KEY POINTS:
After the Red Mosque siege, what does the future hold for Musharraf?
Why are we asking this now?
After a standoff lasting a week, Pakistani troops backed by heavy artillery blasted their way into the Red Mosque in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, killing about 75 and bringing an end to the boldest act of defiance of Pakistan's military dictator since he seized power in 1999.
What led to the siege?
For the past six months Islamist students in the capital have been trying to force the imposition of sharia law in Islamabad and throughout Pakistan, attacking music and clothes shops and other symbols of secularism.
Are Islamists the only ones offended by Musharraf?
No, at this point large sections of Pakistani society are hostile to him. The general's failure to reintroduce genuine democracy, his hamfisted efforts to throttle the free media and his attempt to get another presidential term without the inconvenience of free and fair elections have alienated even those who repose little faith in former prime ministers Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, both in exile.
What are the roots of discontent?
For one thing, he has been around too long. After years of misgovernment by the elected Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, the general was accepted with scarcely a murmur of dissent when he took power in a bloodless coup in 1999. But his promises to give way to a democratically elected government were broken. Then after 9/11 the United States demanded that the world's only Islamic nuclear power be "100 per cent with us or 100 per cent against us". He has tried to have it both ways, running with the Islamist hares and hunting with the American hounds. He has thereby lost much support in Washington and the trust of practically everybody, secular and religious alike, for different reasons, at home.
Why did it take him so long to act against the Red Mosque?
Musharraf is a conviction secularist, but in the internal struggle against Islamic fanatics his bravado seemed to desert him. The fact that the military intelligence agency ISI contains Islamists at the highest level, and was the creator and main backer of the Taleban, may have made a showdown with the religious forces out of the question.
What was the balance of risk?
Musharraf's critics, including the opposition leader Imran Khan, are fond of pointing out that the fatal mistake made by India's tyrannical leader Indira Gandhi in 1984 was to send in the heavy artillery against the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Sikhism's holy of holies, to dislodge rebels holed up inside it. She was subsequently assassinated by her own Sikh bodyguard. They claim Musharraf may have made a similar grotesque error. But many in Pakistan and India find a more instructive parallel in the hijacking of Indian Airlines flight 814 in December 1999. The Islamist hijackers of the airliner landed at Kandahar in southern Afghanistan and demanded the freeing from Indian prisons of three Islamist leaders. The Indian government finally relented. It was a humiliation from which the Vajpayee Government never recovered. And the repercussions in Pakistan were felt for years.
Is there an alternative ruler?
Pakistan's two recent civilian prime ministers, Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, are waiting in the wings. Bhutto announced this week that she plans to stand for a third term as Prime Minister. Neither former leader elicits much excitement in Pakistan, however, except among the political clans loyal to them, due to their lacklustre performance in power. Another possibility is that Musharraf could be brought down by an internal coup.
So who is the real victor in the Red Mosque siege?
Musharraf's dismal ratings are likely to improve if it emerges that the fanatics inside the mosque who want to Talebanise Pakistan have been defeated. But if it turns out innocent women and children have died, opponents will have a new stick with which to beat the general.
- INDEPENDENT
