Pakistani police backed by armored vehicles detained opposition leader Benazir Bhutto at her Islamabad residence Friday and reportedly rounded up 5,000 of her supporters to block a mass protest against emergency rule. Authorities said a ban on public gatherings would be enforced and the rally Bhutto planned later Friday in Rawalpindi, near Islamabad, would not go ahead. The city’s mayor also said there was a "credible report" that six or seven suicide bombers were preparing to attack the rally. The crackdown showed that a week after suspending the constitution, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf was not letting up on his political rivals despite saying Thursday that parliamentary elections would go ahead by mid-February, just a month later than originally planned. His announcement came after intense pressure from the United States, his chief international supporter.
Friday’s moves will further sour relations with Bhutto, a former prime minister, and hurt the prospects of the two pro-Western leaders forming a post-election alliance against religious extremism. "We condemn this government move. It shows that the government is scared of Benazir Bhutto’s popularity and it does not want her to be among masses," said Sen. Babar Awan, Bhutto’s lawyer. Bhutto’s decision to join in anti-government protests against Musharraf is another blow to the military leader whose popularity has plummeted this year amid growing resentment of military rule and failure by his government to curb increasing violence by Islamic militants.
Critics say that Musharraf — who seized power in a 1999 coup — declared the emergency and ousted independent-minded judges tomaintain his own grip on power. The moves came days before the Supreme Court was expected to rule on whether his recent re-election as president was legal. Musharraf said the declaration of emergency last Saturday was needed to put an end to political instability and to fight Taliban and al-Qaida-linked militants. But most of the thousands of people rounded up countrywide have been moderates — lawyers and activists from secular opposition parties. Police have used batons and tear gas to squash attempts by lawyers to protest. Hundreds of students have also staged demonstrations on university campuses…
The Bush Administration wants Musharraf to remain in power and pave the way for democracy, but it has little leverage over the general
American support for president Pervez Musharraf has always come with a cover story to gloss over the awkward fact that one of the U.S.’s most important allies happens to be a military dictator. General Musharraf may have seized power in a coup, say his defenders in Washington, but he’s our sort of guy, the kind of man we need in the fight against terrorism–and, by the way, he has always said he will return his country to democracy. In other words, the Pakistani strongman is crucial to both of the U.S.’s key goals in the Muslim world: fighting terrorism and spreading freedom.
But in the past year, that optimistic tale has seemed less and less credible. As terrorist groups in Pakistan have grown stronger and bolder, the general has spent a great deal of time battling institutions of a democratic society, such as the judiciary. On Nov. 3, Musharraf went the whole hog, suspending the constitution, muzzling the independent media, sacking several top judges, jailing many secular politicians and sending his troops into the streets, where they bludgeoned protesting lawyers, human-rights activists and frustrated citizens. Calling the state of emergency, said Musharraf, was vital to fighting rising extremism and ending the paralysis of government by "judicial interference."
Having written the Musharraf story, the Bush Administration now appears captive to it. The White House could only wag a disapproving finger at the Pakistani dictator, urging him to give up his military uniform and hold elections. "I certainly hope he does take my advice," Bush said. What little reproach there was in the President’s comments was undermined by his description of Musharraf as a "strong fighter against extremists and radicals"–and by swift reassurances from Administration officials that there would be no slowing in the flow of American aid to the Pakistani military. Stronger opprobrium and sanctions are out of the question because the Administration believes there are no alternatives to the dictator. Paul R. Pillar, a former CIA counterterrorism official and now a visiting professor of security studies at Georgetown University, says, "Musharraf is really the only horse in the race."
We don’t get the Middle East. As the Time Magazine article above points out, Bush has put his eggs in the Musharraf basket, and is stuck there. I think I know a single fact about the Middle East, having little in the way of credentials to pontificate about such matters. When the definitive history of the region is written, the actions of the United States of America in the Middle East between the years of 2000 A.D. and 2008 A.D. will have little or nothing to do with the outcome. It’s another example of the Bush Administration’s naive and bullyish way of viewing the world blowing up in their [and our] faces. The thing that worries me is that we have essentially marginalized the United Nations with our nifty Bush Doctrine, and so far, I’ve read nothing about the United Nations being involved in what’s happening in Pakistan.
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