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 Of one thing
Pakistan can be sure, a new era in politics has dawned.
With an alliance of Islamic parties giving an unexpectedly strong
showing in the elections last week, a major shift in the
country’s foreign and internal policies can be expected. But the strong showing of the Mutahidda Majlis-e-Amal (MMA)
could also, despite what was initially feared, work in favor of the
war on terror in Afghanistan.
Iran, Iraq factor:
One important aspect of the emergence of the Islamic parties is Pakistan's
future relations with Iran and Iraq.
The JI's Qazi Hussain Ahmed
is well liked in Tehran, and whenever he visits the country he
is treated like a head of state. He has had ties with the
Islamic parties there since the early 1970s, and his party Jammat Islami played
an important role in the Ayatollah Khomeini-led Islamic
revolution that swept the Shah out of power in 1979.
Prior to
the revolution, and while Khomeini was in exile in Paris, Qazi
Hussain Ahmed was instrumental in having his tapes and
literature smuggled into Iran to stir the masses.
It is believed that the Iranian ambassador in Pakistan was the
first person to ring Qazi Hussain Ahmed and congratulate him on
his success in the polls, and convey an invitation from
President Khatami for a visit to Tehran. This
special relationship will undoubtedly have an effect on
Pakistan's ties, which are strained at present due to
Islamabad's pro-US policies.
As far as Iraq is concerned, Saddam Hussein has traditionally
focused his attention on the "nuisance" groups within Pakistan,
rather than deal with the government itself.
Maulana Samiul Haq
and Maulana Fazalur Rehman, the leaders of their own factions in
the Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam and members of the MMA, have very
special relations with Iraq. Both have on many occasions been
official guests of the Iraqi government. And Maulana Shah Ahmed
Noorani also has close relations with Saddam. These men are
reported to already have had private meetings with the Iraq
ambassador to Pakistan. Further, the Iraqi government has
contributed generously to many of the Islamic seminaries
operated by these religious leaders. Recently, at a
graduation ceremony at Daralulom Akora Khattak (where Taliban
leader Mullah Omar received his education), the Iraqi ambassador
was the chief guest.
These factors guarantee that should such people as Haq, Rehman
and Qazi Hussain Ahmed form a part of the new government, and
even if they don't, for that matter, there will be intense
pressure for a reappraisal in Islamabad's ties with Tehran and
Iraq.
Taliban factor:
The MMA, a patchwork of at five diverse Islamic parties, some
of whom had deep links with the Taliban, in a post-election
statement, said, "We are ready to cooperate with the United
States in the war against terrorism, but the Americans should
not expect support from us in the war against Islam or Muslims."
A spokesman of the alliance, told the Associated Press in
Islamabad recently that the MMA sought good relations with the
US, and that the latter need not have any misgivings on that
score. He expressed the MMA's readiness to forthwith talk with
American officials to work out their mutual interests. He was
reported as saying that the MMA would show flexibility
regardless of its pronouncementsduring the election
campaign, and would like to cooperate with the war in
Afghanistan.
The MMA includes the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) faction led by
Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Maulana Samiul Haq, which has strong
influence among the Taliban as many of them were trained in JUP-run
madrassas (religious schools). The Jamaat-i-Islami party
(JI), one of the biggest MMA constituent groups, was the flag
carrier of the Afghan mujahideen in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Its leader, Qazi Hussein Ahmad, was the patron of mujahideen
leaders such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
The MMA has a controlling representation in the North West
Frontier Province (NWFP) Assembly, and the largest single party
status in the Baluchistan Assembly, both of which provinces lie
in the volatile Pashtun tribal area on the border with
Afghanistan. The MMA garnered the third largest number of
federal parliament seats(53) - after the Pakistan Muslim League
Quaid-e-Azam (PML-QA) with 73 and the Pakistan People's Party
Parliamentarian (PPPP) with 63.
In the days following the polls -Qazi Hussein Ahmad, Amir Jamaat
Islami clarified that the MMA's stated opposition to the
presence of American troops on Pakistani soil itself was
"negotiable". He assured the Americans, "We will show
flexibility and we will take all the steps in the best national
interest."
The Islamic parties' doublespeak on issues of Pakistan's foreign
and security policy is not something new. Given the
traditionally anti-American public mood in Pakistan and the
constant compulsion to project themselves as political forces,
parties such as the JI and JUI resort to public rhetoric of an
inflammatory kind, while they have shown time and again that
they are capable of pragmatism bordering on political cynicism
in coming to terms with the realities of Pakistan's national
life and the raison d-etre of Pakistan's geopolitics.
Most of the MMA leaders are experienced in the ground rules of
Pakistan's parliamentary politics, and the culture of popular
governance. The more worthy among them are even the progenies of
the Pakistani establishment, and all of them at one time or the
other have been fellow travellers of the establishment. In the
present context, most important of all, they will now be
"stakeholders" of the system, rather than embittered outsiders
intriguing to destabilize it.
But what is often forgotten is that the Islamic parties of
Pakistan are extremely well known to the Americans historically.
These parties were pillars of the political establishment under
successive military dictatorships in Pakistan during the Cold
War era. They may be parochial in their world views, but their
leaders have worked particularly closely with the Americans over
decades. For example, Maulana Fazlur Rahman, as chairman of the
foreign relations committee of the Pakistan National Assembly in
1993-94, was even received in US State Department, espousing the
Taliban cause. The JI during the 70's and 80's were suspected of
being supported and funded by the CIA in thier major
opposition to Russian and Chinese communist influences in
Pakistan politics. During the same time the Pakistani
establishment, more particularly the army, had very close and
cordial relationship with the West specially during the Aghan
War.
Thus, the Pakistani security establishment's traditional armlock
on outfits such as the JI and JUI should come in very handy for
the US at this juncture in stabilizing the Afghan situation.
Pakistani political observers have commented that the MMA's
electoral success in Pakistan's border provinces has not come as
a surprise to the Americans. The official American reaction,
indeed, has eschewed any note of alarm over the MMA's rise.
At a time when Pashtun consciousness is resurfacing in
Afghanistan in the vacuum left by the Taliban's compelling
Islamist ideology, the MMA can serve a useful role for
furthering Pakistani (and US) interests inside Afghanistan.
Significantly, the political alignments within Afghanistan are
themselves changing, which would mesh with the changes in
Pakistan. A new phase of transition in the post-Taliban power
structure in Kabul is under way. Ground is being prepared to
ensure the preeminence of President Hamid Karzai within the
transitional government in Kabul. This is a pressing
prerequisite for the advancement of Afghan reconstruction,
especially for the proposed massive Trans-Afghan oil and gas
pipeline project.
Accordingly, the Northern Alliance groups are being downsized.
These groups, which provided the foot soldiers for the overthrow
of the Taliban government, are no longer indispensable to the
war, which has a manifestly wider agenda today; they may even be
standing in the way.
Fortuitously, the easing out of the Northern Alliance is not
that messy since the alliance itself is disintegrating.
The Tajiks, who were the largest constituents of the Northern
Alliance, face isolation, and they have yet to fill the huge
void left by the assassination of Ahmed Shah Massoud last year.
The influence of Tajiks (and of external
powers traditionally supporting them) in the post-Taliban setup
in Kabul has been a sticking point for Pakistan. But by
realigning the power structure, the Americans are fulfilling an
important pre-condition for Pakistani cooperation, which is
vital for the Americans at this juncture for the overall success
of the war in Afghanistan and even further abroad.
This is particularly so in the south and southeastern regions of
Afghanistan. It is here in the Pashtun provinces (contiguous to
Pakistan's NWFP and Baluchistan) that the war is showing mixed
results. Pakistan wields deep influence among the Pashtun tribes
and among the disorganized eastern Pashtun tribes.
The American dependence on Pakistan in this regard is
particularly acute since the southeastern tribes are today
lacking in unified leadership.
Karzai's leadership has not gained acceptability among the
southeastern Pashtuns. Equally, the restiveness among these
tribes provides fertile ground for Taliban sympathizers, and
mujahideen leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who is equally opposing
the US presence in Afghanistan. Mullah Umar and Hekmatyar might
therefore join forces.
Pakistan can lend a big hand in incrementally isolating these
forces of militancy and in harnessing a support base for Karzai.
Within this context, the Islamic parties in Pakistan are useful
conduits.
They can be expected to act in concert by finessing the forces
of resurgent Pashtun ethnicity and tribalism (and Islamist
fervor) in directions that become reconcilable with overall
American geopolitical interests. The Islamic parties can bring
to bear into the situation their deep and extensive networking
with the jihadi constituency in the southeastern provinces.
They are in a position to act as a bridge between the Americans
and the "acceptable faces" of the erstwhile Taliban leadership.
A new social contract for sustaining a "variation on the old
establishment" is in
the making - built around Afghan bazaari interests,
vigorously supported by the forces of globalization, with a
residual Pashtun tribal network and ulema, Diaspora of
technocrats and royalists brought in, and an anointed king of an
earlier era lending legitimacy whenever occasions arise. It is
being expected that such a strategy will hopefully consign the Afghan mujahideen and their guns to
history.
In the backdrop of such a strategy and tribal-oriented Afghan politics vis-a-vis West's war against
terrorism, Pakistan's new and emerging political forces
may actually play a pivotal role in facilitating West's regional
geopolitical goals rather than roadblocking them.
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