Law And Order In Pakistan



The title of this blog post appears on first glimpse to be wholly misleading -- Pakistan seems at first glance anything but a zone of international "Law and Order." And the last week's terrorist attacks are changing the political paradigm in the region even more towards the direction of disorder. Still, there is a robust Pakistani lawyer's movement, though we rarely hear about it on these shores. In June 2007, for example, 7,000 lawyers, journalists and opposition activists staged a sit-in protest in Pakistan urging then-President Musharraf to step down after his illegal suspension of their Supreme Court Justice. The principle of law is particularly strong in Pakistan.

Unfortunately in our foreign policy dealings with that south Asian nuclear power, the United States tends to throw money at the military out of a fear of instability and almost entirely forgets the popularity of the independent judiciary movement, which is also critical to Pakistan's long-term stability. Oftentimes our actions, in matters international as well as in the personal sphere of individual life, are governed by fear and insecurity. Decisions undertaken under a cloud of fear and insecurity are almost uniformly unwise. Pakistan's nuclear capability and their central location in the war on terror has resulted, since 9/11, in $10 billion in aid from the United States. Is there any accountability, one wonders, as to where precisely that money went? Clearly the Pakistani Intelligence services -- who may or may not be under civilian control, or may in fact be rogue -- got a taste of those monies. And, quite possibly, the ISI may have involvement with Lashkar-e-Taiba in this weekend's terror attacks. Finally, despite all that aid, Pakistan, in any case, has replaced Iraq as the locus point in the war against Al Quaeda. Is that what one gets for $10 billion in aid?

Unilateral missile attacks on militants in Pakistan enrage the populace. America clearly does not need the enmity of the people of Pakistan, whose help in routing out the Taliban is necessary. And yet American foreign policy since 9/11 has dealt with the civilian government and the military at the cost of our credibility to the Pakistani street. Is this a wise long-term strategy? At what point does popular discontent on the Pakistani street become so great that it hinders our efforts in the War on terror. We are still, unfortunately, in the dying throes of Donald Rumsfeld's hard power sticks-without-carrots style of "diplomacy." Rumsfeld, when asked about "soft power" in 2003 tellingly replied "I don’t know what it means." It doesn't get more meaningful than that, folks.

The incoming Obama administration has signaled that it will send 20,000 reinforcements sometime next year. "Some additional troops in Afghanistan could protect local populations while the police and the administration develop," write Barnett R. Rubin and Ahmed Rashid in the November/December 2008 issue of Foreign Affairs. "They also might enable U.S. and NATO forces to reduce or eliminate their reliance on the use of air strikes, which cause civilian casualties that recruit fighters and supporters to the insurgency." Why not also use our political leverage -- in the form of those American billions -- to pressure President Asif Ali Zardari to reinstate Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, who was dismissed last year by then-President Pervez Musharraf in his imposition of emergency rule in the country? Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry was unconstitutionally dismissed along with 50 other judges under the rule of Musharraf. An independent judiciary in Pakistan moves the nuclear-capable country closer to the goal of long term stability. An independent judiciary is also a de facto bullwark against Muslim fundamentalism.

Pakistan, under President Zardari's government, has, according to Stephen Cohen at the Brookings Institution, brought about greater measure of stability. "It has formed a stable government at the center, and stable coalitions in most of the provinces. It is an amazing accomplishment given how far gone Pakistan was just a few months ago," said Cohen.

And while we have to engage Pakistan's military because they are a nuclear power in a dangerous neighborhood with a destiny that may or may not involve stability, we must not forget the country's legal institutions.

Part of what motivates Asif Ali Zardari is the desire to cleanse his name from the charges of corruption, of being "Mr. 10 Percent." It would greatly behoove Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to stress the point in dealing with President Zardari that reducing the powers of his civilian government in favor of an independent Pakistani Judiciary would go great lengths to providing a sterling legacy.

From the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan's commencement address at Harvard in 2006:

"As the United States reacts to the mass murder of 9/11 and prepares for more, it would do well to consider how much terror India endured in the second half of the last century. And its response. It happens I was our man in New Delhi in 1974 when India detonated its first nuclear device. I was sent in to see Prime Minister Indira Gandhi with a statement as much as anything of regret. For there was nothing to be done; it was going to happen. The second most populous nation on earth was not going to leave itself disarmed and disregarded, as non-nuclear powers appeared to be. But leaving, I asked to speak as a friend of India and not as an official. In twenty years time, I opined, there would be a Moghul general in command in Islamabad, and he would have nuclear weapons and would demand Kashmir back, perhaps the Punjab.

"The Prime Minister said nothing; I dare to think she half agreed. In time, she would be murdered in her own garden; next, her son and successor was murdered by a suicide bomber. This, while nuclear weapons accumulated which are now poised."

The cycle of escalation between India and Pakistan over the past six decades leads, inevitably, to a nuclear confrontation unless the two Asian powers engage each other and hammer out an agreement to co-exist as neighbors peacefully. Last week's terrorist attacks will serve either as the best opportunity in decades to push for such a diplomatic engagement, or just another catalyst bringing that region to the brink of an inevitability that never had to be inevitable in the first place.

If anyone can navigate the choppy waters of advocating for an independent judiciary should not be seen as weakening President Zardari's civilian government it is Secretary of State designate Hillary Rodham Clinton, international superstar. let's hope this idea is on her political radar.