This past week, Pakistan announced a negotiated truce of sorts with tribal leaders in north Waziristan. Under the agreement, both agreed not to attack the other or harbor terrorists. Some of the 80,000 Pakistani light infantry troops located in the region began pulling back to staging areas like the Tochi Scouts compound in Miram Shah.
The timing could not be worse for President Pervez Musharraf. His neighbor President Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan has been railing about poor border security for months. NATO?facing a seemingly endless flow of Taliban fighters and bumper crop of poppies?is also not happy. In the United States , Americans are conducting memorials around the country to remember the victims of September 11, 2001 . Somehow fewer troops in north Waziristan does not seem to align Pakistan with either its neighbors or the West.
Musharraf implicitly acknowledged these facts on September 9, when Pakistani officials began advising the media that the truce in north Waziristan did not mean all the Pakistani troops were leaving. This military shell game may provide Musharraf some political relief regarding his relationship with Karzai and with President Bush, but it will not do much to solve Musharraf’s headaches closer to home: the primary reasons the Pakistani military signed the peace agreement to begin with.
The Pakistani military is at full throttle. Military and intelligence commanders have apportioned their resources against three competing priorities: (1) the hunt for Osama Bin Ladin, (2) squashing Baluchi rebels, and (3) keeping an eye on India , which is still smarting from the July Mumbai train bombings for which it blames Pakistani-sponsored Kashmiri separatists.
Musharraf is also feeling the heat from Islamists inside Pakistan. Many believe Musharraf should do more to Islamicize Pakistan, such as providing more resources for “liberation” of Kashmir and supporting for tough Islamic legal penalties?the so-called hadood laws–implemented under former President Zia al-Haq.
Meanwhile, Musharraf (rightly) fears additional assassination attempts from Bin Ladin’s al-Qaeda , the Taliban, and other terrorists whose lives he has made difficult since aligning with the US in 2001. Al-Qaeda terrorists have tried to kill him at least twice (Terrorist Incident and Terrorist Incident), and they may yet succeed.
Being the prime minister in Pakistan clearly is not easy. Previous Pakistani leaders have been indicted, exiled, or simply died suddenly. Musharraf has been in office nearly seven years and looks as though he will try to stay there. His untimely departure, however, would leave a significant vacuum. As conflicted as he has been over the last five years, Musharraf has been a fairly steady US ally and well compensated for it. It is unclear how a new Pakistani leader would address issues such as nuclear proliferation, Bin Ladin, and the Taliban, let alone more mundane issues such as human rights and market reforms.
Regardless, in the near-term, it looks as though the Pakistani troops in Waziristan will get a break from patrolling at elevation this winter, at least until the US or NATO compels Musharraf to change his mind?just one more ball in the air in a constant juggling act that may have more history at this point than it does future.
