Musharraf’s Last Stand

This was supposed to be a foreign-policy election. Iraq, Iran, North Korea were going to be prominent on the campaign agenda in 2008. In fact, over the past few months, the wider world has been receding. Violence in Iraq is down. The threat from Iran seems less urgent. We're negotiating with North Korea. But one country has been all over the news and is being debated on the campaign trail—Pakistan. Pakistan worries everyone. Commentators talk of rising instability and national peril. Proliferation experts like Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, warn that the country's nuclear weapons could fall into the wrong hands. Presidential contenders threaten to get tough with Islamabad. And to add urgency to these discussions come periodic terror attacks, including one last Thursday, outside the Lahore High Court, that killed 19 policemen and bystanders.

I watched this debate from Pakistan, leaving Lahore one day before the bombing. Pakistanis—somewhat dazed in the aftermath of Benazir Bhutto's assassination—are not quite sure how to take in all the attention. Most are intrigued by their newfound prominence, defensive about the gloomy picture painted of their country and hopeful that their problems will lead to international help. But all are genuinely worried. Things have rarely looked as bad.

In the past year Pakistan has suffered its worst violence since the riots that followed its founding in 1947. And in the past six months it has careered from one political and constitutional crisis to another, none of which has been resolved, or is likely to be resolved by parliamentary elections scheduled for Feb. 18. "We have all these problems coming together at the same time," says Jehangir Karamat, the former chief of staff of the armed forces. "The suicide bombings in our cities and towns, the insurgency in the western regions, the lawyers' protests, the challenge to the regime's legitimacy." In fact, Pakistan is facing two crises—one political and the other security-related. It might have been more convenient to tackle them sequentially, but that is no longer an option. The country will face them simultaneously over the next few months, and how well it does will determine whether this nuclear-armed nation veers badly off course.

Pakistan is a messy place, with only unpalatable choices, which is why many believe that in this land of the blind, Pervez Musharraf is king. George W. Bush, Gordon Brown, Nicolas Sarkozy—all have bet on Musharraf. He's not perfect, in their view, but he is a bold leader who fights terrorism and has the competence to move this complex country in a modern direction. Until recently it was a good bet. When Musharraf took control of the government in 1999, Pakistan was spiraling downward, its economy a shambles, its military intertwined with jihadists in Afghanistan and Kashmir, and its politics deeply corrupt. Musharraf was forced to make a choice after 9/11 and acted decisively. Once the principal sponsor of the Taliban government, Pakistan quickly helped the United States topple it. Over the next two years, Musharraf weakened support for something much closer to his military's heart— the jihad in Kashmir, which kept a third of the Indian Army tied down in that state. To understand the magnitude of these shifts, bear in mind that the Pakistani military has had only two policy successes over the past three decades—installing a friendly regime in Afghanistan and bleeding India at low cost over Kashmir.

In a wide-ranging conversation at his Camp Office in Rawalpindi on Jan. 7, Musharraf came across, as always, as smart and thoroughly modern. In the past he has spoken admiringly of Turkey's founder, Kemal Ataturk, and denounced Islamic extremism. He's instituted economic reforms, and embraced science and secular education. By all accounts, he has not been tarred by the personal corruption that had become routine for Pakistani leaders, though of course he is part of a broader structure of military power and privilege that is massive, arbitrary and accountable only to itself.

One year ago, if Pervez Musharraf had ceded power (there were many different ways to do so) and allowed for a transition to democratic rule, he would, over time, have been remembered as Pakistan's most significant leader since Benazir's father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, perhaps even since its founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah. There are many caveats and qualifications to this characterization—I can hear the shrieks from Pakistan's urban liberals—but on balance, I believe that it holds. While intellectuals and activists in Lahore and Islamabad had many complaints, in September 2006—after Musharraf had been in office seven years—average income had risen 55 percent, TV and print media were flourishing, and his approval rating hovered above 60 percent.