Count me as less than enthralled with McCain’s foreign policy agenda. For one thing, he typifies the kind of badly-reasoned Cold War realism that is all-too-eager to embrace foreign dictators. Consider, for example, what he had to say about Pervez Musharraf back in December of 2007:
Prior to Musharraf, Pakistan was a failed state. They had corrupt governments and they would rotate back and forth and there was corruption, and Musharraf basically restored order. So you’re going to hear a lot of criticism about Musharraf that he hasn’t done everything we wanted him to do, but he did agree to step down as head of the military and he did get the elections.
Earth to John: time to dig in to the history books. The fact is, if it weren’t for the likes of Musharraf, Pakistan would be on a much more stable and democratic path. The country’s constitution stipulates a parliamentary democracy, and elections have repeatedly resulted in wins for mainstream and relatively moderate parties like the PPP and PML. Extremist parties have never received more than 12% of the vote; nor is the trend going in their favor. With these latest elections, for instance, support for conservative Islamic parties showed a considerable decline.
While the civilian leadership has been far from perfect, the military has only further undercut the possibility of stability and democracy. Under the rule of Zia ul-Huq in the 1980s, civil liberties were restricted, elections were repeatedly promised but not delivered upon, considerable money was poured into the Afghani mujahideen, and efforts were ramped up to develop a nuclear bomb. Hell of a legacy, no? As Juan Cole — who gets a big hat tip for giving John McCain a historical reality check of his own — notes, Zia’s ending finale was a slate of 16 democracy-gutting martial law amendments that included granting the president the ability to dismiss the parliament and the prime minister. Perhaps more than anything, these amendments have set back the cause of Pakistani stability.
Indeed, those provisions have been used numerous times to sack civilian governments. Ghulam Ishaq Khan, the military president who took over after Zia, cited the amendments in order to kick out the administrations of both Sharif and Bhutto. As Cole points out, “it was not the fault of the civilian political parties that the governments would ‘rotate back and forth,’ in McCain’s words.” It was the fault of the military elite.
How about the claim that Musharraf has brought order to a failed state? Also wrong, by almost every account. Musharraf has pushed the country towards greater authoritarianism – a legacy that most observers consider to be a highly destabilizing factor. By failing to grant civilian parties a viable place in the political process, extremism and a general climate of frustration have grown. Indeed, it’s hard to argue that the siege of the Red Mosque, the sacking of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudry, the broad-based popular protests that followed, and the failure to protect Benazir Bhutto from assassination have done anything but put the country on more wobbly ground.
McCain swings and misses on the corruption issue as well. Although there are few concrete statistics, it is likely that military control and manipulation of the economy has actually increased during Musharraf’s tenure. The military owns five large conglomerates, known as “welfare foundations,” that run thousands of businesses. “The main street of any Pakistani town bears testament to their economic power, with military-owned bakeries, banks, insurance companies and universities, usually fronted by civilian employees,” according to The Guardian. Although all of the profits from these businesses are supposed to go back into schools and health care facilities, there is little transparency. (Of the 96 businesses run by the four largest foundations, for example, only nine file public accounts.)The book Military Inc. suggests that the military controls 70 percent of the gas stations in Lahore, and that it runs as much as 7% of the country’s private-sector assets.
McCain either needs to start reading the paper, or stop distorting issues — and sticking up for dictators — that he knows little about.