Benazir’s response

THE PPP’s slow and calibrated response to the November 3 proclamation of ‘emergency’ (actually, martial law) has started to give way to a hardening of stance. At the press conference she addressed following a meeting of a much shrunk Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD), party chairperson Benazir Bhutto said that the dialogue for a peaceful transition to democracy that her side had been engaged in with General Musharraf reached a deadlock after he imposed “martial law.” It is hardly surprising if the terms of engagement have now changed in view of the strong disapproval the Provisional Constitution Order has elicited from civil society within the country and almost the entire international community. While the imposition of the so-called ‘emergency plus’ accompanied a widespread crackdown on Opposition parties and the various bar councils, it was widely noticed that the PPP leaders remained untouched, apparently, because the government expected the party to remain a quiet bystander while it sorted out others, including independent television channels. But being one of the two largest political parties, the PPP could ill afford to sit on the fence at a time like this. Hence, at her Thursday’s press conference Benazir appealed to her party workers and the general public to come out on to the streets and court arrest. She vowed to bring out so many people that “the regime will find it difficult to put them in jails.” Already the police have arrested a lot more people than it can find space for in jails, letting some go and putting others under house arrest.
Benazir also threatened to launch a Lahore-Islamabad march next week unless General Musharraf fulfilled his commitment to retire as Army chief on November 15. Of course, she wants the government to accept her two other major demands as well, namely removal of the ban on two-time prime ministers to head a government again; and the repeal of article 58-2 (b) of the suspended Constitution, under which the President has the power to dismiss the assemblies. She iterated, “If General Musharraf wants to open the door for negotiations, he must restore the Constitution, retire as Chief of the Army Staff and stick to the schedule of holding elections.” The mother of all issues at this point in time, though, is the confrontation between the President and the superior judiciary over what is widely seen as a seminal struggle for the rule of law. The PPP leader offered the public a much-needed reassurance on the subject when she said that after the Constitution is restored all judges will automatically be reinstated. She also reminded journalists that whereas General Musharraf had accused the judiciary of releasing some Lal Masjid militants, one of the detained justices had informed her that the two judges, who released those people, had taken oath under the PCO. Talking to PML-Q leaders the same day, General Musharraf said the ‘emergency’ would be lifted as soon as possible, but not before a decision by the Supreme Court on petitions challenging his eligibility to contest the presidential election. The process, he opined, might take two to six months. Thus he made it plain that contrary to a host of other justifications he cited for the November 3 action, the real reason was the legal challenge before an independent judiciary to his election bid. Whatever anyone may think of Benazir Bhutto as a politician, there is no room for disagreement with her on that the road to peace and conciliation goes through fair and free elections and full restoration of constitutional rule. So far as she is concerned, “the ball is now in the government’s court.” Will the President play it or not? The answer to this question must not become a matter of personal ego. It is in the interest of this nation and the President himself that he plays this ball in a spirit of sportsmanship, acting with grace and magnanimity if the situation so demands. The alternative would be more chaos and confusion, of which this nation has had more than enough.

Mission bogged down

THE six recent deaths of American soldiers in Afghanistan bring the number killed in that country this year to at least 101, the deadliest for the US military in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion. The toll reminds us of the situation in Iraq where US military deaths this year have exceeded 850, also a record. The war in Afghanistan is supposedly different from the one in Iraq — but the similarities, foremost of which is the violence against US forces, are growing. In method, target and impact, the attacks on US forces in Afghanistan have shown how much the Taleban have borrowed from the Iraqi insurgency. It is an influence conceded by the Taleban themselves who, according to their sights, see one and the same enemy. Regime change in Afghanistan has been sold as one of the few successes of the new world born of the 9/11 attacks on America. Less than two months after the planes hit New York and the Pentagon, the Taleban were driven from Kabul and Osama Bin Laden from his mountainous Afghan hide-out. Unlike in Iraq, the Afghan invasion had the sanction of the UN. It also had the support of most Afghans, with 70 percent of the electorate turning out for presidential elections in 2004. How then — five years on — is Afghanistan so near collapse and why has what appeared to have been a swift military victory gotten bogged down?
The answer can be given in one word: Iraq: Washington’s refusal to take nation building in Afghanistan seriously and instead wage a fruitless war in Iraq. For Afghanistan the results have been too few Western troops, too little money and a lack of coherent strategy and sustained policy initiatives by both Western and Afghan leaders. The Pentagon turned its attention away from Afghanistan during the build-up to the invasion in Iraq, leaving the military with too few resources to back up the initial victory with an adequate security presence. For the Taleban this lack of concentration has enabled it to regroup, rearm and resurge, whether in the southern provinces or from its Pakistani hinterland. They are a guerrilla force more sophisticated, better organized and more numerous than ever before, with a new and deadly penchant for remote-controlled bombs and, unusual for Afghanistan, suicide attacks, the clearest evidence yet of coordination between the Afghan and Iraqi insurgencies. The Taleban cannot be eliminated completely. They can loosely control much of Afghanistan’s four southern provinces much of the time. The counterinsurgency battle US and NATO forces now face will take a decade or more to win. The same situation holds for US troops in Iraq: the insurgency can never be done away with completely. The next US president must level with the American people, in a way President Bush never has, about the real burden of an attempt to build two countries from scratch at once. That burden can no longer be borne by military families alone.

—Arab News