GEN. MUSHARRAF RESCUES SELF FROM POLITICAL DEFEAT BY GOING AFTER ISLAMIC RADICALS IN RED MOSQUE

Aamer Ahmed Khan writes for the BBC that Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf has emerged from the Red Mosque uprising as the West's best hope against Islamic extremism. This was the same General Musharraf who two weeks ago was fighting for his political life as a result of his peremptory firing of the Chief Justice of the Pakistan Supreme Court, Iftikhar Chaudhry. Se my post here on May 7, 2007, and here on May 5, 2007.

With a perceptive and analytical pen, Khan writes:

"The war drums being beaten by the opposition at home were reaching a crescendo. [Musharraf's] battle with the country's chief justice had taken a serious toll on his image as a military man who loathes the pettiness of everyday politics. More importantly, perhaps, his Western allies seemed to be getting increasingly impatient with his seeming inability to deal decisively with Islamist extremists."

Musharraf was then faced with the "moral police," young students of the Red Mosque, who were going around confronting music store owners and women working in massage parlors.

"Demanding strict enforcement of Sharia (Islamic law), Red Mosque clerics had let loose moral squads on the capital to "prevent vices and promote virtue" - a concept first institutionalised by the Taleban in Afghanistan.

"These moral squads, consisting of armed male and female students, were going around the city threatening music shop owners, and kidnapping women over allegations of operating brothels."

For the general, this confrontation was a lucky distraction from his undemocratic dealings with the chief justice. But Musharraf did not want to go in and kill everyone in the mosque for fear of being called a slayer of his own people.

Writes Khan:

"But every time they [the clerics] took the law into their own hands, the government had opted for negotiations, arguing that any use of force was likely to lead to bloodshed.

"Emboldened by the government's perceived pussy-footing, Red Mosque clerics kept raising their public profile until they became a major embarrassment for the government.

"However, President Musharraf kept advocating restraint on the basis of intelligence reports which warned of the presence of a large number of suicide bombers inside the mosque and its affiliated seminary."

The BBC and Khan report that Musharraf's decision to use force occurred when the "moral police" arrested a number of Chinese women working in Islamabad allegedly in a massage parlor:

"The turning point clearly was the abduction of the Chinese massage parlour girls," says a senior diplomat in Islamabad.

"We know that the Chinese sent a very strong message that they could take losses in Balochistan or the tribal belt but were not prepared to see their citizens abducted and tortured bang in the heart of the capital."

Gen. Musharraf emerges from this clash with the students and clerics of the Red Mosque in a far stronger political position that he was only two weeks ago. Then he appeared anti-democratic and despotic. Today he seems to be the West's last hope against Islamic clerics and fundamentalist students.

Khan writes:

"As the nation inches closer to elections later in the year and a decision from General Musharraf on his dual role as president and army chief, he will be focusing all his energies on getting just one message across: He is still the West's best bet against radical Islam who can move decisively as and when needed.

"Whatever the level of truth or reality in this assertion, it is a political reality he is desperate to create as he heads for a make-or-break phase in his eighth year in power. "