Pakistan:President Bush compromised neoconservative democratic principles to secure the support of Pervez Musharraf in the war on terror - but the general has not delivered, writes Paul Richter
Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf seemed to be one of the Bush administration's most valuable foreign friends after the attacks of September 11th, 2001, when he denounced al-Qaeda and the Taliban and joined the US-declared war on terrorism.
But the value of that friendship has come under question again and again in the past six years, and it might be most in doubt now.
Musharraf's declaration of emergency rule has isolated him at home and abroad. It suggests President Bush risked his goals and principles for an ally who couldn't deliver on a fundamental promise: that the Pakistani leader alone could hold together the country while facing down militant Islamists.
In Musharraf, Bush, who often is accused of having naive neoconservative faith in democracy, made the ultimate realist's bargain to help prop up an authoritarian leader. Musharraf's move has raised fears the world might end up with a nuclear- armed state that is both more fractured and host to a stronger jihadist force.
It is making Bush's deal look more like the one US presidents made with the shah of Iran, whose authoritarian rule opened the way in 1979 to an anti-American Islamist regime.
Bush has sought to reassure Americans that Musharraf, who took power in a bloodless coup in 1999, was worthy of their trust. "He shares the same concerns about radicals and extremists as I do and as the American people do," Bush said back in August.
Yet US officials have conceded that they had concerns that the Pakistani government was not doing enough to foster democracy and halt nuclear proliferation. And more and more US officials have become convinced that Musharraf's regime hasn't done enough to fight militant Islam.
One of the US's top priorities has been halting the spread of nuclear knowhow. Yet Musharraf has not been willing to allow the UN's nuclear watchdog agency to interview AQ Khan, father of the Pakistani nuclear programme, which has given nuclear knowledge to North Korea and Iran.
And although Musharraf's government has lost hundreds of soldiers since 2001 fighting al-Qaeda and the Taliban, from the beginning there has been an ambivalence about the fight. Some officials, from the army's intelligence agency and other units, have had ties to radical groups and believe they have a strategic value as a proxy in facing down rivals such as India, which along with Pakistan claims the Kashmir region.
The regime is wary of taking too many casualties or alienating parts of its population in a fight many Pakistanis believe is largely inspired by the US.
Many Pentagon officials have become increasingly frustrated by their partnership with the Pakistanis, believing the army is all too eager to have the $11 billion in US aid it has received since 2001 but less eager to join the fight. Indeed, a conflict developed between the two governments over Musharraf's agreement last year with tribal leaders that cleared the way for the army to withdraw from areas near the border of Afghanistan.
Pakistani officials portrayed the deal as a master stroke that would reduce casualties among troops while enlisting the tribal authorities in the battle against Islamist militants in tribal zones. But many US officials came to believe the accord was simply a way for the Pakistani military to avoid involvement.
And by last winter, they had concluded that the deal had allowed the Taliban and al-Qaeda to regroup and strengthen their hold over the lawless border areas. A series of top US officials, including the vice-president, Dick Cheney, trooped through Pakistan with the message that something had to change. In late July, amplifying their complaints, the US intelligence community issued an official judgment that foreign terrorists were rebuilding in the tribal areas.
While the Islamists were strengthening their position against Musharraf, so was the moderate opposition.
American officials say privately that while opposition groups this year have been highly visible in challenging Musharraf's autocratic rule, most Pakistanis have a far different view of democracy than Americans. Pakistan is still largely a feudal society, they argue, and its politics often represent the clashes of blocs dominated by the few powerful families that have ruled for generations.
For these American officials, it is harder to imagine a true democratic revolution than a political disintegration with frightening consequences for the US.
That's why they've supported Musharraf - and why the White House, while critical of his declaration of emergency rule, is tiptoeing around the question of whether the US would cut off the aid that is its real leverage.