Musharraf and the Jihad industry

Pervez Hoodbhoy, Lecturer in Physics, Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, Project Syndicate

Gen. Pervez Musharraf is poised to rule Pakistan for another five years. Not because he wants to, he says, but because no one but he can reform Pakistan.

Gen. Musharraf is the third Pakistani general in 50 years to seize power proclaiming a self-anointed reform agenda. Each time the United States and its allies nodded in agreement. But Musharraf is no Gorbachev, nor is he Kamal Ataturk, who pushed internal reform on their societies after recognizing the rot within.

All of Musharraf's attempts at reform resulted from international pressure. Feeble at best, they have invariably avoided the type of structural changes Pakistan needs if it is ever to break out of its recurring, worsening crisis.

Given Gen. Musharraf's diminishing domestic popularity, some fear for his survival. But a real threat "from the street" seems most unlikely. The public, disillusioned by the kleptocratic regimes of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif that preceded Musharraf, is far too wretched and ambivalent to rise up.

Moreover, militant groups cannot match the state's firepower. While intrigues and coups are possible, Musharraf's survival is likely because he will not threaten the enormous powers and privileges of the institution he heads and which is the only one that can seriously threaten him -- Pakistan's military.

All countries have armies, but in Pakistan the army has a country. Defense expenditures consume between one-third and one- half of the national budget. In recent decades, senior military officers have been transformed into powerful landlords through grants of choice agricultural lands and real estate. Retired officers head many, if not most, public corporations. This garrison economy is increasingly unsustainable, as Pakistans poor multiply and the economy falters.

While the army has always been the most powerful political force in Pakistan, it has undergone important changes in the decades since independence. The army's British colonial traditions were slowly Americanized during the Cold War. With his coup in 1977, Gen. Zia ul Haq injected a messianic zeal to redefine Pakistan as an Islamic state governed by Sharia (Islamic Law).

"Islam, Pakistan, Jihad" became emblazoned on banners at Pakistani army recruitment centers, beards proliferated, promotions went with piety, and few could be seen to miss Friday prayers. A new ethos was created; this was to be an army not just for Pakistan, but for the greater glory of Islam. It was, after all, a different historical epoch. The global jihad industry, financed by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, welcomed it.

But today, the army's jihad philosophy lies buried under the rubble of the World Trade Center. When faced by a U.S. bent upon bloody vengeance, an acute institutional sense of survival sent the military establishment scurrying to join the U.S.-led coalition and take up arms against its former creation, the Taliban and their Amir-ul-Momineen (leader of the pious).

It was a straightforward betrayal, resisted only by a few senior officers with an Islamic bent. They were quickly rendered irrelevant. Gen. Musharraf knew the alternative. In all likelihood the Americans would "have done an Iraq on Pakistan," as one highly placed member of the foreign ministry conceded to me in the week after Sept. 11. He was probably right.

The internal contradictions of Pakistan's volte face are now being exposed as the army's bloody encounters with al-Qaeda become more frequent, casualties mount, and hostile tribal reaction to joint U.S./Pakistani search-and-destroy operations on the western border increases. Officers and soldiers are asking, What is the purpose of the current campaign?

To die in Kashmir officially qualifies a soldier or officer as a shaheed (martyr). But is fighting America's war a jihad, and are soldiers slain by al-Qaeda or other former allies also martyrs? Since official certification of martyrdom is tied to land grants and compensation to families, this question carries very real material significance.

Inevitably the anger -- visible or otherwise -- at having to fight America's war against al-Qaeda and the Taliban focuses on Musharraf, a man who received high praise from the United Jihad Council after incursions and battles fought against India around Kargil in Kashmir two years ago.

Right-wing religious groups in Pakistan warmly welcomed Musharraf's successful coup. But today he lives in mortal danger, aware that he is silently stalked by the forces that once sided with him. Ironically, fate has yoked his survival to George W. Bush, who could not recall the name of this Pakistani leader at the time of the U.S. presidential elections.

Seeking to make permanent his coup, Musharraf has proposed amendments to Pakistan's constitution. A new National Security Council would formalize the army's political domination of Pakistani society, with the armed forces chiefs having the power to sack the Prime Minister and dismiss an elected Parliament. All of this in the name of "reform," of course.

But if Pakistan is to overcome its double challenge of escaping its army's Bonapartism and winning the war against jihadists, the military -- not just society -- must be reformed. The imperatives are clear: First, the army must accept that the social and economic needs of Pakistan's people come first and that it must be downsized to live within Pakistan's means.

Second, the army must focus upon defending Pakistan's frontiers while accepting that there can be only a political, not a military, solution for Kashmir. Surely, given all that Pakistan stands to gain from genuine reform, this is not too much to ask.