Pakistan after Musharraf

With Musharraf out of office, the campaign against extremists in Pakistan's tribal areas continues. Three hundred thousand civilians have now fled the al Qa'eda stronghold during a major army operation. Nato is divided on how to respond to the challenge posed by Russia after the war in Georgia. No clear evidence that Russia has begun to withdraw its troops.

"The immediate reaction in Pakistan's corridors of power and streets to the resignation of President Pervez Musharraf was one of optimism and opportunity," Salman Masood reported for The New York Times. "'His resignation will bring stability hopefully,' said Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi. He noted that the stock market, which had suffered in recent sessions, had reacted positively. "Aitzaz Ahsan, the leader of a lawyers' movement that has been pushing for Mr Musharraf's ouster and the reinstatement of 57 dismissed judges, said the resignation was a cause 'to rejoice'." In The Guardian, Jason Burke wrote: "Musharraf's problems are far from over. Though covered for his military coup in 1999 by a constitutional amendment, he has no such protection for the state of emergency he declared last autumn, bar some contested court judgments, and is thus going to be open to prosecution as long as he remains in Pakistan. There are also a lot of people - mainly militants - who want to kill him. "For the moment, Musharraf looks likely to be spared the courts. Some will regret that Pakistan has been spared a long and drawn-out battle to hold Musharraf to account. 'An impeachment would have taken a long time but would have shown that coup-makers can be held accountable for their actions and set an important precedent,' said Professor Osama Siddique, a constitutional expert at Lahore University of Management Sciences. "Yet the key factor in Musharraf's today's decision, one friend said bitterly, was his 'hanging out to dry' by the army. Another way of looking at it is that General Ashfaq Kayani - who replaced the president as head of Pakistan's military when Musharraf belatedly became a civilian leader last year - has decided to restore the army's battered reputation domestically and internationally by withdrawing to the role of 'guarantor' of Pakistani democracy, rather than being its dominant actor." Randeep Ramesh said: "Despite nine years of Musharraf's 'enlightened moderation' Pakistan has not been transformed. His alliance with the United States might have suited Washington but it enraged and radicalised large sections of Pakistani society. In a poll earlier this year a third of Pakistanis said they had a positive view of al Qa'eda - twice as many as those who responded positively about the United States. Half of the people questioned believed the United States was the country's 'greatest threat'. "There's little doubt that Islamic militancy in Pakistan has spread during Musharraf's time in power. This has left a military that is unable to control a generation of Islamic militants and an intelligence agency with an even greater appetite to control domestic politics. But such things are a minority pursuit. The real problems begin with the ideas - those of victimhood and overt militarism - used to glue Pakistan together. "This failure cannot be laid entirely at Musharraf's door. It goes back much further than him. Pakistan has for too long been an ideological state rather than a functional one. This has left a terrible legacy on the psyche of its people." Meanwhile, for The Australian, Bruce Loudon reported: "A human tide of more than 300,000 civilians has fled the al Qa'eda badlands, amid indications that the fighting there has reached unprecedented levels, with the Pakistani army using massive firepower to attack jihadi militant strongholds. "Helicopter gunships, fixed-wing strike aircraft, tanks and heavy artillery have been used in the onslaught that followed the visit last month by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to Washington, where he was berated for Pakistan's failure to wipe out the militants... "Pakistani television showed thousands of civilians caught in the crossfire streaming out of the Bajaur, Mohmand and Kurrum agencies during the fighting estimated to have killed more than 500 militants. Tens of thousands of people are camping on the perimeter of Peshawar, the capital of the North West Frontier Province, and some have reached Rawalpindi, the garrison city adjoining Islamabad. "New security tsar Rehman Malik, the architect of the get-tough policy against the militants who have over-run the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, said at least 220,000 civilians had been displaced. But welfare agencies said the figure was probably well in excess of 300,000."

Nato divided on how to deal with Russia

"On the eve of a special meeting of their foreign ministers to discuss the conflict in Georgia, Nato governments are divided on what to do about Russia," wrote Paul Reynolds for the BBC. "There is a sense that a watershed has been reached. The fears of the last few years, that Russia is a new threat not a new friend, are, for some, being realised." In an editorial, The Times said: "Nato will be 60 next year - past retirement age for most personnel under its command. Until the Georgian war, retirement, to many, seemed an option for Nato itself. It had triumphed in the Cold War against the Warsaw Pact with scarcely a shot fired in anger. It had rained high explosive on Kosovo, ending Serbian ethnic cleansing of Muslims there. But in Afghanistan, too complex command structures and absurd restrictions on some of its members' deployments too often have made its operations ineffectual. In Europe, polls taken before the Aug 8 invasion of Georgia found that decreasing numbers of taxpayers thought Nato vital for security. In Brussels, Nato officials are as undecided as their EU counterparts on whether to help work towards an enhanced EU defence capability, and if so how. "Aug 8 provided a moment of clarity. The impunity with which Moscow ordered heavy armour into Georgia showed that the principle of collective security on which Nato is based remains the only serious guarantee of its members' borders. It showed that Russia seeks nothing less than a veto on further Nato expansion. And it showed that the price of denying Russia that veto could be high: absent the threat of mutually assured destruction, the notion that an attack on one Nato member state is an attack on all, to be resisted by all, now seems more likely to lead to conflict than at any time in the Cold War." In The Wall Street Journal, Ronald Asmus, deputy assistant secretary of state for the Clinton administration, wrote: "Russia's invasion of Georgia is a game changer. This war is part of a Russian strategy of roll-back and regime change on its borders. The more evidence that comes in, the clearer it is becoming that this is a conflict Moscow planned, prepared for and provoked - a trap Tbilisi unfortunately walked into. A core Western assumption since 1991 - that Moscow would never again invade its neighbors - has been shattered. As Moscow basks in its moment of nationalistic triumphalism, the West needs to take steps to prevent further Russian moves from spreading instability to others parts of Europe. "If they want to contain this crisis, Nato foreign ministers meeting here tomorrow need to focus on two strategic imperatives. The Alliance must take steps to reassure those members fearing Russian pressure that Nato's mutual-defense commitments are credible and real. And ministers must consider speeding up enlargement plans to lock in stability in the Balkans and bring in Ukraine and the southern Caucasus." Meanwhile, The Washington Post reported from Gori: "Russia pledged Sunday to begin removing its troops from Georgia on Monday, but the streets of this occupied city reflected a broadening, not a waning, of Russia's military incursion. "President Dmitry Medvedev vowed to 'begin the withdrawal of the military contingent' starting Monday. Russian leaders have made contradictory and at times clearly false statements about their troops' plans and positions ever since the Georgia operation began. On Saturday, a top Russian general told reporters that his country had no troops in Gori. "During a reporter's 24-hour stay in the city this weekend, Russian soldiers roamed the streets in armoured personnel carriers and waved Kalashnikov rifles to prevent entry to a captured Georgian military base that is now the Russian headquarters. Russian soldiers dug fortified positions for tanks along highways east and west of Gori and trucked in television and radio equipment to begin broadcasting in their own language." McClatchy Newspapers reported: "As Russian troops pounded through Georgia last week, the Kremlin and its allies repeatedly pointed to one justification above all others: The Georgian military had destroyed the city of Tskhinvali. "Russian politicians and their partners in Tskhinvali, the capital of the breakaway region South Ossetia, said that when Georgian forces tried to seize control of the city and the surrounding area, the physical damage was comparable to Stalingrad and the killings similar to the Holocaust. "But a trip to the city on Sunday, without official escorts, revealed a very different picture... "Not only was the destruction in Tskhinvali a far cry from Stalingrad after World War II, it was well short of what happened in the southern Beirut suburbs during Israel's war with Hizbollah in the summer of 2006, or the Iraqi city of Fallujah during US fighting against insurgents in November 2004. "In short, the city was scarred but still standing."