, see Tenet, At the Center of the Storm, pp. 281–7.
42 “Security Check: Confronting Today’s Global Threats,” Stanley Foundation, May 2005, pp. 10–11, http://www.stanleyfoundation.org/radiopdf/securitycheck.pdf.
43 For contemporary arguments along these lines, see Pervez Hoodbhoy, “Can Pakistan Work? A Country in Search of Itself,” Foreign Affairs (November/December 2004), http://www.foreig naffairs.com/articles/60285/pervez-hoodbhoy/can-pakistan-work-a-country-in-search-of-itself; Sharon Otterman, “Pakistan: Threats to Musharraf’s Rule,” CFR.org Backgrounder, Council on Foreign Relations, January 16, 2004, http://www.cfr.org/pakistan/pakistan-threats-musha rrafs-rule/p7743#p4.
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No Exit from Pakistan
stability. One version of this argument came from Musharraf’s political oppo-
nents in Pakistan. They saw his decision to align the country with America
after 9/11 as the chief cause of violence inside Pakistan. They blamed Mushar-
raf for permitting “America’s war” to take place on Pakistani soil. This line
of reasoning did not hold much water in Washington. It smacked of a willful
Pakistani ignorance about the genuine threats posed by the violent extremists
in their midst.
On the other hand, the combination of Musharraf’s undemocratic practices
and inadequate performance in the fight against regional and international
terrorists was harder and harder for Americans to ignore. Pakistan’s opposi-
tion politicians, particularly from Benazir Bhutto’s PPP, chastised Americans
for failing to appreciate Musharraf’s shortcomings. In February 2004, Bhutto
herself proclaimed to an audience in Washington:
At this time of political crisis in Pakistan, with a military dictatorship strangling our Constitution, America should stand for its values and principles, and reject tyranny.
General Musharraf uses Pakistan’s importance to the United States in Afghanistan to
further his own dictatorship. This is at the cost of the human and democratic rights of the people of Pakistan. He says he will contain terrorists and militants but they keep regrouping under different names.44
Over the same period, Husain Haqqani, the politician-turned-scholar who
would later return to politics as Pakistan’s ambassador in 2008, warned
about the dangerous, long-standing nexus between Pakistan’s military and
its mullahs.45 He advised that only a civilian-led democracy would really want
to stamp out extremism or be able to mobilize public support to its cause.
By 2005, arguments like these began to resonate, if faintly, in Washington.
They had the benefit of some truth. The Pakistani army did have historical
ties to the terrorists, and in important cases, like Lashkar-e-Taiba and the
Afghan Taliban, those ties were still active. Moreover, with his second elec-
toral win, Bush promoted his national security advisor, Condoleezza Rice, to
the position of secretary of state and displaced Powell and Armitage. Not only
were the “realists” with their decidedly low expectations for a Pakistani demo-
cratic transition out of power, but the close working relationship between the
Powell/Armitage team and President Musharraf was lost. No longer could the
secretary of state speak “general-to-general” with the Pakistani, either to pro-
vide frank counsel or a boost of confidence. As Pakistani advisers to Musharraf
explained at the time, he felt cut adrift by the personnel change.
The Bush administration’s “freedom agenda” was also kicking into a higher
gear. Rice’s June 2005 speech at the American University in Cairo showed
that she was firmly onboard with
a diplomatic agenda that would prioritize
44 Benazir Bhutto, “Address at Woodrow Wilson Centre,” speech given at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC, February 9, 2004, http://benazir.bhutto
.org/speeches/speech-54.htm.
45 See Husain Haqqani, Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military (Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2005).
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U-Turn to Drift
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elections and democracy, even in states of the Muslim world, like Egypt, where
pro-American strongmen ruled. “Liberty is the universal longing of every soul,”
she concluded, “and democracy is the ideal path for every nation.”46
More important than ideological developments in Washington, Pakistan
was itself starting to stir against Musharraf. His political strategy had inherent
contradictions. On the one hand, he reserved the authority to behave as a
dictator, shunting aside opponents with the backing of the army and the courts.
On the other hand, he claimed to be placing Pakistan on the path to what he
called “enlightened moderation” and “sustainable democracy” by enabling a
profusion of private media outlets and holding national elections.
Had Musharraf been either a ruthlessly effective dictator or a genuinely
popular democrat, it is conceivable that he might have found a way to steer
Pakistan in his preferred direction. He was neither. He repeatedly sought the
trappings of democratic legitimacy to validate the political power that plainly
flowed from his position as the army chief. Since even his rigged 2002 elec-
tions had failed to produce a malleable and dominant parliamentary coalition,
Musharraf struggled throughout 2003 to pass a constitutional amendment that
granted him sweeping authorities as president. Then, over the course of 2004,
he fought to stave off opposition demands that he honor an earlier promise to
hold only one office – either president or army chief – but not both.
These struggles reached a climax at the end of 2004, when in a televised
speech on December 30, 2004, he declared to the nation, “I have decided to
retain both offices. In my view, any change in internal and external policies can
be extremely dangerous for Pakistan.”47 Musharraf’s decision to keep wear-
ing his army uniform as president was not, by that point, a big surprise to
Washington. The consensus view within the U.S. government was that if he
surrendered his uniform, his political power would be diminished, rendering
him even less able to respond to American demands. At the same time, there was
no doubt that Musharraf’s move was a step away from the democratic transi-
tion that he had promised. On the whole, the Bush administration viewed the
episode as regrettable, but not one that should force a serious reconsideration
of Washington’s Musharraf-centric strategy.
Musharraf did not appear to have a viable political road map for the future.
His cobbled-together party, known as the Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-
e-Azam), was neither internally democratic nor a strong voice for policies
that would reduce extremism, improve relations with the United States, or
contribute to economic development. His plan to hold local elections in 2005
between candidates who were not supposed to hold partisan affiliations, and his
formation of a National Security Council that solidified the army’s dominant
46 Condoleezza Rice, “Remarks at the American University in Cairo” (speech, Cairo, Egypt, June 20, 2005), U.S. Department of State Archive, http://2001-2009.state.gov/secretary/rm/2005/
48328.htm.
47 “Text of Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s Address to the Nation on December 30, 2004,” http://www
.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/pakistan/document/papers/mussaraf_30Dec04.htm.
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No Exit from Pakistan
role in Pakistan’s foreign and defense policy both suggested that his goal was
to circumvent or escape from the messiness inherent in democratic political
competition.
Musharraf’s political allies stood to gain from these moves, but at root they
exposed a deep political naivet é on Musharraf’s part. He seemed to believe that
he was cleaning up Pakistani politics even though his partners in the project
were some of Pakistan’s most unprincipled politicians, the army, and ISI.
On a trip to Islamabad in June 2005 with Stephen Krasner, then Secretary
Rice’s director of policy planning, my suspicions of Musharraf’s weak political
instincts were strengthened. Krasner seemed genuinely curious to hear Mushar-
raf’s thoughts on democracy in Pakistan but cautious not to ruffle any feathers.
Gingerly, and reflecting his own academic background, he asked how the pres-
ident understood the role of “checks and balances,” a core principle enshrined
in the U.S. Constitution, in the Pakistani context. Musharraf took the question
as a cue to launch into a lengthy monologue about Pakistan’s new, military-
dominated National Security Council. Apparently, when he heard “checks and
balances,” it triggered in his mind the need for the military to check and balance
can example – that executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government
should have the capacity to block excesses by the others.
Musharraf was trying to erect a bulwark against political instability in the
only way he thought viable – by granting the military a permanent veto. Given
Pakistan’s history of civil-military discord, Musharraf’s desire to maintain the
military’s dominant role in national security policy making is comprehensible.
It was also entirely out of line with American democratic sensibilities. Words
like “sustainable democracy” or “checks and balances” clearly had different
meanings in the two different capitals. The episode foreshadowed the dis-
agreements and disappointments that would emerge when Musharraf’s regime
started to crumble in 2007.
Bright Spots in U.S.-Pakistan Relations
There is a strong tendency to read subsequent troubles in U.S.-Pakistan rela-
tions back through the entire history since 9/11. In reality, there were several
noteworthy successes and reasons to hope that the future would be brighter
than it has turned out to be.
One of these bright spots in relations between Washington and Islamabad
was unanticipated and came at a time of terrible Pakistani suffering. In October
2005, an earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale hit Pakistan’s side
of the contested Kashmir region, near the city of Muzaffarabad. It claimed
over 86,000 Pakistani lives, flattened tens of thousands of buildings, triggered
landslides, and left 4 million without homes.48
48 Earthquake data retrieved from “Magnitude 7.6 – Pakista
n,” United States Geological Survey, http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqinthenews/2005/usdyae/#summary.
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Swinging into action without delay, the U.S. military and its Chinook heli-
copters based in Afghanistan played a vital role in humanitarian operations,
delivering food and medical supplies to stranded survivors. In those Chinooks,
Pakistanis witnessed the tangible benefits of cooperation with the United States.
They probably made a more positive dent in public perceptions than the bil-
lions of dollars Washington had granted the Pakistani state for debt relief and
other assistance programs. Public goodwill toward America was reflected, if
temporarily, in Pakistani opinion polls.49
During this period there were other developments that also suggested the
potential for a brighter future between the United States and Pakistan. In March
2005, the Bush administration announced that it would resume sales of F-
16 aircraft to Pakistan.50 No matter what Pakistani and American officials said
at the time or since, the planes were valuable to Islamabad mainly in the context
of its regional rivalry with India, not as a tool for fighting insurgents along the
Afghan border. U.S. policymakers knew this, but they also believed that the
Indo-Pakistani military balance would remain firmly in India’s favor with or
without the F-16 delivery.51 By opening the door to these sales, Washington
was trying to send a political signal to Pakistanis of its commitment to long-
term cooperation. Those F-16s were especially symbolic. The U.S. refusal in
the early 1990s to deliver planes that Pakistan had purchased was, fifteen years
later, still considered a lingering diplomatic headache.
The F-16 deal came about in the context of a new American effort to remove
historical irritants in its relationship with India as well. Just as the Bush administration unveiled its decision to sell F-16s, it also explained its intention “to help India become a major world power in the twenty-first century.”52 As a practical