Musharraf: 'Are We to Be Abandoned Again?'

A defiant Pervez Musharraf questioned whether Pakistan will be “abandoned” by the U.S. and insisted his country has made no strategic mistakes in its participation in the war on terror.

The former Pakistani president, in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 10 at a forum sponsored by the Ethics and Public Policy Center, said that almost immediately after its founding in 1947 Pakistan joined with the West. That led to four decades of a strategic alliance between Pakistan and the U.S. until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990. “In this period the United States abandoned the place,” he said, in favor of a Eurocentric policy that concentrated on the rebuilding and reunification of Germany.

In its wake, he said, Afghanistan’s tribes went to war with each other and by 1997 Kabul was “worse than Mogadishu,” since the mujahideen brought in to defeat the Soviets “only knew how to fight and they were armed to the teeth.”

The question on Pakistani minds now that post-9/11 priorities made the U.S. and Pakistan strategic partners again, Musharraf said, is: “Are we to be abandoned again?”

Though Musharraf listed several strategic miscalculations made by the U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan, when asked by Big Peace if Pakistan had made any such mistakes, he responded that many Pakistanis believe joining the American-led coalition was a mistake–though he does not–and that drone strikes in Pakistani territory may be a mistake “thrust” upon Pakistan.

“The drone attacks do attack militants, but there is so much collateral damage that they do, and… in the minds of the people of Pakistan this is a violation of the sovereignty of Pakistan, which is unacceptable to the people. So on the whole,” Musharraf said, “I don’t think Pakistan has made a strategic mistake in its fight against terrorism and extremism.”

Musharraf said coalition forces defeated the Taliban and sent al-Qaeda on the run by mid-2002, but we missed an opening for a political solution, relying more than necessary on the Tajik Panjsheri, who Musharraf believes were given too much sway in the transitional government after the U.S.-led invasion. “We are trying to govern Afghanistan with this 8 percent minority,” he said. “Not doable.” An unstable government, in Musharraf’s telling, led to political failure and the return of al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

Musharraf often criticized rival India throughout the speech, and warned of the Islamic extremist groups within India “developing a nexus” with those in Afghanistan, Pakistan’s North-West Frontier, Yemen, Somalia, Algeria, and Mali. That nexus, he said, is all the more reason the U.S. cannot afford to leave Afghanistan until the job is done:

“As a soldier, as a military man, I can say that when you look at an enemy, you have to look at his center of gravity, and you must win at the center of gravity. The center of gravity of all this that I have said is Afghanistan and tribal agencies of Pakistan. We cannot lose there. We must win there. Therefore, quitting I don’t consider an option.”

Musharraf used President Obama’s recent trip to India–without a stop in Pakistan–as an example of the U.S. treating Pakistan as a “strategic ally” in name only, and another indication to Pakistanis that American friendship may be temporary.

“We have suffered, I don’t know, hundreds of casualties through bomb blasts in our shrines and our cities; we have suffered through floods, thousands dead, the worst flood in our history, one of the worst in the world,” he said. “We deserve a show of sympathy by a visit–a short visit. Sympathy toward a strategic partner who’s suffering.”

Musharraf said he has asked repeatedly not for token acknowledgments of American loyalty–such as modest infusions of financial aid–but of a free trade agreement with the U.S., or for Pakistan to be granted preferential trade status or additional market access. Pakistan “needs no aid. It needs trade,” he said. “Because trade means increasing the number of factories, increasing jobs, reduction in joblessness.”

Musharraf got even more defensive when he was asked about what is widely understood to be the cooperation between the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Taliban, as well as local terror groups like the Lashkar e-Taiba. He said what’s important is understanding Pakistan’s intentions, which are to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaeda–not for the U.S. or the West, but for the sake of Pakistan’s own peace and security.

The Pakistani army, he said, has suffered terrible losses in the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban, “but the United States thinks that we are helping the Taliban. The ISI has been attacked umpteen number of times… and about 300 ISI operatives have died. But we think that they are cooperating with the Taliban?” he asked rhetorically. “Isn’t there a problem in our understanding?”

He continued: “Don’t micromanage Pakistan. Don’t dictate to Pakistan what to do and what not to do. We have our forces; we know our forces… The end objective is clear–that we have to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Leave it to the Pakistan forces to deal with that.”

Musharraf was asked about the Kashmir dispute with India, and said that he was working toward an agreement when he was in office. Leadership, he said, requires sincerity, flexibility, and courage. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has the first two, he said–though he admitted that extremists on both sides have been able to hijack negotiations.

He also brushed off suggestions that as a military man he doesn’t understand the value of peace.

“I may be a man of war, but I am a man for peace,” he said.