Epoch Times | Pakistan's Future is Hanging by a Thread

"And like a dying lady, lean and pale/ Who totters forth, wrapped in a gauzy veil." —Shelly

The tragic death of Pakistani opposition leader Ms. Benazir Bhutto in a gun-and-bomb terrorist attack last week opens the beginning of a new cycle of political instability in her troubled country. The unfolding situation may frustrate the resolve of the West to press for democracy in this country.

Capitalizing on the ongoing political chaos, the ruling military will base its claim to stay in power on the idea that Pakistan's best chances of survival and combating Islamic militancy would be to stay under military rule. President Pervez Musharraf has the habit of striking when the iron is hot. He dissolved the parliament, suspended the constitution, and imposed emergency rule only in order to stay in power. However, this time his conjuring tricks don't seem to work.

Ms. Bhutto's return from a self-imposed exile in mid October was far from pleasant. She had been living under daily threat from al-Qaeda-linked extremists and President Musharraf's government alike. For weeks, she lived either under house arrest or in detention. Her life in the past weeks has indeed been like Shelly's "dying lady," I have quoted above.

After Ms. Bhutto survived a suicide attack on her life upon her arrival at Karachi, she constantly appealed for more security, a request ignored by the ruling authorities. Her demand for an independent FBI investigation into the suicide attacks which claimed more than 150 lives also fell on deaf ears.

Weeks before her death, she pointed the finger at the Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) for a surge in suicide attacks, admitting openly that suspect elements within Musharraf's circle sympathize with the Islamic extremists. "Some elements were masterminding suicide attacks and subversive activities [in Pakistan] to continue dictatorship and spread fear among the people," she stated in an interview.

Ms. Bhutto's death took place in Liaquat Bagh, the garden of death, in which the country's first Prime Minister, Mr Liaquat Ali Khan was murdered in 1951. The garden is located in the garrison town of Rawalpindi, a few kilometers away from where Bhutto's father, late President Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was cruelly hanged in 1979 by Pakistan's former dictator Zia ul-Haq, two years after Bhutto was deposed by him in a coup. The town is home to the headquarters of the military powerhouse and fearsome ISI.

For Musharraf, Rawalpindi, on the contrary, is the safest town, as he prefers to spend the night there when he finishes work in his office a few miles away in Islamabad.

Ms. Bhutto's death, which put an end to the tragic Bhutto dynasty in Pakistan, will, among other things, make two major impacts on the status of the war on terrorism and counter-terrorism operations in Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan.

First, it will strengthen the conditions that allowed al-Qaeda and other Islamic terrorists to regain their former organizational and operational power inside Pakistan. This will embolden and enable Pakistani extremists and al-Qaeda to train more Taliban and religious extremists and send them into Afghanistan or even beyond.

Second, it will deepen covert links between the Pakistani military establishment and the Islamic extremists, many of whom are active in the Pakistani north-western tribal areas and the country's major cities. Many of these extremist groups are still active under different nomes de guerre, although they have been outlawed by President Musharraf.

Pakistan has gotten its own brutal reminder of the effects of the military as the ultimate decision-making power. The shadowy hard core of the Pakistani military ruling elite doesn't seem to have given up on its obsession with India and strategic depth in Afghanistan. Pakistan's military wallows in this obsession and sees religious groups with potential extremism and the Taliban as magical instruments in a regional power game—equally important as the country's nuclear arsenal.

This is the main reason why the Pakistani ISI sees the Taliban as a phenomenon beyond war or terror, and still keeps a clandestine link with them—despite the deceptive help given to the West in the global war on terrorism. This is a Pakistani Realpolitik that explains the curious paradox.

With Musharraf's arch rival removed from political scene, the main opposition leader left now is his old bête noire, the former Prime Minister Mr. Nawaz Sharif, who was deposed by Musharraf in 1999 in a bloodless coup. After the suicide attack an emotional Sharif rushed to the hospital where Ms. Bhutto died.

Comforting thousands of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party followers, Nawaz said, "I am with you. We will take the revenge on the rulers." He also hinted he will boycott the upcoming elections.

To the embarrassment of Musharraf, the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) rejected the government version of the circumstances of the suicide attack in which its leader, Ms. Bhutto was killed. The party calls for a UN investigation.

Mr. Sharif has his own record. He is often accused of links with extremist religious parties. He boasted in the past that he has to be credited greatly for Pakistan's acquiring the atomic bomb, for he was the one who ordered the nuclear tests. He also ordered occupation of Kargil in the Indian-administered Kashmir. He also boasted that he put an end to the Afghan threat to Pakistan once and for all, for he managed to fully destroy the more than 100 year old Afghan national army.

The new-year seems to be the gloomiest year for Pakistan. President Musharraf is likely to call off the parliamentary election scheduled for January 8 and reimpose emergency rule. Even if the election goes ahead as scheduled, things are not looking any brighter. The game is left now for Pervez Musharraf and Nawaz Sharif to play.

We have two wars going on in Pakistan at the moment: one is the war on terror and another the war of democracy versus military tyranny. In the most unimaginable scenario to unfold in Pakistan, Musharraf will reap the whirlwind.