With five words in an
interview with reporters for The Times yesterday, Gen. Pervez Musharraf
showed how far removed he is from understanding what democracy is, never
mind fulfilling his oft-broken promise to lead Pakistan back toward a stable
and prosperous future.
Asked about Benazir Bhutto's
call for his resignation, General Musharraf, Pakistan's president, shot back
that the opposition leader, who is under house arrest, ''has no right to
ask.'' Oh, really?
Although General Musharraf
seems to believe that he can continue calling the shots, his political space
is narrowing. Ms. Bhutto has ruled out a power-sharing deal with him in a
future government. Washington had hoped such an agreement would be the key
to Pakistan's transition back to democracy. And is there anyone who assigns
any credence to his claims that he declared martial law to assure free and
fair elections?
The world knows what it would
look like if the general were serious about giving up a dictator's power. He
would resign as the army's chief of staff by tomorrow, the day he is
supposed to be sworn in for another term as president. He would reinstate
the Supreme Court justices that he dismissed so they could not declare his
''re-election'' to be the sham that it so evidently was -- rather than have
it validated by pliant justices he installed after declaring martial law.
In the interview, General
Musharraf continued to defy Pakistan's Constitution -- and direct appeals by
President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice -- by
refusing to say when he would step down as army leader. He offered a
ludicrous defense of his scrapping the Constitution, dismissing the Supreme
Court and arresting some 2,500 opposition party workers, lawyers and human
rights advocates -- and gave no hint when he might lift martial law.
Although he proved his
tough-guy bona fides by rising to the top army post and then staging a
bloodless coup in 1999, General Musharraf looks increasingly weak. He has
taken to petty name-calling against the head of Pakistan's human rights
commission. Putting political rivals under house arrest makes it seem as if
he fears them as much, if not more, than Al Qaeda and the Taliban, which are
the real threats to his country and beyond.
Deputy Secretary of State
John Negroponte is scheduled to meet General Musharraf in Islamabad later
this week. We hope his message will be unambiguous. General Musharraf must
lift martial law, reinstate constitutional processes, release political
detainees, unfetter the media, give up his army post and accept whatever
ruling the Supreme Court makes on his eligibility to be president. He must
set a firm date for elections in January and facilitate everything -- an
election commission, voter registration, media access, international
monitors -- to make those polls as free and fair as possible.
Otherwise, the United States,
which has provided Pakistan with more than $10 billion since Sept. 11, 2001,
should condition some of that assistance on Islamabad's performance in
fighting extremists and reconsider aid not directly linked to
counterterrorism, like support for the F-16s that Washington let Pakistan
buy. It should also shift money toward political parties, schools and courts
to help the Pakistani people build a democracy.
The United States has core
interests in Pakistan that need to be defended. That means standing firm for
a stable civil society and democratic processes, fighting terrorism and
securing the nation's nuclear arsenal.
