Working With a Dictator
President Bush's feeble response to Pakistan's coup mocks the 'freedom agenda.'

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

PAKISTANI PRESIDENT Pervez Musharraf claims that he suspended the constitution and imposed de facto martial law Saturday to save his country from Islamic extremists. But his crackdown has been directed almost entirely at Pakistan's moderate, secular and pro-democracy opposition -- the very people who could offer a political alternative to the Taliban and al-Qaeda. At least 500 lawyers, judges, political party leaders, human rights activists and journalists have been arrested. Independent television stations have been shut. Lawyers who tried to demonstrate against the repression in front of the Supreme Court yesterday were attacked by security forces.

Mr. Musharraf is waging war not against extremism but against democracy. He acted because he feared the Supreme Court was preparing to rule that his orchestrated reelection as president last month was unconstitutional. He was seeking to escape from commitments made to Pakistan's secular political leaders and to the Bush administration that he would step down as army commander by Nov. 15 and hold free and fair parliamentary elections early next year.

The choice the United States and other Western governments now face is not between Mr. Musharraf and the terrorist forces he has sporadically combated since 2001. It is between a deeply unpopular, ineffective and politically exhausted military ruler who is trying to extend his tenure by force and one of the Muslim world's largest and most liberal civil societies. President Bush has rightly said that democracy is the best antidote to the totalitarianism of Islamic extremists. Mr. Musharraf's own record is proof that autocratic governments only make extremism stronger.

There should be no question as to which side the United States is on. Yet so far the administration has hedged its bets. It has called Mr. Musharraf's measures "extreme" and said it "cannot support emergency rule." But Mr. Bush said yesterday that "we want to continue working with him" on counterterrorism, and officials have made clear that aid directed at that collaboration -- which is most of the U.S. aid Pakistan receives -- will not be affected. The general probably will regard that stance as an acquiescence to his coup -- as will most Pakistanis and the millions of other Muslims around the world who are watching the U.S. response.

The United States should explicitly and fully support Pakistan's civilian politicians and judges. Such a stance need not cause the downfall of Mr. Musharraf; he still has the option to back down, restore the constitution and schedule elections. But as things stand, if he manages to withstand the almost universal domestic opposition to his coup, the United States will be blamed for propping him up -- and for taking the wrong side in a crucial test of its seriousness about fighting extremism with democracy.