TAKING DICTATION, MISS RICE?

The present crisis in Pakistan is far more dangerous for global stability than the now-forgotten crisis a few weeks ago in Burma/Myanmar. Western governments will, in my estimation, come to rue their failure to react immediately and decisively. Announcing that they "may" have to “review” their aid to the Musharraf regime is pusillanimous and evasive.

Pervez Musharraf has taken draconian powers, putting the whole superstructure of the justice system, the opposition parties and the independent media under house arrest or worse, casting aside any undertaking to hold free elections and to divest the government of its military cloak. His prime minister, Shaukat Aziz, announced that these powers were “to ensure the writ of the government”. If the writ of the government can only be ensured by the suspension of civil rights, then it is not the government’s writ that runs but the government’s oppression.

At a stroke, General Musharraf has transformed himself from a benevolent despot who was inching towards free elections into an old-fashioned dictator. The west will rationalize its continuing (if now more conditional) support by claiming that Pakistan remains withal a key bulwark against the Islamic fundamentalism that expresses itself in terrorism. This is a false reading. Musharraf’s state of emergency is the best news that either al-Qaida or the Taliban have heard from Pakistan in years. It is the most effective recruiting sergeant that those organizations could have dared hope for and any possibility of characterizing the west as a continuing ally of a man who is now seen to be a ruthless dictator will be seized upon as more evidence of the west’s infidel credentials.

This is where Condoleeza Rice can play a role that transforms her from one of the least effective Secretaries of State since World War II to one who really makes a difference. I doubt that Gordon Brown can do this because he has no clout with the Bush regime. Rice does. She needs to square up to Bush (with Cheney safely shut out of the oval office) and make it clear to him that all his prating about loving democracy and freedom means diddly-shit if he doesn’t pull on his cowboy boots and ride into the east to save Pakistani democracy and freedom from the world’s latest absolute ruler. Washington needs to make it crystal clear to Islamabad that the state of emergency is to be suspended forthwith or Pakistan will no longer be supported politically, financially, economically, militarily or diplomatically. The US embassy will be closed, the UN security council will be summoned to declare Pakistan a pariah nation and – yes, it may come to this – American troops are standing by and ready to invade Pakistan and remove Musharraf (“the General” as Bush famously called him in a pre-presidential interview when he had no idea of the leader’s name or, come to that, the whereabouts of his nation) from power. And Rice needs to do this today. Every hour of delay is an hour closer to an unprecedentedly horrific outrage against western individuals and interests in the name of revenge upon our perceived support for Musharraf.