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President Musharraf is in a bind. Amid the bloody devastation caused by his
decision to storm the Red Mosque in Islamabad, he will be seeking
desperately to salvage his reputation. The badly battered military ruler of
Pakistan needs to be seen as a bastion against extremism if he is to win
support from his Western allies, especially the United States.

But Musharraf’s actions in power have set Pakistan dangerously off course. The
appeasement policies of successive regimes – cultivating Islamist groups to
shore up their fragile legitimacy – have bedevilled the country. It now
faces its worst crisis since the secession of Bangladesh in 1971.

Musharraf’s confused handling of the Red Mosque crisis is likely to be central
to his own demise. First, he laid siege to it and issued an ultimatum to the
radicals inside “to surrender or die”. Then he suddenly announced he was
ready to negotiate to save hundreds of women and children held hostage
inside the mosque. However, the mediators in these negotiations were hardly
neutral players: Musharraf turned for help to the Pakistani Ulema Council, a
private body of religious scholars that last month announced a special award
for Osama bin Laden in retaliation against the decision to knight Salman
Rushdie.

Overseeing their efforts was Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, head of the
pro-government party, the Pakistan Muslim League. He is known for agreeing
to demands by Islamic religious parties last year to dilute legislation that
would have amended religious laws discriminating against women.

Not surprisingly, fears resurfaced that Musharraf was poised once again to
appease Muslim extremists. Nor would these concerns be misplaced. Since
entering into a series of controversial peace agreements with tribal
militants in the border areas of North and South Waziristan in 2005-06,
Musharraf has turned a blind eye to the Islamist activities. Stern warnings
from the United States of the risk that appeasement posed to Afghanistan
went unheeded. So too did alarm bells inside Pakistan announcing “creeping
Talebanisation”.

It was just a matter of time before Islamic radicals, emboldened by this
apparent lack of resolve, tried their hand at bringing vigilante justice to
the streets of the capital. Indeed, it was just such an attempt that brought
the Red Mosque and its militants into headlong confrontation with Musharraf.
In so doing they finally breached the cordial relations between the Red
Mosque and Pakistan’s military high command, which date back to the 1980s.

Pakistan’s military ruler at that time, General Zia ul-Haq, was instrumental
in forging these ties. He approved the expansion of the Red Mosque, in the
heart of the capital, and entrusted its administration to Maulana Abdullah,
an obscure hardline cleric from the Deobandi sect. In return Abdullah
promised to enlist recruits for the jihad against Soviet troops in
Afghanistan.

Soon the mosque, along with its two madrassas, emerged as the first port of
call for jihadi groups, notably al-Qaeda. Through much of the 1990s the Red
Mosque also enjoyed the patronage of the country’s premier intelligence
agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Its headquarters are located
a stone’s throw away from the mosque, which served as a convenient meeting
point for ISI members.

The events of 9/11 ruptured this cosy arrangement. Musharraf’s decision to
launch a military operation against the Taleban in the tribal areas incurred
the wrath of Abdullah’s family. Though Abdullah himself had been killed by
gunmen in 1999, his sons, Maulanas Aziz and Ghazi, killed yesterday during
the attack on the Red Mosque, assumed his jihadi mantle – this time in
opposition to the regime. They issued fatwas banning Muslim funeral rites
for Pakistani soldiers killed in action against the Taleban and endorsed
calls for Musharraf to be killed.

The response to these naked challenges to Musharraf’s authority was muted, if
not indulgent. Early this year when Red Mosque students seized control of a
children’s library in protest against the planned demolition of illegally
constructed mosques in the capital, Musharraf reacted by laughing off what
he described as the antics of “kids”. Not even a sustained campaign by
extremists to kidnap policemen, raid homes and ransack commercial
properties, in an effort to “cleanse” the capital of “vice dens”, could stir
the Government to action. It justified its restraint saying it feared
suicide attacks.

The tipping point came with the abduction in June of seven Chinese workers
accused by the militants of running a brothel. This was followed by the
killing of three more Chinese nationals by Islamist militants in Peshawar,
in the North West Frontier Province, two days before the mosque was finally
stormed.

The attacks triggered an unusually angry response from China, an influential
investor in Pakistan. The United States also cautioned Musharraf against any
deal involving safe passage for the militants – a sticking point that
finally led to the collapse of the negotiations and the recourse to force.

The question now is whether Musharraf’s strategy will pay off. He is heir to a
well-established legacy of close cooperation between Islamist groups and a
military that has ruled the country for more than half its history. Even if,
in time, the Islamists are defeated, they are unlikely to go down without a
fight. The cost to Musharraf could be incalculable.