The Bush-Biden Doctrine

"Realists" discover the virtues of democracy in Pakistan.

Wall Street Journal
Saturday, November 10, 2007 12:01 a.m.

Whatever Pervez Musharraf's failings in Islamabad, his impact in Washington has been nothing short of miraculous. With his declaration of emergency rule, the Pakistan President has single-handedly revived the Bush Doctrine. The same people who only days ago were deriding President Bush for naively promoting democracy are now denouncing him for not promoting it enough in Pakistan.

"We have to move from a Musharraf to a Pakistan policy," declared Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden on Thursday. "Pakistan has strong democratic traditions and a large, moderate majority. But that moderate majority must have a voice in the system and an outlet with elections. If not, moderates may find that they have no choice but to make common cause with extremists, just as the Shah's opponents did in Iran three decades ago."

Joe Biden, neocon.

The Senator's epiphany underscores that Pakistan has long been the playground not of democracy promoters but of the foreign-policy "realists." General Musharraf may have taken power in a coup, but when Colin Powell famously gave him the for-us-or-against-us choice after 9/11, the general chose "for." He is a U.S. ally in a rough neighborhood, his government captured such al Qaeda bigs as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and as an authoritarian he was of the moderate kind. The Bush Administration did push Mr. Musharraf to restore democratic legitimacy, but quietly and without great urgency. Brent Scowcroft would have approved.


We don't summarize this history to deride it the way Mr. Biden and many neocons-come-lately are. There are exceptions to every foreign-policy rule, and sometimes democracy promotion must compete with other American interests, such as the need to pursue al Qaeda. In the Cold War, Americans often had little choice but to support authoritarian rulers who were allies in the larger struggle against Communism. Sometimes the alternatives are worse, and Pakistan is a hard case.

Clearly, however, this calculation has to change after Mr. Musharraf's "emergency" declaration. His arrest of lawyers, human-rights activists and political opponents shows that his main targets aren't Islamists. They are the pro-Western parts of Pakistan civil society that oppose Islamism more than the general does. He is making a heavy-handed play to avoid a Supreme Court ruling against his recent Presidential election, and he has undermined the talks he was having with opposition leader Benazir Bhutto on a transition to democracy. As a national leader, he has made himself even less legitimate.

So what should the U.S. do? To some, like Mr. Biden, the answer is to issue an ultimatum to restore elections by a date certain, and if Mr. Musharraf refuses, cut off the U.S. aid of $150 million a month and walk away. This has its virtues as a political threat, but it is less useful if you actually have to follow through.

The last time the U.S. tried to isolate Pakistan, after its nuclear test in the late 1990s, we lost contact with a generation of Pakistani military officers. Pakistan also got in bed with the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the U.S. had little or no influence. It was only after 9/11, with the resumption of U.S. aid, that Mr. Musharraf replaced some generals and intelligence officials who sympathized with the Taliban. There are benefits to staying engaged with the military and other parts of Pakistan society--both to understand it better and to help deter the worse possible outcome, which would be an Islamist coup.

At the same time, however, the U.S. can't quietly acquiesce in the status quo. Mr. Musharraf's days are numbered, and his country's democrats need to know that the U.S. stands squarely for restoring the rule of law, freedom of the airwaves, and democratic legitimacy. President Bush already seems to be making some progress on this front, calling Mr. Musharraf this week and urging him both to resign his military commission and set a date for elections. The general has responded by saying elections will be held by February, a month after they had been scheduled before the "emergency" was declared.


Some of our neocon friends point to the Cold War precedent of the Philippines, where Ronald Reagan helped to push long-time ally Ferdinand Marcos from power. What they forget is that the Gipper's push came at the end of a long process of private engagement and public pressure, and only after Marcos had tried to steal a Presidential election. It also came in a country whose political culture we clearly understood, and one with close bilateral military ties. When Marcos ordered military leaders to arrest the opposition, they refused and a bloodbath was prevented.

Others point to the Iran example of 1979, but that too is an imperfect model. Jimmy Carter and Zbigniew Brzezinski abandoned the Shah with little understanding that the military as an institution would crumble, and none at all about the radical designs of the Ayatollah Khomeini. We have been living with the consequences of that blunder ever since.

Pakistan today is not Iran in 1979, but neither is it the Philippines in 1986. It requires its own unique U.S. engagement and diplomacy. The restoration of democracy should be one goal of that engagement, even if we have to call it the Bush-Biden Doctrine.