David Miliband seems a mild sort of chap. He would not say boo to a goose, let
alone send a gunboat up the Ganges to teach fuzzy-wuzzies a lesson. Yet like
all ministers entering the portals of the Foreign Office and gazing at
murals of Britain’s global magnificence, the spirit of the place gets to
him. He has the imperial itch.
Hence, on a dull day with not much on, Miliband girds his loins and declares
that some “situation”, say in Sudan or Burma or Iran or Pakistan, is “wholly
unacceptable” or “of deep concern” or even “intolerable”. The named country
is never run by white men and the phrases are usually empty. When Jack
Straw, his predecessor, found somewhere unacceptable, as he frequently did
Darfur, we could be sure he meant to accept it.
No other European country grandstands like this and only America elsewhere.
Most people regard the internal politics of other states as not their
business and signed up to the United Nations on that principle. If the
French, the Germans or the Russians have a dog in some fight, they look to
the dog not the kennel. They negotiate their interests privately.
Not so Miliband. Last week he telephoned Islamabad to indicate to Shaukat
Aziz, Pakistan’s prime minister, “what actions we now expect his government
to take” – as if the man were still a servant of the Raj. Since Pakistan’s
leadership cadres were from Sandhurst and the Inner Temple, Miliband seemed
to assume continued obedience to Britain. Suspending the constitution and
incarcerating political opponents was just not on.
President Musharraf should pull his socks up, Miliband warned in tones of a
housemaster threatening no toad-in-the-hole for tea.
If Iran is on the West’s axis of evil, Pakistan is on its axis of dread. Such
has been the incompetence of western intervention in this region that
American and British diplomats have been left with a dwindling number of
allies. The two closest are Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, the former odious and
corrupt, the latter now the world’s largest military dictatorship with a
population of 165m.
George Bush and Tony Blair referred to Musharraf as “our best friend”. He was
the acceptable face of Islamic autocracy, largely because he was prepared to
back America and Britain in the 2001 war against the Taliban and the
subsequent occupation of Afghanistan. That friendship and the occupation of
Afghanistan have sorely weakened him. Sure as night follows day, Pakistan’s
Pashtun and Baluchi provinces became springboards for Afghan insurgency,
funded by Gulf oil money and opium.
The British and Americans in Kabul would never be able to counter this. Nor
could Musharraf safely infringe the autonomy of the tribal lands along the
Afghan border to curb Taliban support. Everyone knew this from the start.
But when wishful thinking got into bed with stupidity there was no guessing
what monster would result.
Now Musharraf is in trouble from every angle. On American orders his army has
taken 800 fatalities from pro-Taliban tribes in Waziristan and faces defeat.
Armies do not like that. Musharraf has contrived what his forebears
carefully avoided: alienating the judiciary over what constituted a
“national emergency”.
He has capitulated to pressure to allow back opposition politicians, notably
Benazir Bhutto, who has never shaken off allegations of corruption, but that
has brought no peace. He faces elections next February and who knows what
horrors they will yield.
The tut-tutting of America and Britain over Musharraf’s constitutional coup on
November 3 is probably cosmetic. Outside opinion may condemn the arrest of
judges and preach the gospel according to John Stuart Mill, but this is like
the Salvation Army in Guys and Dolls.
There is too much sin in town for any soundbite to handle.
The West appears to have pressed for Bhutto’s return in the hope that she
might form a coalition with Musharraf and the ever-powerful army.
Since the chance of February’s elections producing a stable, popular
government must be near zero, the West’s hope is presumably for Musharraf to
muddle through while retaining some sort of control or be replaced by
another general, lubricated with $1 billion a year in military aid.
Dictatorship is a survival game and the dictator’s allies must play it or
leave.
Seen from afar Pakistan remains enigmatic. For more than 60 years’ existence
it has been ruled half by devious generals and half by corrupt politicians:
leaving an open question as to which was worse. Under Musharraf, who toppled
Nawaz Sharif, the last democratic leader, in 1999 the stock market has
boomed, the middle class has expanded (including an army of underemployed
lawyers) and the army has prospered.
Pakistan’s media, professions and universities are, by Islamic standards,
relatively free, which is why Musharraf’s toppling of his chief justice and
the repressive elements in last week’s declaration of martial law were so
inept. But, as Anatol Lieven of King’s College London remarks, by world
standards this has been “a pretty genteel coup”.
Hovering over Musharraf’s head are some undeniably ominous responsibilities.
They include the custodianship of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, any hope of
curbing the jihadist madrasahs and training camps, the future of Hamid
Karzai’s regime in Kabul and the ever-present conflict with India. All
impact on the Anglo-American crusade to bring democracy to the suffering
Muslims at the point of a gun, a crusade now in deep trouble.
The West’s patronage of Musharraf was initially successful in propping up a
likeable dictator who might resist the then not serious threat that
Islamists might get their hands on a nuclear weapon. Indeed, part of the
pact between Islamabad and the Islamists’ power base in the tribal lands
near Afghanistan was that each would keep off the other’s turf. Were it not
for the poison of the Afghan war, Pakistan’s anarchical federalism was
probably sustainable, with even some hope of ferreting out Osama Bin Laden.
The occupation has wrecked such hope and turned antiwestern sentiment into a
regional growth sector. It has not fostered democracy but, in Pakistan’s
case, probably postponed it. While the “old” Taliban are unlikely to rule
again in Kabul, it is clear that the Nato coalition cannot protect the rest
of that country from its reincarnation, as last Monday’s Panorama
documentary illustrated. Karzai, the Afghan leader, is clearly right to cut
deals with insurgent warlords and drug lords wherever he can. Like
Musharraf, he is looking only to survival.
The truth is that this region has proved to be a graveyard for liberal
intervention and neoconservatism alike. It is X-certificate diplomacy,
strictly for realists and grown-ups. It may be uncomfortable that a military
dictator the West regarded as house-trained has turned out to be not
house-trained at all. But that is life in the wide world.
Every risk was taken by the West in Pakistan. Its outrageous nuclear ambitions
were appeased. Its support against the Taliban was bought without thought of
the impact on its turbulent politics. The cooperation of the army was
assumed. The discipline of dictatorship was harnessed to the cause of
antiterrorism. Everyone played with fire.
It is by no means self-evident that anything after Musharraf must be “better”,
least of all for British interests. London’s record in projecting
postdictatorial utopias is not good at present. Pompous lectures on the
virtues of democracy might be appropriate in the abstract, but from a nation
losing not one but two wars in its cause these lectures might come amiss.
Musharraf may have gone too far down the road of repression to hold his
country behind him. It may be that a more benign military junta will follow
him or that he will peacefully transfer power to a new, uncorrupt and
enlightened parliament under Bhutto and her allies. Pigs may fly. Gambling
on it, when Britain is still in imperialist/ adventurist mode, is reckless.
All that seems certain is that Miliband is unlikely to be a better judge of
how to rule Pakistan than are Pakistanis, whether in or out of uniform. He
and his colleagues have done enough damage in this region already. Pakistan
has enough on its plate without being lectured by the political curators of
Baghdad, Basra and Kabul. It should be left to its own devices.
simon.jenkins@sunday-times.co.uk
