Pakistan: Chief Justice Chaudhry Reinstated; What Next for Zardari?

Related Post: Pakistan - A Political Deal for a New Coalition?

A week after President Asif Ali Zardari gave way to the demands of the Long March,  Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry (pictured) was formally restored to his position in a flag-raising ceremony at his house.

Now the real contest between the Presidency, other political parties, and the courts begins. The easy case will be last month's barring of former President Nawaz Sharif from office and the removal of Sharif's brother, Shahbaz, as chief minister of Punjab. This was always a political, rather than legal, manoeuvre, and the Zardari Government's concession that it will seek a review of the decision indicates the Sharifs will be "legitimate" politicians very soon.

More intriguing will be the Supreme Court's position towards Zardari. The judges installed by Zardari's predecessor, Pervez Musharraf, rubber-stamped an "amnesty" from the corruption charges that had forced Zardari into exile. I suspect that a political deal will trump the law, and the charges will not be reinstated; however, public pressure for a strong, "independent" judiciary may make life troublesome for the President.

From The Archives: Hit or Miss in Pakistan (18 September 2008)

First published on our partner website Libertas:

[This] leaves only the Pakistani military, whichever way it chooses to play the hand with the Americans, as the only significant force in the country with a symbolic and real modicum of power. If Zardari protests this, the prospect of his overthrow emerges. If he accepts his emasculation, he is no more than an irrelevant figurehead. Either way, it’s an effective coup.

Last Thursday, I embarked on a new, challenging, and exciting project, working with postgraduate students at the Clinton Institute for American Studies in Dublin . Introducing a course on contemporary US foreign policy, I tried out the idea of dissecting that morning’s Page 1 story, whatever it might be, in The New York Times.

I punched in the URL and upon the large screen is the headline, “Bush Said to Give Orders Allowing Raids in Pakistan”.

The opening paragraph confirmed I had more than enough for discussion, “President Bush secretly approved orders in July that for the first time allow American Special Operations forces to carry out ground assaults inside Pakistan without the prior approval of the Pakistani government, according to senior American officials.”

Well, there you go. By chance rather than design I could open the course with perhaps the most significant development in US foreign policy this year. Significant because the US Government was making clear that it was taking the war against the Afghanistan insurgency across the border into Pakistan. Even more so because the US would be fighting not just with bombs from the air but special forces on the ground. Especially so because the US would do so without the overt co-operation of the Pakistani Government.

To be blunt: on Monday, Asif Zardari finally reached his goal of becoming Prime Minister of Pakistan, a country portrayed as a steadfast ally of the US in the “War on Terror”. By Thursday, Washington didn’t give, to use the academic term, “a rat’s ass” about the thoughts of Zardari. On Monday, Pakistan’s military was portrayed as side-by-side with American counterparts; by Thursday, there was the prospect of armed clashes between the two sets of troops.

With allies like these, who needs....? You fill in the blank.

The backdrop to this story is now well-known. On 11 September 2001, the Head of Pakistan’s intelligence services, Mahmood Ahmed, was in Washington discussing co-operation with US officials. Indeed, as the planes hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Ahmed was having breakfast with the chairmen of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. Within 24 hours, discussions had become a showdown. Undersecretary of State Richard Armitage set out a seven-point ultimatum to Ahmed. When Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf confirmation to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the American conditions would be met, the essential alliance in the War on Terror had been established.

There were holdover tensions from Pakistan’s years of support for a liaison with the Taliban. In January 2002, Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker blew the whistle on the hundreds, maybe thousands, of Pakistanis who had fought on the wrong side and been captured by the Americans during fighting in Afghanistan . The detainees were shipped to Kunduz, from where Pakistani helicopters took them home. As US attentions turned to Iraq , the inconvenience that Osama bin Laden was also now sheltered in Pakistan ’s autonomous tribal areas as gradually accepted. Months turned into years, and President Musharraf’s attention (and that of his critics) turned to internal political/judicial matters and, eventually, the imposition of martial law.

So what has happened to re-make Pakistan from sturdy if arguably ineffectual partner of the US in regional politics and the War on Terror into obstacle to US operations? No doubt the forced handover from Musharraf to Zardari is a partial explanation; there is no sign of American faith in the reliability of the new President, who is likely to be focused on his battle with the judiciary rather than a showdown with Al Qa’eda.

The catalyst, however, is the Bush Administration’s last roll of the dice in Afghanistan. As I noted Monday, the President’s statement two weeks ago offered both victory without substance and a challenge without an answer. If the small number of US troops being pulled with Iraq belied a long-term occupation that is increasingly out of touch with political developments, the small number of US troops being sent to Afghanistan showed that the Administration has nothing but a small bandage to slap on its new Number One Emergency Case.

An extra 9000 boots on the ground won’t cover much of the problem area in Afghanistan. At most, it will allow the US to carry out well-publicised operations to clear the Taliban from villages which are likely to vulnerable during the next counter-attack of the insurgency. Put very bluntly, in the absence of effective political and economic reconstruction, Washington has to hope that local leaders and their militias are strong enough to keep the Taliban out. It’s notable, for example, that Herat in the western part of the country is relatively stable under a local regime on good terms with Iran, while Mazar-al-Sharif in the north is “secure” because of the local but forceful presence of General Dostum.

This doesn’t add up to long-term influence, however, for the Americans and it far from signals long-term authority for the Kabul Government of Hamid Karzai. So Washington gets the worst of both worlds: potential rivals reap the benefits from the areas that they control or influence while the US carries the can for instability in other regions.

Even if European governments and other allies in NATO and the International Security Assistance Force were willing to shift a token number of soldiers to the conflict zone in the south and centre of the country, that wouldn’t offer any resolution of the underlying problems. And it certainly wouldn’t address the emerging headache for the Americans and Kabul , the insurgent violence in the east along the Pakistan border.

So, if you haven’t got the troop numbers or a meaningful plan of reconstruction to bring villages into a secure nation, what do you do? Well, you resort to those limited but hopefully effectively targeted operations that “decapitate” the opposition. That means air power and that means special operations on the ground, special operations to assist with targeting of the airstrikes and special operations to liquidate the bad guys.

It is no coincidence that the “surge” in Iraq has included recently-hyped “fusion cells”, small units of specially-trained soldiers to capture and kill insurgents. And, given the incomplete if not false impression that this has made a long-term difference in Iraq the Americans will be trying to spread the model to the next battleground.

But even as this strategy covers up the problem of the lack of long-term troop numbers to “stabilise” Afghanistan, it ignores some fundamentals of special warfare. Even the Iraq example should be instructive: the “fusion cells” complement the cultivation of local leaders and their militias to secure a particular area. In Pakistan, where is that cultivation of leaders in the tribal areas going to take place? Well, given that the airstrikes and operations are alienating that leadership, their families, and their communities, the answer would be Nowhere. Tribal leaders have already responded by promising to raise forces to fight the US .

And here’s another lesson that it ignores. You can’t limit the effect of dropped bombs and elite forces trained to kill. Far more important than any ripples of stability you hope to get on the other side of the border are the waves of instability you set off in Pakistan. The warning of the Pakistani military leadership that it will opposed American ground incursions may be a bluff or even the Janus trick of giving a stern face of defending their people and sovereignty while privately giving another face of acceptance to the Americans. But, at a minimum, Zardari is exposed as a political leader with barely a shred of authority.

And, in Pakistan with its recent history, what do you think that means? I’m guessing that it leaves only the Pakistan military, whichever way it chooses to play the hand with the Americans, as the only significant force in the country with a symbolic and real modicum of power. If Zardari protests this, the prospect of his overthrow emerges. If he accepts his emasculation, he is no more than an irrelevant figurehead. Either way, it’s an effective coup.

I’ve only seen one commentator reach back for the historical parallel. In 1969/70 the Nixon Administration, frustrated at the mobility of the Vietnamese insurgency, starts the airborne demolition of Cambodia. Eventually that tearing apart of the Cambodian “sanctuary” took the ground from under the country’s leadership, and Prince Sihanouk was overthrown. The eventual victors who promised to restore sovereignty and dignity? The Khmer Rouge.

It’s not an exact replay of history, and Pakistan may not have to be reset to Year Zero. Neither, however, does the American strategy offer any advance. Seven years after promising that it would pursue the War on Terror to preserve the security and sovereignty of those were “with us”, Washington is now shredding that assurance.

The US and Pakistan: Bye Bye President Zardari, But Hello to Whom?

Just over 48 hours after the culmination of the Long March, with the Government's restoration of Pakistani Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, and the story has dropped out of American newspapers. But, of course, this weekend's events were only the beginning of a new, important stage in Pakistani and regional politics.

For many, it is the beginning of hope. Perhaps, after the expression of popular protest, the legal system can be resurrected and placed above personal and party manipulation. Perhaps there can be a scrutiny which would produce a meaningful democracy rather than today's well-connected politician who ascends to the highest office through connections rather than ability and integrity.

In no way do I want to demean that hope, but it moves alongside, and arguably trails behind, more immediate negotiations and manoeuvres after the drama of the last week.

First and foremost, Asif Ali Zardari is effectively Dead President Walking. If this was a showdown for those marching for Chaudhry's restoration, the future of political parties such as the Pakistani Muslim League (N), or a general wish for an ethical politics, it was also Zardari's showdown against his rivals. Trying to maintain a careful balance between the isolation of Nawaz Sharif and the appearance of a Government upholding judicial and political authority, he was putting his case not only in Pakistan but in the US through outlets like The Wall Street Journal.

The problem for the Obama Administration is that Zardari put his battle against Sharif, and indeed Chaudhry, above the battle against insurgency in northwestern Pakistan. An article in The Washington Post, fed by Administration sources, put the case cogently yesterday:

Administration officials are putting the finishing touches on a plan to greatly increase economic and development assistance to Pakistan, and to expand a military partnership considered crucial to striking a mortal blow against al-Qaeda's leadership and breaking the Pakistani-based extremist networks that sustain the war in Afghanistan....But the weakness of Pakistan's elected government -- backed into a corner by weekend demonstrations that left its political opposition strengthened -- has called into question one of the basic pillars of that plan.

The President had thus become secondary to the military commander, General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani, as he met American counterparts and political leaders in Islamabad, Washington, and Kabul.

At the same time, the US had to move carefully. After all, Washington had been instrumental in supporting Zardari's rise to the Presidency when Benazir Bhutto was assassinated and when General Pervez Musharraf became a liability for American plans. Even if the Pakistani military had become the key link for US officials, the appearance of democracy had to be maintained.

The Long March, with all its good intentions, provided a mini-solution for the Obama Administration. Only 24 hours into the march, the US jumped in through talks with Nawaz Sharif and a blunt call to Zardari --- Washington did not want the President to force a showdown with Sharif. By Saturday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was telling both politicians, "If Pakistan is in such a state of internal political turmoil that U.S. aid can't be used effectively, that's going to limit what can be done and also how successful we are in Afghanistan."

Perhaps more importantly, the Americans appear to have been in close touch with the Pakistani military and security services during the crisis. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, spoke with General Kiani on Friday. The New York Times summarised, "One encouraging sign for Washington was the role played in the crisis by the army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who let Mr. Zardari know that he could not rely on soldiers to confront the protesters who were threatening to descend on Islamabad."

We may never know exactly who, if anyone, gave orders to the security forces who let the convoy of Nawaz Sharif slip easily through the cordon of his house arrest, providing support to the growing demonstrations and forcing Zardari's hand. We may never know exactly what was said between the President, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani, and General Kiani at the Sunday morning meeting that conceded the restoration of Chaudhry.

Even murkier, however, is the next step in the relationship between Zardari, his political rivals, his military, and the American sponsors. Even if there is no way back for the President, there is no easy solution to fit Washington's plans. The accession of Nawaz Sharif to power is still an uncomfortable prospect for the US, which has long considered him too close to "conservative" (read that in a political and religious sense) forces in Pakistan and the region. Indeed, Saudi Arabia's backing of Sharif poses the prospect of a battle between Washington and Riyadh for influence over the next steps in both Islamabad and Kabul.

As US envoy Richard Holbrooke bluntly said Monday, the immediate resolution of the Long March "bodes better than the alternative outcome" of disorder and collapse of the Government but "the underlying problem still exists". Having failed to get "stability" with Musharraf, having failed with Zardari, it is not hope that moves Washington but this question:

Who or what can come next?

Pakistan: The Long March of Victory?

12 noon GMT: Imran Khan, the leader of the Tehrik-i-Insaf (Pakistan for Justice) party, has told the media that Supreme Court Chief Justice Chaudhry was "restored by the power of the masses". He called for cases of detentions and missing persons to be pursued by the courts.

10:15 a.m. GMT: Scenes of celebration and dancing at Iftikhar Chaudhry's house. Dawn reporter Musadiq Sanwal writes, "Only thing everybody is saying is that this is beginning of a revolution and they expect a lot more to happen.

Morning Update (5:45 a.m. GMT): The overnight news is stunning. In the early-morning hours, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani addressed the nation and announced the restoration of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry (pictured) and almost 50 judges forced from their positions by Pervez Musharraf, President Asif Ali Zardari's predecessor. Hundreds of activists have been released from detention.

On the political front, Gillani confirmed the news that the Government will pursue a review of the court ruling that disqualified the leader of the Pakistan Muslim League (N), Nawaz Sharif, and his brother Shahbaz, the Governor of Punjab, from public office.

Sharif reacted with the statement, "We are now calling off this long march," saying that the decision was made after discussions with lawyers and other political leaders such as Imran Khan. He continued, "Very soon we will play our role in implementing real democracy in this country."

A cautious but welcoming American reaction came through the US Embassy in Pakistan, "This is a statesmanlike decision taken to defuse a serious confrontation, and the apparent removal of this long-standing national issue is a substantial step towards national reconciliation."

The speed of the Zardari Government's concession to its legal and political opponents is almost breath-taking. As late as Sunday morning, the President was holding out against the restoration of Chaudhry, partly because of the legal difficulties it might cause for him, partly because it would hand a notable victory to the political opposition in general and Nawaz Sharif in particular.

Why Zardari gave in will be the subject of speculation today, but his political support was crumbling, with the resignations of former allies such as Information Minister Sherry Rahman as well as leading security commanders. As early as Thursday, Washington had made clear that it wanted a compromise with the opposition, and the presence of the head of the Pakistani military, Ashfaq Pervez Kiani, at yesterday's Zardari-Gillani meetings is a signal that the military was looking for a settlement.

Indeed, according to sources speaking to the Pakistani newspaper Dawn, Kiani's intervention was the catalyst for Zardari's concessions. He told the President and Prime Minister "that they needed to reverse some of the controversial decisions before the situation spiralled out of control....It was after his not-so-veiled warning that the two top civilian leaders agreed to roll back some of the controversial decisions of the previous and present governments."

Mr Obama's Doctrine: Josh Mull on US Grand Strategy in Pakistan and Beyond

Related Post: Mr Obama's War - Pakistan Insurgency "Unites" (You Heard It Here First)

"The 'Obama Doctrine' looks something like this: the United States will continue to use its military power as its premier tool in international affairs and may even act preemptively. However, it will not  do so on issues it deems outside of reasonable American national security concerns, and it will act only with support and cooperation from the international community. To put it frankly, this is something like a cross between 'walk softly and carry a big stick' and the Buddy System. While still violent, imperial, and aggressive, it is a marked departure from the so-called Bush Doctrine and even the Global War on Terror."

Yesterday Scott Lucas, in “Mr. Obama's War: The Fantasy of the Pakistan Sanctuaries”, analysed US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' appearance on Meet the Press, pointing out the cognitive dissonance in Gates' assertion that the US understands safe havens in Pakistan because it has previously used those same Pakistani safe havens so effectively. Lucas also raises some very interesting questions, particularly over Gates' apparent non-answer to the question of the consequences for Pakistan of the US campaign. This is my attempt to answer those questions, as well as a proposal to parse out a broader US “grand strategy” from Gates' appearance.

Host David Gregory asked Gates on Sunday, “The trouble and consequences of jihadists making significant gains in either Afghanistan or Pakistan is perhaps more acute in Pakistan given its nuclear potential. True?” In reply, Gates' offered this:

Well, as long as we’re in Afghanistan and as long as the Afghan government has the support of dozens and dozens of countries who are providing military support, civilian support in addition to us, we are providing a level of stability in Afghanistan that at least prevents it from being a safe haven from which plots against the United States and the Europeans and others can be, can be put together.

The key is this: Gates isn't answering the question about Pakistan to David Gregory. He's answering the question about Pakistan directly to the Pakistanis.

I decoded Gates' reply as: "Well, as long as I can go on a Sunday morning Prime Time talk show and say 9/11, Taliban, and Osama bin Laden and as long as my Commander-in-Chief can draw crowds of 200,000 screaming Europeans, Pakistan can suck it up and deal with whatever we want to do, including destabilizing or overthrowing their corrupt government and/or stealing or destroying their illegal nuclear weapons, which by the way, I already have the authority to do from a little thing called the Lugar-Obama bill to secure weapons of mass destruction."

In short, it's not the responsibility of the Secretary of Defense to keep Pakistan stable, it is his responsibility to attack extremist safe havens in Pakistan in order to prevent a catastrophic terrorist attack against the US, Canada, or the European Union. President Obama, and by extension the plans of his Secretary of Defense, enjoys bipartisan political support as well as stable international credibility. Accordingly the US will act, as Lucas said in his article, as if “there are no consequences whatsoever for the internal Pakistani situation" or, more appropriately, without regard to these consequences.

But there is more we can glean from Secretary Gates' interview than it appears. Beyond the purposes Lucas pointed out --- pitching Obama's Iraq withdrawal plan and articulating US Afghanistan policy --- it's possible Gates was offering us, and the international audience, insight into the broader strategic calculations of the United States, particularly the role of the Department of Defense and US military power abroad.

President Obama has shown himself to be somewhat of a Centrist, if only in regard to his desire to hear from all sides of an argument or debate. One thing all foreign policy and national security analysts, from the Conservative "Fall of Rome" crowd to the Realist "Second World" types all the way to the Neoconservative "Team America" folks, can agree on is this: the United States of America is now and will continue to be Earth's preeminent military force, at least for the foreseeable future.

There is a saying amongst foreign policy elites:  "Who has the world's largest air force after the US Air Force? The US Army."

With Pakistan, Gates is essentially saying that, as long as the US, Canada, and Europe are threatened by extremist attacks from Afghanistan and Pakistan, the US will continue to act aggressively with its military force. It will do so in any manner and on any territory of its choosing, provided it has the support and cooperation of Europe and NATO (whose members will suffer from terrorism long before the US).

What's absent is any mention of India, which implies the support of India in Afghanistan and protection from Pakistan-launched, "Mumbai-style" attacks are not part of the US calculation. ("Your problem, not ours.")

It may seem like Gates casually forgot to mention India and Mumbai in his response on Pakistan. After all, "AfPak" is an extremely complicated subject, and it's easy to leave things out or get things mixed up. At least, that will be the talking point if this becomes an issue. However, we know two things: first, India and Pakistan are inextricably linked together in any strategic calculus, and second, that this wasn't just a casual visit to Meet the Press by Bob Gates. It was the public coming-out ceremony for George W. Bush's former and now President Obama's current Secretary of Defense, civilian leader of the United States Military.

The importance of this public appearance can't be understated. It was not necessarily designed for the domestic audience of NBC viewers, but rather was aimed at a more global audience and, directly, to the Pakistanis. This is what makes the apparently deliberate absence of India from the “AfPak” equation so significant. The absence, the answer, and the entire interview together could lead us to presume that Gates is articulating the prototype for what will later be called “the Obama Doctrine”.

The “Obama Doctrine” looks something like this: the United States will continue to use its military power as its premier tool in international affairs and may even act preemptively. However, it will not  do so on issues it deems outside of reasonable American national security concerns, and it will act only with support and cooperation from the international community. To put it frankly, this is something like a cross between “walk softly and carry a big stick” and the Buddy System. While still violent, imperial, and aggressive, it is a marked departure from the so-called Bush Doctrine and even the Global War on Terror.

The India-Pakistan and Kashmir and Bangladesh) conflict is the perfect illustration. Under the old rules of the Bush Doctrine, the response to something like the Mumbai attacks might be airstrikes, special forces, or some other combination of clandestine military force. Under the “Obama Doctrine”, the Defense Department under Gates, and thus the US military, are not responsible for the India-Pakistan conflict. Rather this would fall under the portfolios of US Attorney General Eric Holder and his FBI as well US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her cadres of ambassadors and envoys,with support and cooperation from that throbbing heart of diplomacy in Brussels (the European Union), law enforcement agents with Interpol and NATO, and the mediation and oversight of the United Nations.

Obviously it's an extreme departure from George W Bush's radical Napoleonic-cum-Bolshevik strategy of the Global War on Terror, but that doesn't necessarily mean the “Obama Doctrine” will turn out any more successfully than the Bush Doctrine. In fact, the strategy is brimming with vulnerabilities.

The US may be the most powerful military, it is not the only military on the planet. In the fall of 2007 as civil unrest was broiling in Pakistan under General Pervez Musharraf, then-Senator now Vice President Joe Biden campaigned in the Democratic Party primaries on a promise to pull strategic military aid from Pakistan, that is weapons used against India, to pressure Pakistan to focus on the insurgency rather than more ethereal, strategic conflicts. In response, however, the Chinese offered to sell Pakistan a new fleet of MiG fighter jets, similar to the American planes Biden was threatening to withdraw. Now, as then, there is a constant danger that any diplomatic “sticks” threatened by the US can simply be neutralized by other international actors willing to take its place.

Furthermore there is the problem caused by the global financial meltdown and the massive economic depressions it is causing. While Secretary Gates may have it in his authority to bomb Pakistani safe havens as well as police the Straits of Malacca, the United States may not ultimately be able to afford the high price of imperialism. And if the US is forced to cut back on its imperalist designs, it will create some extremely uncomfortable strategic questions for policy makers. For example, what is the higher priority between preventing a bus bombing in London or preventing a missile exchange between Korea and Japan when you can't afford both?

So we don't end on such a morbid tone, let me point out that this prototypical “Obama Doctrine” has some very powerful advantages over the Bush Doctrine, the Global War on Terror, and the so-called Long War/Great Game theories. The most important advantage is that it is absolutely conscious of and constructed on the idea of a “Multi-Polar” world. Even though the US seeks to dominate international affairs, it acknowledges and plans for the participation of other actors, states, or non-states. By allowing for participation, it allows for competition, and as President Obama displays with his choice of Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State, competition has both winners and losers who can still join together for a common purpose. There is no absolute victory or defeat of good and evil, but rather a competition among partners.