RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning. And I'm Renee Montagne.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf faces protests against him, but he still has backers in Washington, where Sean McCormack is the State Department spokesman.
Mr. SEAN MCCORMACK (U.S. State Department): We are right there with Pakistan as they make these political and economic reforms that are ultimately going to result in a different kind of Pakistan. And that is the program that President Musharraf's government has laid out, and we support that; we encourage them.
INSKEEP: The prime minister who was removed by Musharraf's 1999 coup says he's mystified by statements like that. Nawaz Sharif spoke on MORNING EDITION this week.
Mr. NAWAZ SHARIF (Former Prime Minister, Pakistan): I don't know why some of the people in the U.S. administration think like that. Mr. Musharraf, I think, has the tendency of hoodwinking the West, and Mr. Musharraf has not done anything special.
INSKEEP: Nawaz Sharif spoke from exile, an exile he wants to end just as soon as Pakistan's protest against its military leader grows loud enough. This morning we will examine why the United States still backs Musharraf despite criticism from inside and outside his country.
NPR's Mary Louise Kelly reports on General Pervez Musharraf and his American allies.
MARY LOUISE KELLY: When it comes to the U.S. and Pakistan, here's one point on which everyone agrees.
Mr. BRUCE RIEDEL (Former CIA Officer): The stakes here are enormous for the United States.
KELLY: That's former CIA officer and National Security Council staffer Bruce Riedel.
Mr. RIEDEL: Pakistan is the epicenter of the war against al-Qaida. Pakistan is a nuclear weapons state. Pakistan is one of the most important Muslim countries in the world. We have an awful lot involved in the future of the political drama that's playing out now inside Pakistan. But the key is for the United States to start thinking about these issues and not tie itself to a military dictator whose days in office may very well be numbered.
KELLY: The political drama playing out in Pakistan is this: in March, Musharraf suspended the country's top judge, Iftikhar Chaudhry. Musharraf's critics say that's because Chaudhry was less than sympathetic to the president's plans to essentially bypass the constitution in seeking another five-year term while retaining his position as military chief.
Whatever the reason, Chaudhry's dismissal has triggered nationwide protests. In Karachi last month, more than 40 people were killed and there's speculation Musharraf might declare a state of emergency. But throughout all this, President Bush and his advisors have been largely uncritical.
Retired Ambassador Teresita Schaffer, who tracks South Asia issues over a 30-year career at the State Department, says Washington is calculating that Musharraf can ride this out.
Ms. TERESITA SCHAFFER (Center for Strategic and International Studies): He is the person that they've dealt with. He has close relationships with the top of the U.S. government. You know, the U.S. doesn't get to pick what leader it wants to do business with. And as I said, at the moment the U.S. policy towards Pakistan is still has antiterrorism as its top priority, and still has Musharraf at the center.
KELLY: And Musharraf has another thing going for him - the support of the military. Xenia Dormandy, former director for South Asia at the National Security Council, says Musharraf continues to command power as head of Pakistan's army.
Ms. XENIA DORMANDY (Former Director for South Asia, National Security Council): The military control Pakistan economically, defense terms, much of the government, etc., etc. The military at least publicly has said very, very clearly they're standing behind him. And so his essence of power is at least at the moment very clearly supporting him.
KELLY: Still, in diplomatic and intelligence circles in Washington a rethinking is underway, says former CIA deputy director John McLaughlin.
Mr. JOHN MCLAUGHLIN (Former CIA Deputy Director): I think the United States faces a real dilemma in Pakistan. We're looking at a person who's been a solid partner in counterterrorism but who is, by any measure weaker politically and somewhat embattled at this point. The dilemma is what do you do; not that the United States can determine the next steps in Pakistan, but if we were to favor something or encourage a move or a direction, what would it be?
KELLY: That's the question that keeps bubbling up in Congress, where support for Musharraf is looking shaky. Since 9/11 the U.S. has give Pakistan some $10 billion in aid. In January, the House passed a measure making future military aid contingent on counterterrorism performance. And this week the leaders of the House and Senate Foreign Relations Committee wrote a blunt letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urging Pakistan to hold free and fair elections and calling for an end to, quote, "the spiral of civil unrest and harshly suppressed protest in Pakistan." But it's not looking likely that aid, perhaps the U.S.'s greatest leverage over Musharraf, will in fact be withheld.
Part of what U.S. policymakers are struggling with is the fear that whoever follows Musharraf could be worse, much worse. Former Senator John Edwards made the point in the Democratic presidential debate this past Sunday.
Mr. JOHN EDWARDS (Democratic Presidential Nominee): And one danger that anyone has to recognize with the possible taking down of Musharraf is if he goes out of power, given the power of radical Islam in Pakistan, there's absolutely no way to know what kind of government will take his place.
KELLY: But many Pakistan experts, including CIA veteran Bruce Riedel, say it's unlikely Islamist fundamentalists could take over.
Mr. BRUCE RIEDEL (CIA Veteran): Musharraf has done an excellent job of persuading this administration that if he falls, the next person who comes to power is going to be a crazed Islamic fanatic. I've heard the same thing not only from Musharraf, but from his two immediate predecessors, who both said the same thing. After me, you're going to deal with the bearded Islamic crazies. Pakistan's politics is a little more complicated than that.
KELLY: This few takes into account the fact that Islamist hardliners captured only a fraction of the vote in the most recent elections in Pakistan. But could they come to power not through the polls but through assassination or a coup? The question takes on particular gravity in a country with nuclear weapons. Ambassador Schaffer argues that even if Islamists took power, a scenario she too considers unlikely, it would still be the army with its hands on the nuclear trigger.
Ms. SCHAFFER: And I think that the mechanisms that the Pakistan army uses to control the nuclear weapons would not change appreciably if you had a change in government. They would still control access to the nuclear facilities. They would still control who has access to the codes. It would still not be possible for somebody just to wander up to the gate of a nuclear facility and walk out with a couple of bombs in his briefcase.
KELLY: As Washington watches and waits to see how events will unfold in Pakistan, problems are pressing. There is concern about the security of Pakistan's nuclear facilities. There's frustration in U.S. military and intelligence circles that al-Qaida and the Taliban appear to have re-established sanctuaries inside Pakistan, and that Pakistan appears unwilling or unable to do much about it.
And of course Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri are still at large, believed to be roaming inside the Afghan-Pakistan tribal belt, probably according to U.S. intelligence, on the Pakistani side of the border. For now, U.S. security officials appear to have ruled out more unilateral strikes against suspected terrorists inside Pakistan for fear of further destabilizing the government of Pervez Musharraf, the government on which the clock may now be running out.
Mary Louise Kelly, NPR News, Washington. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
