Democracy in Pakistan..by Mr. Varadarajan <But do these two points mean that he should get a free pass in his assault on democratic institutions in Pakistan? I think not. On the first argument: to say that democracy has never worked satisfactorily in Pakistan, and that this reduces in magnitude Gen. Musharraf's sin of anti-democracy, is both trite and fatalistic. Democracy has not worked in that country not because Pakistanis are congenitally incapable of dealing with the political form but because democratic institutions have never been allowed to take root, or to operate unmolested. By whom? Why, the army, of course, which is, once more, repeating its anti-democratic canards with the aim of keeping power.
The second argument is equally specious, and even a strategic folly. What the U.S. should want--in a war against Islamist terror that is going to last not a year or two but a generation--is a stable Pakistan, not a stable dictator, however pliant and obliging he may be. An assassin's bullet may, one day, end the general's life. What then for the U.S.? Would the anti-terror alliance not be more secure if it rested on a partnership with an institution--that of an elected government--instead of on one individual?
It is folly also to believe that, had Pakistan had a democratic government in power at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks, the U.S. would not have secured the level of cooperation from Islamabad that it did from Gen. Musharraf. No government in Pakistan's history--whether led by a man in uniform, or by an elected politician--has ever been hostile to the U.S., or uncomprehending of American interests. The U.S., furthermore, need not fear a government of elected fundamentalists in Pakistan. The voters of that country have never supported Islamists, and if the latter thrive today in Pakistan, it is thanks solely to army patronage.
One can't ignore, also, the fact that the army is a part of the problem underlying Pakistan's relations with India. Compulsive anti-Indianism is the army's philosophy, allowing it to posture as the guardian of national security. In this, Kashmir is only a symptom, not a cause, of the friction between the two countries. Bear in mind, however--and this is a salutary note on which to end--that not one war has taken place between the two countries while an elected government was in control in Pakistan.
Mr. Varadarajan is deputy editorial features editor and chief television and media critic of The Wall Street Journal. > |
