Court Ruling Unsettles US Hopes for Pakistan

ISLAMABAD (Dec 22) -- A Supreme Court decision paving the way for the re-opening of corruption cases against key government politicians is pushing Pakistan to the edge of a political crisis -- one that could have dire consequences for the West.

The high court last week struck down the innocuously named National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), an October 2007 decree that suspended corruption cases against more than 8,000 Pakistanis, including President Asif Ali Zardari and Interior Minister Rehman Malik. The decision, widely hailed in the streets of Pakistan, is much more than a domestic issue. Zadari and Malik, who has already been issued an arrest warrant on kickback allegations, are both staunch allies of the U.S. and crucial to Washington's war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. The ruling clearly strengthens the hand of Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the chief of army staff who heads a military that harbors deep animosities toward America.

What's most striking about the Supreme Court decision is why Pakistanis endorse it. Their enthusiasm has less to do with fighting corruption than it does with anger toward the Pakistani government's support for U.S. policy in the region. "The U.S. has to realize that the Pakistani public is deeply suspicious of its role in Pakistani politics," says Khalid Rahman, director of the Institute of Policy Studies in Islamabad. "The feeling is that it was the U.S. that was behind the NRO deal in the first place. Those that benefited from the deal, men like Zardari and Malik, have continued to follow the same policy as their predecessors. The NRO, and now the Supreme Court decision to repeal it, is inherently a consequence of U.S. policy vis-a-vis the war on terror."

Indeed, when the amnesty was introduced in October 2007, Pakistan was embroiled in another political crisis. Rising militancy following the American-led invasion of Afghanistan had pushed the military regime of Gen. Pervez Musharraf to near collapse. Desperate for some legitimacy, Musharraf struck a deal with Benazir Bhutto, Zardari's wife and then the leader of the populist Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), who lived in exile to evade outstanding corruption charges against her in Pakistan. The agreement, widely believed to have been brokered by the U.S., was meant to allow for a transition to civilian rule in which, it was assumed, Musharraf would be president and Bhutto prime minister.

Bhutto's assassination on Dec. 27, 2007, threw that plan into turmoil. Musharraf's political opponents quickly capitalized on the realigned political atmosphere, leading to a short-lived alliance of civilian political parties and the forced resignation of Musharraf. For all the turmoil of the war against Islamist militants in the Pakistan provinces of Swat and South Waziristan, at least the appearance of civilian rule seemed to have been strengthened.

Most analysts agree that the amnesty's end, in turn, strengthens the army at the expense of the civilian government. That's no accident, suggests Aasim Sajjad, a political analyst at the National Institute of Pakistan in Islamabad. "If you put this decision into historical context," he says, "you can see that there is a history of judicial complicity with the army."

Whether Pakistan's generals actively influenced the Supreme Court may never be known. What's certain is that the fallout will have grave consequences for the U.S. and indeed for the world. President Barack Obama has been as keen to support Pakistan's civilian government as his predecessor was to put his entire weight behind Musharraf and the Pakistani army.

But in a time of war, the army will inevitably remain a key player. One lesson the Obama administration has quickly learned during its short tenure in the White House, however, is that the Pakistani army is not a reliable partner; it has its own agenda, which is often at odds with American interests. Now Washington may well have to deal even more closely with the army.

Nevertheless, Sajjad suggests, the court's ruling ending the amnesty -- which the government is appealing -- will not drastically alter U.S. policy in the region. "Pakistan's progress on the road to democracy is really not that important to the U.S.," he argues. "The United States doesn't pitch for democracy -- the 'democracy' it has created in Pakistan is an illusion. Instead, it pitches for its strategic interest. And its strategic interest in the region is a military one." Sajjad sees the U.S. as engaged in a futile effort to manage Pakistan's internal affairs at the expense of meaningful change. That is the prevailing view on the Pakistani street, and the primary source of anti-U.S. sentiment.

In the eyes of everyday Pakistanis, the amnesty was a stark symbol of U.S. interference in Pakistani affairs -- a corrupt law that brought corrupt politicians into power simply because they supported U.S. policy. Its demise has contradictory consequences for the Obama administration. On the one hand it creates the impression that Pakistanis are back in control of their destiny. But on the other hand, it threatens to sideline the U.S.'s closest allies, men like Zardari and Malik. If their political careers come to an end, their successors may not be as cooperative.

For the U.S., the net result is a new element thrown into an increasingly complex juggling act. At a moment when progress in the region is key for the Obama administration, it looks harder than ever to keep all the balls in the air.