Hassan Abbas, a research fellow at the Belfer Center's Project on Managing the Atom, offers commentary on the resignation of Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf.
Abbas is a former Pakistani government official who served in the administrations of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto (1995-1996) and President Pervez Musharraf (1999-2000). He is author of "Pakistan's Drift into Extremism: Allah, the Army, and America's War."
TRANSCRIPT
Hassan Abbas, a research fellow at the Belfer Center's Project on Managing the Atom, is a former Pakistani government official who served in the administrations of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto (1995-1996) and President Pervez Musharraf (1999-2000). He is author of Pakistan's Drift into Extremism: Allah, the Army, and America's War.
What does Pervez Musharraf;s resignation mean and what steps led to his decision?
I think this latest development of Musharraf's resignation, in fact, means victory for democracy in Pakistan. The background is that in 2007, March 2007, Musharraf decided to get rid of the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, and that led to a lawyers' movement. The judge was ultimately restored by the Supreme Court, but there was an overall feeling in the country that Musharraf, after eight or nine years of governance, was trying to sideline all the other institutions of the state, and there was a major mobilization of civil society, lawyers' movement, educated people, and political parties in the country. This led to an overall feeling or overall environment in the country in which the people stood against a military dictator. And Musharraf continued to commit blunders in terms of taking autocratic dictatorial decisions. This time around — this was the fourth Pakistani military dictator — but on this occasion the people rose and the political forces got their act together. And in the February 18 elections in Pakistan this year, there was a vote against Musharraf. All those political forces, who were against Musharraf, got a major vote back. And the political parties, which were supporting Musharraf, were ousted, basically. So these were the events: getting rid of judiciary; Benazir Bhutto's assassination also played a major role because people believed that Musharraf was responsible for providing security to Benazir Bhutto and when he failed, he miserably failed in that endeavor, that also led to a downfall in his support base. So these were the major events that led to his resignation.
How will Musharraf's resignation impact Pakistan's political stability?
I think contrary to some of the suspense in the media, international media, this will actually lead to stability in Pakistan. Because at this moment, Musharraf was standing on one side and all the mainstream, progressive political forces were standing on the other side of the divide. So this should bring more stability because the political forces, which won the elections on February 18, 2008, they are now at the helm of affairs. They are the ones who have to strategize and have to come up with an effective counterterrorism strategy. They are the ones who will be responsible to the ordinary people — to their aspirations, demands, dreams of the Pakistanis — and they are the real representative forces. So this should take Pakistan toward stability. I must add it will not be immediate. It will not be very quick. These forces will take time to develop consensus. They will take some time to develop strategies and policies for the benefit of the people. And in the short term, we may see some problems. But in the long run, I think this will bring more stability to Pakistan. And in any case, Musharraf had lost support.... The polls indicate that Musharraf's support base was hardly in double digits. So Musharraf was, by any means, no option for Pakistan, or for United States.
What kind of repercussions will this have for the region?
I think... we must give credit to Musharraf that he had started a peace process with India since 2004, at the least. Pakistan also, Pakistan's relations with other neighbors had improved, except in the case of Afghanistan, which is a major bone of contention — the Pakistani tribal areas where insurgents, militants, or terrorists are now in a strong position. Musharraf's departure will also bring Pakistan to a situation where democratic forces would like to engage the other political governments. Indian democracy should feel more comfortable with the Pakistani democracy. In case of political leadership, Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz al-Sharif — the major two political forces, two major political individuals, who are at the helm of affairs in Pakistan — they have shown some interest in improving relations with Afghanistan, also. So in these two major cases, the indicators are that the political leaders will reach out to Indians and to Afghans to develop some kind of consensus or a better arrangement to fight the war on terror and to improve bilateral relations.
How will Musharraf's resignation impact the U.S.'s relationship with Pakistan, specifically in terms of the war on terror?
I think United States had a good relationship with Musharraf all these years. To begin with, after the tragedy of 9/11, Musharraf had taken a U-turn of sorts — stop of support for Taliban, stopping the support of militant groups in Indian-controlled Kashmir — but in the second phase of Musharraf, from 2004-2008, Musharraf's relationship with United States had seen many ups and downs. It has something to do with loss of support for Musharraf within the country. I mean, the United States engaging with a military ruler who has little support within the country was a faulty policy. The United States had little options because the United States had to deal with the leader who is in control in Pakistan. But now, I see very clearly, that the United States had developed a partnership with democratic forces. In fact, U.S. did push Pakistan to hold free and fair elections in February 2008. United States had been involved in some arrangement with Musharraf and late Benazir Bhutto so that she could go back to Pakistan and participate in elections; unfortunately, she lost her life before that, but her political party did very well and is now in a leading role in the country. So U.S. has opted to develop relationships with democratic forces in the country. And that arrangement or relationship can be built upon in the months to come. So, Musharraf's departure should not be seen as something that will necessarily create instability or which will necessarily create any problems with Pakistan's relationship with United States. Very recently, a bill introduced in the United States Congress, introduced by Senator Biden and Lugar, calls for support: non-military aid to Pakistan. They are doubling, or perhaps tripling, the aid that is given to Pakistan. That is a good omen. That will be seen very positively in Pakistan. And in Pakistan there is a view that wherever there is a military ruler, United States supports that ruler. I think this support for democratic forces, this aid for development works in the country, will dispel this impression and be seen as support for democracy in Pakistan.
This video was originally published here: http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18492/
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Friday, August 15, 2008
Memo to the Next President: Intelligence & Counterterrorism
In this exclusive web video, Eric Rosenbach, Belfer Center Executive Director for Research and former professional staff member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, outlines the priorities on which the next president should focus in order to improve U.S. intelligence capabilities.
TRANSCRIPT
Eric Rosenbach, executive director for research at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center and former professional staff member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, recently wrote a book chapter, “The Incisive Fight: Recommendations for Improving Counterterrorism Intelligence,” in which he outlines five priorities on which the next president should focus in order to improve U.S. intelligence capabilities.
You note that the next president should think carefully before attempting to reorganize the intelligence community again. Why?
The reason the next president needs to think carefully before he launches into a new reorganization of the intelligence community is that after the Intelligence Reform Act was passed in 2004 a lot of boxes and wire chart diagrams were moved around to try and make the intelligence community perform better. However, when you do that, a lot of chaos results and often people can’t focus on their jobs. And so the next president needs to focus more on developing good strong leaders in the intelligence community rather than focusing on the wire and block diagrams and how it’s organized.
What has stopped the National Counterterrorism Center from reaching its full potential and what should the next president do to ensure that it does?
The National Counterterrorism Center was created in the intelligence reform legislation in 2004 and it is a good idea. The idea behind it is that it’s the nexis of all the intelligence agencies who can coordinate and collaborate together in one central location to share information and conduct intelligence analysis in a joint way. However, there have been a couple things that have held it from reaching its full potential. The first is that it’s gotten a little bit too bogged down in tactical level tracking of terrorists and needs to think big strategic picture. So the National Counterterrorism Center, in one specific part called the Strategic Operational Planning section, needs to provide the strategic policy planning type information that the White House would need. Also, the NCTC needs to continue to work on sharing information, not only at the national level, but push it down to state and local governments. And also the National Counterterrorism Center needs to work very closely with the CIA to help them fully develop targets and big picture analysis of where the next terrorist threat may come from.
Voters seem more concerned with the energy and economic crises than intelligence reform. Why should voters care about this issue and what questions should they be asking the candidates about their plans for reform?
It’s a very good question and you have to remember that intelligence isn’t just focused on counterterrorism or isn’t just focused on preventing nuclear terrorism. It’s not purely a national security field. So, for example, you could see how the intelligence community could play an important role in trying to provide the next president with information about a forth coming energy crisis or about oil prices. For example, the national intelligence community recently conducted a study on the impact of climate change on national security. That was done by the intelligence community. That’s a way the intelligence community can work on the more pressing problems that are at the forefront of Americans’ minds that may not be terrorism.
Despite criticism of the CIA's relationships with foreign intelligence services, you encourage the next president to foster more of these relationships. Why?
Just like the when you’re working in the military or when you’re a diplomat, it’s very important for intelligence operatives and officers to work with allies who they have. Some of the allies are those that you would expect, that have always been close, traditional allies. And over the past several years we have new allies in the war on terror that help us get access to places that would otherwise be extremely difficult. This is important, but the intelligence community needs to enter into these types of relationships with a little bit of caution. One example is to look at the Pakistani ISI, who is helpful to the United States, but also may present certain hazards if they are, or certain elements of them are, aligning with the Taliban or with Al Qaeda.
How would you assess the capabilities of the intelligence community today, as compared with prior to the intelligence reform legislation that passed in 2004?
It’s pretty difficult nowadays to hear about intelligence without hearing about a failure or something that has gone wrong or some type of problem. But the reality is if you look at the intelligence community in a very objective way and you compare it to where it was at 9/11 or before the war in Iraq, that it’s progressed quite far and that the capabilities are actually quite powerful now. We can actually track down people who are dangerous to the United States. We conduct good analysis. If we look at the story of the Iran NIE, although it was very sensational in its top headline, the United States intelligence community was able to collect a lot of sources on a very hard topic in Iran and the trade craft that was used to produce the Iran NIE was a lot stronger than the example of the Iraq NIE.
This was originally published here: http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18487/
TRANSCRIPT
Eric Rosenbach, executive director for research at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center and former professional staff member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, recently wrote a book chapter, “The Incisive Fight: Recommendations for Improving Counterterrorism Intelligence,” in which he outlines five priorities on which the next president should focus in order to improve U.S. intelligence capabilities.
You note that the next president should think carefully before attempting to reorganize the intelligence community again. Why?
The reason the next president needs to think carefully before he launches into a new reorganization of the intelligence community is that after the Intelligence Reform Act was passed in 2004 a lot of boxes and wire chart diagrams were moved around to try and make the intelligence community perform better. However, when you do that, a lot of chaos results and often people can’t focus on their jobs. And so the next president needs to focus more on developing good strong leaders in the intelligence community rather than focusing on the wire and block diagrams and how it’s organized.
What has stopped the National Counterterrorism Center from reaching its full potential and what should the next president do to ensure that it does?
The National Counterterrorism Center was created in the intelligence reform legislation in 2004 and it is a good idea. The idea behind it is that it’s the nexis of all the intelligence agencies who can coordinate and collaborate together in one central location to share information and conduct intelligence analysis in a joint way. However, there have been a couple things that have held it from reaching its full potential. The first is that it’s gotten a little bit too bogged down in tactical level tracking of terrorists and needs to think big strategic picture. So the National Counterterrorism Center, in one specific part called the Strategic Operational Planning section, needs to provide the strategic policy planning type information that the White House would need. Also, the NCTC needs to continue to work on sharing information, not only at the national level, but push it down to state and local governments. And also the National Counterterrorism Center needs to work very closely with the CIA to help them fully develop targets and big picture analysis of where the next terrorist threat may come from.
Voters seem more concerned with the energy and economic crises than intelligence reform. Why should voters care about this issue and what questions should they be asking the candidates about their plans for reform?
It’s a very good question and you have to remember that intelligence isn’t just focused on counterterrorism or isn’t just focused on preventing nuclear terrorism. It’s not purely a national security field. So, for example, you could see how the intelligence community could play an important role in trying to provide the next president with information about a forth coming energy crisis or about oil prices. For example, the national intelligence community recently conducted a study on the impact of climate change on national security. That was done by the intelligence community. That’s a way the intelligence community can work on the more pressing problems that are at the forefront of Americans’ minds that may not be terrorism.
Despite criticism of the CIA's relationships with foreign intelligence services, you encourage the next president to foster more of these relationships. Why?
Just like the when you’re working in the military or when you’re a diplomat, it’s very important for intelligence operatives and officers to work with allies who they have. Some of the allies are those that you would expect, that have always been close, traditional allies. And over the past several years we have new allies in the war on terror that help us get access to places that would otherwise be extremely difficult. This is important, but the intelligence community needs to enter into these types of relationships with a little bit of caution. One example is to look at the Pakistani ISI, who is helpful to the United States, but also may present certain hazards if they are, or certain elements of them are, aligning with the Taliban or with Al Qaeda.
How would you assess the capabilities of the intelligence community today, as compared with prior to the intelligence reform legislation that passed in 2004?
It’s pretty difficult nowadays to hear about intelligence without hearing about a failure or something that has gone wrong or some type of problem. But the reality is if you look at the intelligence community in a very objective way and you compare it to where it was at 9/11 or before the war in Iraq, that it’s progressed quite far and that the capabilities are actually quite powerful now. We can actually track down people who are dangerous to the United States. We conduct good analysis. If we look at the story of the Iran NIE, although it was very sensational in its top headline, the United States intelligence community was able to collect a lot of sources on a very hard topic in Iran and the trade craft that was used to produce the Iran NIE was a lot stronger than the example of the Iraq NIE.
This was originally published here: http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18487/
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