Mr. Musharraf in Washington

Title: Mr. Musharraf in Washington
Author: Editorial
Publication: Washington Post
Date: Feb 12, 2002
URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60634-2002Feb11.html

GEN. PERVEZ Musharraf of Pakistan arrives in Washington today for what likely will be, at least in part, a celebration of his readiness to join the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism. Any political boost he reaps from his scheduled White House meeting with President Bush will be largely justified; Mr. Musharraf's cooperation has been instrumental to the military campaign in Afghanistan, and his strong public initiative to arrest and reverse the mounting influence of Islamic extremists in Pakistan may prove even more important over time. But the general's visit needs to be more than a love fest. For all he has done in the past five months to advance the counterterrorist cause, the Pakistani leader has much more to do; and the Bush administration should match the political and economic rewards it offers him with concerted pressure to move ahead.

The need to keep pressing Pakistan's ruler seems all the more urgent because of the worrisome signs he offered in the days before his visit. Mr. Musharraf promised in a landmark speech last month to end Pakistan's support of terrorists who have been crossing its border to carry out attacks in India, including an assault on the Indian parliament in December that brought the two countries close to war. But last week he delivered another address that restated Pakistan's longstanding official position that the fighting in Indian-controlled Kashmir is the result of an "indigenous" rebel movement that deserves Pakistan's support. At face value, that stand might look legitimate; but the problem is that Pakistani governments for years have used that formulation as a cover to foment and supply the Kashmir insurrection.

Mr. Musharraf has formally banned the Pakistani militant groups dedicated to the Kashmir cause, including several with close ties to the Afghan Taliban and al Qaeda as well as to Pakistan's military intelligence agency. But some in Pakistan suspect that despite hundreds of reported arrests, his crackdown has not been uncompromising, that many of the militants have been allowed to remain free in exchange for lying low. Those fears could only be heightened by the president's statements to The Washington Post last weekend about the kidnapping of American journalist Daniel Pearl, which Pakistani police believe was orchestrated by a well-known member of one of those extremist Muslim groups. Rather than blame the Pakistani terrorists, or the evident failure of his new campaign to stop them, Mr. Musharraf suggested that India might somehow be behind the kidnapping -- an irresponsible and implausible suggestion that is not backed by evidence.

Mr. Musharraf's forthright public condemnations of Islamic extremism, which began well before Sept. 11, leave little doubt that he genuinely would like to fashion a moderate Muslim state that would resemble Turkey rather than Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. But the general faces strong opposition to his project, some of it within his own military; and where the extremists' cause intersects with that of Kashmir, a focus of Pakistani nationalism since the country's foundation, Mr. Musharraf may feel tempted to pull his punches. That is where the Bush administration should intervene: It should make clear to the Pakistani leader that he must decisively break with the terrorists on this front as on others. Mr. Musharraf wants U.S. help in persuading India to begin negotiations on Kashmir, and the Bush administration should weigh whether it can help galvanize a peace process without compromising its longstanding neutrality in that conflict. But it must be clear, too, that continued collaboration between Islamabad and Washington depends on Mr. Musharraf's campaign against Islamic extremism proving aggressive and unambiguous in deeds, as well as in words.