Pakistan: The Making of a Crisis

The turmoil in the streets of Pakistan stems from a mercurial mix of history, religion and politics — with explosive results. Here is a guide to the crisis:

THE COUNTRY
The Islamic Republic of Pakistan is made up of 165 million people, divided among several tribal and linguistic groups, united only by its military and by Islam — and that in many different stripes of tradition, conservatism and modernity. Pakistan and its military leaders were key allies of the U.S., supporting the mujaheddin war in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union after Moscow invaded and occupied that country. That Afghan war, which ended with the Soviet defeat in 1989, assumed a religious nature in the Islamic world and, as it came to a close, fostered the rise of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda and the Taliban regime that eventually took over most of Afghanistan. In the 1990s, relations between Islamabad and Washington chilled after the U.S. imposed sanctions on Pakistan for pursuing nuclear weapons. Pakistan's government backed the puritanical Taliban government in Kabul until Sept. 11, 2001.

THE PLAYERS
President Pervez Musharraf came to power in Pakistan in a bloodless 1999 coup promising to fix Pakistan's economy and clean it of corruption, which had grown under successive civilian leaders. General Musharraf is a former commando and fought in Pakistan's wars with its bigger South Asian neighbor — and constant rival — India in 1965 and 1971. He was Chief of Army Staff during a smaller conflict between the two countries in 1999, a bloody tussle that some feared might go nuclear as both India and Pakistan had just carried out nuclear tests and had — and continue to have — the ability to launch nuclear strikes. After the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. in 2001, Musharraf aligned himself with President Bush, who has consistently called the Pakistani leader one of America's most important allies in the war against terrorism. For years, he had enjoyed acclaim for his reputation for incorruptibility as well as for getting the U.S. to lift the economic sanctions put in place after Pakistan tested its first nuclear bomb in 1998.

Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry was the catalyst for the current crisis in Pakistan. The feisty and independent head of Pakistan's Supreme Court was suspended by Musharraf in March 2007 for alleged misconduct. The move against the judge backfired as Pakistan's lawyers and middle class moderates, many of whom had once supported Musharraf as a bulwark against extremism, took to the streets in a series of massive protests. Musharraf's popularity has plummeted ever since. In July 2007, the Supreme Court reinstated Chaudhry. In early November, the Chaudhry-led Court seemed set to rule that Musharraf's October 6 reelection to another five-year term was unconstitutional. Facing his most serious political challenge in eight years, Musharraf called a state of emergency, suspending the constitution, sacking the most uncooperative judges, detaining Chaudhry, blacking out the independent news stations and sending security forces into the streets to keep down protests.

Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has been Musharraf's unlikely ally in this process, sometime combative, sometime conciliatory. Oxford-educated and the first woman to lead a post-colonial Muslim state, Bhutto is the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was Pakistan's Prime Minister between 1973 and 1977. Zulfikar was forced out of power by General Mohamed Zia-ul-Haq, who later had him executed for killing a political opponent, a charge Benazir and her supporters continue to deny three decades on. This year, as Musharraf's popularity plummeted, a U.S.-approved deal between the President and his former rival cleared the way for Bhutto to return home from exile in Britain and Dubai on the understanding that Musharraf would step down from his army job and then serve another five-year term as President while Bhutto would lead her Pakistan People's Party, the country's biggest, to parliamentary success in early 2008 and serve as Prime Minister. Chief Justice Chaudhry's court was also set to rule on the merits of this deal, which included the Musharraf government's dismissal of corruption charges leveled against Bhutto and her husband. Bhutto's support had suffered after her decision to cut a deal with the unpopular President. She has called for street protests but has not ruled out going ahead with the original plan as long as Musharraf steps down as army chief and elections go ahead on schedule.

THE ISSUES
The War on Terror is key to American policy on Pakistan, which has gladly accepted $10 billion in aid from Washington since the 2001 attacks. In the years after 9/11, after the overthrow of the regime in Kabul, al-Qaeda and the Taliban have regrouped in the mountainous region along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. The area, often described as lawless, has long been controlled by fiercely conservative tribes that run their own semi-autonomous administration. Over the past few years foreign and local militants have grown stronger. Last year, after failing to quash the insurgency militarily, the Pakistani army signed a brief cease-fire deal with some of the militant groups. The fighting has since resumed. U.S. intelligence agencies believe al-Qaeda has now rebuilt to the point where it could launch fresh attacks against America.

The Talibanization of Pakistan has raised fears that a future regime in the country may put Islambad's nuclear capacity — estimated at about 80 nuclear devices — into the hands of parties inimical to the West. Indeed, the militants have spread their influence into more moderate areas of Pakistan such as the once-touristy Swat Valley. The militant groups have also launched attacks against Pakistan's cities, including the capital. In July 2007 a mosque in Islamabad became the site of a bloody confrontation between government security forces and radical Islamists and triggered a fresh wave of bombings, kidnappings and other attacks. Within hours of Bhutto's arrival home from exile last month, more than 150 people in her convoy were killed in a bomb blast targeting her.

Who Will Rule Pakistan? The question is paramount and critical at this moment. If the Musharraf-Bhutto deal has fallen through, then Pakistanis are left with an extremely unpopular dictator who nevertheless is the only moderating force on a military-and-security apparatus that many fear harbors extremist elements. Bhutto, whose return to Pakistan was a nod toward democratic ideals, already believes that members of Pakistan's government and intelligence agencies knew about the attack on her homecoming convoy and helped plan it. Musharraf's closest foreign allies have long feared that those same military and intelligence bodies still include officials sympathetic to the militants Islamabad is supposed to be fighting. In the meantime, as Musharraf and Bhutto maneuver for advantage, the extremists in the mountains continue to expand their influence, day by day becoming a more realistic, if fearsome, option to ineffective Pakistani politics-as-usual.