The latest conspiracy theory doing the rounds in Islamabad directly links the storming of Lal Masjid by the Pakistani security forces with the severe setback suffered by the government in the chief justice’s case.
Cynics believe that President General Musharraf is trying to kill three birds with one stone: One, he wants to pre-empt any move by the full bench of the Pakistan Supreme Court to reinstate the suspended chief justice; two, he wants to upstage the All Parties Conference of the opposition in London which has been called by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif to start a movement against the regime; three, he wants to raise the spectre of an Islamist takeover in Pakistan and scare the Americans who are believed to be putting pressure on him to take off his uniform, hold free and fair elections and enter into a political deal with the so-called liberal political forces.
The operation Lal Masjid is therefore being seen as a sinister plot to create disturbed conditions across the country and then use these disturbances to justify the imposition of a state of emergency, or worse, martial law. At the very least, the crisis created by the action against the religious zealots holed up in Lal Masjid is expected to result in the postponement of the general elections.
To the extent that the growing intransigence and brazenness of the Lal Masjid mullahs in enforcing their demands for imposing Shariat in the country has kept pace with the rising spiral of the judicial and political crisis created by the suspension of the chief justice, a case can certainly be made out in favour of the conspiracy theorists. But if at all there is any link between the actions of the extremists in Lal Masjid and Musharraf’s escalating domestic and international problems, it is at best a very tenuous one. In fact, the Lal Masjid problem cropped up first in January, nearly two months before the chief justice was suspended.
The Lal Masjid episode is really nothing but a manifestation of the growing radicalism and extremism of Pakistani society. At the same time, it has a direct link with the Taliban insurgency in the Pashtun tribal belt bordering Afghanistan. Lal Masjid was the Taliban’s way of demonstrating their ability to strike at the heart of the Pakistani state!
If despite this reality, the perception that Lal Masjid was a deliberately manufactured crisis has persisted, it is because of the inability or unwillingness of the state to establish its writ, which not only gave an impression that the state was in cahoots with the clerics but also emboldened the Lal Masjid vigilantes to provoke the state to the very limits of its tolerance.
Many people in Islamabad are convinced that a Lal Masjid like event is simply not possible without the support of someone extremely influential in the ruling establishment. After all, not only is Lal Masjid a stone’s throw away from the ISI headquarters, it is in Islamabad which is one of the most “watched” capitals in the world (rivalling only Pyongyang in the kind of surveillance that is kept over everyone in the city). And yet the entire issue was allowed to assume Frankenstein proportions! Add to this the fact that Lal Masjid has traditionally enjoyed extremely close links with the ISI and has served as an outpost of the Taliban in Islamabad.
Opinion is however divided as to who was pulling the strings of the Mullahs from behind the scenes. Some say it was Musharraf’s people who used Lal Masjid for their political ends. Others believe that the entire crisis was created by recalcitrant elements within the ISI and army, who were opposed to Musharraf’s pro-West policies. Their plan was to put Musharraf in a catch-22 position where he would be damned if he acted against the Mullahs and damned if he didn’t.
As things stand, no one can predict with any certainty the fallout of the armed action against Lal Masjid. It is entirely possible that the operation against Lal Masjid will not invite massive retaliation by the Islamists. While on the one hand this will lend credence to the conspiracy theory that the entire episode was only a drama staged by the ruling establishment, on the other hand, it will also strengthen the notion that the radical Islamists are merely tools in the hands of the army. The danger is that Pakistani society will continue to stay in a state of denial over the clear, present and growing threat that rising Islamic extremism poses to their country. The other possibility is that the military operation will result in a violent backlash by Islamists. In either case the end result will be a severely destabilised Pakistan.
Indeed, if things spiral out of control, there is a very real possibility of emergency, martial law, or postponement of elections. But if this happens Musharraf is going to end up as the loser. Given that Musharraf faces a growing people’s movement against his regime, any extreme move like clamping emergency or imposing martial law could easily result in chaos and anarchy spilling over on the streets of Pakistan. Any outbreak of civic disturbances and that too at a time when the Pakistani state is tackling the onslaught of Islamists will almost certainly make a regime change inevitable.
The big question is what will be the nature of the new regime. Will it follow Musharraf’s policies of enlightened moderation, albeit sans the General, or will it adopt the path of Jihad? On the answer to this question will rest the future of Pakistan and the region.