cfr.org, Washington: Pakistan is more stable than it appears and the extremists targeting President Pervez Musharraf lack adequate armed might and political backing to seize power, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) has said quoting experts.
Examining the seriousness of the fundamentalist threat in Pakistan, the CFR said the two near-miss assassination attempts on Musharraf last month have intensified fears that radical Islamists are bent on destabilizing nuclear-armed Pakistan.
Looking at the scenario if Musharraf were to be assassinated, the CFR said in an article that the general, who seized power in a 1999 coup, would probably be replaced by a “Western-leaning” army man.
The leading candidate, CFR quoted some experts as saying, was General Muhammad Yousaf Khan, the current army vice chief of staff.
“While any transition would create instability, some experts say Pakistan could weather the crisis, at least initially.” “I don't see Pakistan as a society in turmoil or on the knife's edge between order and disorder,”
Nicholas Platt, former US ambassador to Pakistan, was quoted as saying. “I think that the stability provided by an essentially moderate population and a strong military is greater than meets the eye.”
A post-Musharraf government would not abandon Musharraf's pro-US policies, the CFR said. The army would prevail and continue Musharraf's policies, it said.
“On the other hand, Islamic fundamentalists could attempt to use the situation to bargain for more power. Over time, this could lead to a power sharing arrangement between Islamic parties and the military – an outcome that troubles many US policymakers.”
One Pakistan expert does not see the threat of a Islamic fundamentalist take-over as imminent. Marvin Weinbaum, scholar in residence at the Wets Asia Institute, said the consequences of the fundamentalists eventually coming to power in partnership with the military “would be very consequential for American interests.” The question was, he said, “whether the military would feel they would have to take some actions which could placate some of the religious elements.”
As for whether Pakistan's nuclear weapons would be at risk, the CFR pointed out that the country's nuclear weapons were under the military's control and “the military is Pakistan's strongest institution.” Pakistan's nuclear arsenal was stored at facilities scattered around the country, it said, “making a hasty deployment improbable.” “The army is the glue of society and will continue to be so,” says Platt.
The army, he said, had a “very firm hold over the military facilities … and the specter of radical Islamists taking over and brandishing the Islamic bomb is rather far-fetched.”
On whether support for radical Islamic groups would grow if Musharraf were eliminated, the CRF report said many experts of the opinion that most Pakistanis support Musharraf and “they would be horrified by his murder.” According to Platt, the army would come down on Islamists like “a ton of bricks” if they were the perpetrators.
It said it was impossible to know what percentage of Pakistanis support fundamentalist Islam. Some experts put the figure at 10 percent, the CFR article added. Even given that it was a small percentage, one percent of the population of a nation of 150 million could be “1.5 million people with their finger on the trigger,” says Arnaud de Borchgrave, director of the Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
It says that while some experts believe that there was a “great deal of sympathy” within the army for the radical religious right, others have doubts that there was a large enough group in the army that sympathetic to the radials.
“On the other hand, even if a small percentage is willing to block Musharraf's orders to crack down on militants, it can greatly undermine the army's effectiveness,” CFR said.
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