Muqaawama

One wonders exactly where Pakistani President Asif Zardari was when he first wrote the above headline for his Washington Post Op-Ed that appeared in the print edition this past Friday.  (The Post subsequently changed the headline in the on-line version.  Hmmm…).  Perhaps Zardari was in his villa in Dubai or his chalet in Switzerland.  Maybe he was looking out the window of a penthouse apartment overlooking London.  It’s hard to imagine he was in Pakistan.  At least, not the Pakistan that has teetered between financial insolvency, jihadist implosion, and nuclear exchange for much of its 50 year existence. Crumbling schools, abject poverty and deteriorating infrastructure.  Where are these realities accommodated within the “Greatness” of Zardari’s imagination?  With this disgusting level of denial, one wonders if Zardari has spent even a day of his life in the real Pakistan.  For those of us who count many kind, hardworking Pakistanis as our friends, Zardari’s ridiculous title and self-serving words are the height of insult.

Of course, we are talking about a president who is flailing to remain relevant in a political system that increasingly sees him as the symbol of everything that is wrong with Pakistan.  He will say anything to rehabilitate his image, and if he doesn’t have a domestic audience the next best thing is to reach out for a little love from Pakistan’s primary super-power patron, the United States.  Talking about lofty goals and grand partnerships abroad is a time-tested politician’s strategy to deflect attention from mismanagement and greed at home.  But there is too much sordid history here for even an accomplished swindler like Zardari to overcome.  Long before callously maneuvering himself into the President’s office in the wake of his wife Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, Zardari was known even within his own party as the guy who would trim gravy off the top of any government decision.  Hence his well-deserved nickname during his late wife’s last administration in the 1990s- “Mr. 10%.”

Should we blame the system or the individual?  Those of us who have lived and worked in Pakistan are confident of one thing- long after Zardari is gone corruption will remain a potent force in Pakistani society.  It scares away legitimate investment and opportunity.  It contributes to instability, violent crime and terrorism.  It  enables the more authoritarian figures peppered throughout Pakistan’s volatile history to act with the full sympathy of the population.  For all of the Pakistani military’s issues, it is still regarded as the cleanest, most effective institution in the country.  When there is no viable civilian alternative, as Zardari so aptly demonstrates, the tilt is inevitably toward the generals.

What does this tilt toward the military do to Pakistan the nation?  It makes its power structure overly obsessed with strategic issues having to do with its hostile neighbor to the East: India.  This is bad for Pakistan and bad for America.  It was Pakistan’s insecurity about India that propelled its intelligence services and military to begin supporting (along with our CIA) radical Islamism in the 1980s.  This was viewed as an effective guerrilla ideology against a much larger adversary, both to protect Pakistan’s northern flank in Afghanistan and wage its campaign to liberate Kashmir.  We know the consequences of this fateful policy- a metastasizing array of militancy from the Taliban to Lashgar e Taiba to Al Qaeda.  These militant groups, many of them once projections of Pakistani state power, have now come home to roost and are attacking the Pakistani state itself.

My Pakistani friends readily acknowledge the corruption endemic in the system and how debilitating it can be.  In their defense, it takes generations for a nation to create the kind of strong state institutions that can withstand abuse and misuse.  We know this from our own failed experiments in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Even fifty years is not long enough.

But excuses are a dime a dozen in this part of the world.  Not only in Pakistan, but across the broader Middle East, Muslim elites have made conspiracy theories and the blame game a favorite conversational pass time.  Bad governance, terror attacks, the lack of freedoms- these are all perpetrated by the West (or India) against Islam.  It was America and Israel that planned 9/11 as a pretext for a new forward policy of invasion against Muslim lands.  It was the CIA that created most of the mujahideen radicals in the 1980s when militant Islam was an effective policy against the Soviets.  Lurking in background of this shisha smoking, tea sipping swirl of aggressive chatter is always the United States- the great puppeteer- the Leviathan that controls all the actors and all the outcomes.  The level of denial rivals Zardari’s.

No one forced the Pakistani state to use radical Islam as a tool of statecraft.  Outside forces did not create rapacious politicians like Asif Zardari.  The blame remains squarely at home.  Pakistan, and indeed broader Muslim society, need to start taking responsibility for endemic bad governance and debilitating extremism.  It is the first step to addressing and solving these problems.  For once, I have to agree with Tom Friedman- perhaps we need to inject a little tough love into the equation and stop supporting corrupt local regimes with generous aid packages (Don’t forget Israel again, Tom.  All of them.  Be consistent.  Be fair.).  Only this could compel Muslim civil societies to stop taking the easy way out- projecting their problems onto someone else.  Greatness is out there.  It just needs a little dose of reality…