[Marxism] The Battle After Bhutto

[Dbachmozart@xxxxxxx]

The Battle After Bhutto  
By J. Sri Raman 
t r u t  h o u t | Perspective  
Friday 28 December 2007  
Friends and foes had warned Benazir Bhutto before.  Both predicted a tragic 
end for her, if she returned home and tried to proceed  as if nothing had 
happened in Pakistan over the eight years of her self-exile.  Many had warned 
about 
the equally inevitable fate of the political experiment  that Pervez 
Musharraf claimed to be conducting in Pakistan.  
Bhutto, as we all know now, ignored the warnings,  whether out of naïveté or 
her conviction that she was destined to stage a  successful comeback. 
Surviving a first attempt on her life after her return on  October 18, she grew 
more 
confident, perhaps, that her gamble would pay off.  Those who wanted her out of 
the way succeeded the second time. On December 27,  within two months of her 
triumphant and tearful landing in her beloved Karachi,  the hopes she had 
raised lay as shattered as the nearly 200 bodies blown to bits  in the two 
blasts. 
 
Those who had scripted her return as part of a plan  for Pakistan's 
transition to democracy (on the assumption that an abrupt  transformation of 
the system 
was out of the question) have also continued to  ignore warnings. And none 
has done so as disdainfully as the world's sole  superpower that swears by 
democracy.  
It is an open secret that the George Bush  administration had authored the 
script from the opening line and through  changing scenes, with all the 
subsequent but minor amendments and without unduly  worrying about Musharraf's 
full 
and final approval. Washington's diplomats,  aided by their counterparts in 
Western Europe, had first brought Bhutto and  Nawaz Sharif together as 
signatories 
for a Charter for Democracy and then  brokered a deal between Bhutto and 
Musharraf.  
Washington, it was widely publicized, had settled on  her as the best person 
to partner Musharraf in what was billed as an "alliance  of moderation." She 
was considered the most acceptable person for the role in  Pakistan, perhaps 
rightly as she was the leader of the country's most popular  political party, 
though none in the Bush establishment was bothered that its  support made her 
distinctly less acceptable. Sharif, it turned out later, also  had a place in 
the scheme of things, though he has successfully kept everyone in  suspense 
over 
it.  
The warnings in this case, have been about the basic  fallacy of Washington's 
prescription. The "democracy" on offer to Pakistan's  people was doubly 
dubious. It was a "democracy" sought to be restored under  military rule and 
with 
the ordered support of a dictator. It was also a  "democracy" sought to be 
imposed upon the people from abroad.  
To large sections of Pakistanis, the truncated and  tailored democracy has 
not appeared a transition towards a democratic  transformation, but only a 
trick. It has appeared only an attempt at an  extension of military rule or 
dominance by other means.  
Many theories have been doing the rounds about  Bhutto's assassination. 
Details of the gory crime, wrought by a sniper's gun as  well as a suicider's 
bomb, 
are still being discussed. Broadly, however, popular  suspicion points to 
Musharraf or the Taliban or both. To millions of Pakistanis,  the lacerating 
tragedy would seem to illustrate military-extremist links more  than anything 
else.  
The most immediate and important likely consequences  of the tragedy also 
suggest that an alliance of forces against restoration of  real democracy has 
proved stronger than any Washington-arranged partnership. The  general election 
scheduled for January 8 does not seem likely at all now. Bush,  of course, has 
urged adherence to the election plans and Musharraf has not  hastened to scrap 
it officially. But, only days ago, a luminary of the Pakistan  Muslim League 
(Quaid-e-Azam), Musharraf's own puppet party, forecast no more  than a 15 
percent turnout in the election. After the assassination and ensuing  arson and 
violence all over the country, that would appear an overoptimistic  assessment. 
The election, in other words, can only be a sham exercise.  
Some observers have already voiced the pessimistic  view that Pakistan's 
pro-democracy movement has been buried with Bhutto. Indeed,  it has been, if 
the 
conduct of such a mockery of an election was the mission of  the movement. It 
can survive - and grow in strength - only by becoming a  movement against 
military rule, whether direct or by proxy.  
This cannot but be a long-drawn-out struggle, as the  military power in 
Pakistan is a leviathan. As established by anti-militarist  scholar Ayesha 
Siddiqa 
in her extensive research work, and as noted in these  columns before, while 
every country has an army, it is the army that has a  country in Pakistan. 
Controlling almost all major areas of national life, from  agriculture and 
banking 
to education and culture, besides industries, the  military is not something 
anyone can easily mess with. It cannot be countered by  tinkering with the 
constitution alone. Nothing less than a many-faceted mass  rebellion, it is 
clear 
by now, can rid Pakistan of the scourge of recurring  military rule.  
How does the chief crusader for "democracy" plan to  meet this challenge? 
Anthony Zinni, a retired general in charge of the US  Central Command (which 
oversees Pakistan and other nations) at the time of the  Musharraf coup in 
1998, 
has come out against "moves that would continue to  punish Pakistan's 
military." Adds Zinni: "If the U.S. had problems with a  country on human 
rights or 
other issues, I was always ordered as a combatant  commander to punish the 
country's military. We shoot ourselves in the foot in a  security sense when we 
do 
that."  
Meanwhile, we have it on the authority of The  Washington Post that, in early 
2008, US special forces are expected to vastly  expand their presence in 
Pakistan, as part of an effort to train and support  indigenous 
counterinsurgency 
forces and clandestine counterterrorism units.  
There was talk some time ago of the possibility of  the US striking to take 
Pakistan's nuclear weapons forcibly in order to prevent  their "falling into 
the wrong hands." The plan obviously rested on the  presumption that the 
Pakistan army was not to be entirely trusted in the matter.  The US security 
think-tank is now speaking in an entirely different voice.  
The current head of the US Special Operations  Command, Adm. Eric T. Olson, 
citing the same concern about Pakistan's  extremists, has argued for better and 
closer relations with the country's army.  The US Central Command Commander, 
Adm. William Fallon, has, in fact, spoken  approvingly of Pakistan's 
counterterrorism efforts in a recent media interview.  He has promised the 
Pakistani 
army "a lot from the US in providing the kind of  training, assistance and 
mentoring based on our experience with insurgencies  recently and with the 
terrorist problem in Iraq and Afghanistan...."  
Speculation rages over whether the army, under its  new chief, Ashfaq Pervez 
Kayani, a known Washington favorite, will intervene if  Musharraf fails minus 
his uniform. What seems nearly certain, however, is that  the army will not 
incur Washington's serious displeasure if it does play an  anti-democracy role 
in the present context.  
Bhutto may have been Bush's candidate as Musharraf's  successor or 
subordinate in a system with a mere semblance of democracy. But  those in 
Pakistan and 
elsewhere, who stay loyal to her memory and do not miss  the primary lesson 
from her martyrdom, must resist and rebuff Washington-led  efforts to save and 
strengthen the country's military and militarists further.  
 
____________________________________
A freelance journalist and a peace activist in India,  _J. Sri Raman_ 
(mailto:sriraman_j@xxxxxxxxx)  is the author of  
(http://www.commoncouragepress.com/index.cfm?action=book&bookid=234) 
"Flashpoint"
(Common Courage Press, USA). He is a  regular contributor to Truthout. 



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