After months of prevarication, General Pervez Musharraf's government has 'retreated' on the issue of the religion column in passports. ... Most Pakistanis instinctively know that the issue has nothing to do with any love for "Islam". No Muslim country in the world insists on religion as an element of identity for passports. Nor has it got anything to do with making life more difficult for the apostatized Ahmedis. ... With every concession extracted from the state in the name of "Islam", the MMA gets politically stronger... Therefore it fiercely resists state policies that seek to depoliticize Islam, irrespective of their functionality. Thus the MMA wants Friday back as a holiday; it refuses to rationalize the blasphemy laws; it defends "honour-killings" because outlawing them would dilute the Qisas and Diyat laws. The people know all this. Therefore they perceive this 'retreat' as yet another sign of conscious propping up of the MMA. Worse, they are reinforced in their belief that "enlightened moderation" is a sham designed only to placate the West. But the fact is that the West too is becoming increasingly cynical of General Musharraf's "visionary" meanderings.
We are told that both General Musharraf and Shaukat Aziz were opposed to this 'retreat' and that a majority of cabinet members felt likewise. So what happened? It appears that Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, the PMLQ president, insisted on it because he had given his "word" to Maulana Fazlur Rehman. And what was the quid pro quo? ... Was it the sop of allowing the chief minister of the NWFP to attend meetings of the National Security Council, despite a continuing boycott by Maulana Fazalur Rehman? But that's no big deal. The NSC was still-born when the Maulana refused to sit in it as leader of the opposition. Nor is the participation of the NWFP CM going to revive its legitimacy or utility. So there must be much more to the PMLQ-MMA "deal" than meets the eye.
This 'retreat' is, in fact, a strong indication of the persistence of the political alliance between the PMLQ and the MMA on the one hand and General Musharraf and the PMLQ on the other. The need to consolidate this three way relationship has increased since General Musharraf started making overtures to the PPP in a bid to quell domestic apprehensions in general and international disquiet in particular of what might happen to Pakistan's post 9/11 polity in the event that something untoward happened to its architect. Indeed, the slow but sure international interest in a revival of "democracy" in Pakistan has much to do with the demand for the political rehabilitation of the mainstream and liberal PPP which in turn is linked to growing question marks about General Musharraf's "indispensability".
In the absence of a popular leader, the PMLQ is desperate to lean on General Musharraf and join hands with the MMA to thwart the PPP in the next local body and general elections. ... The last thing General Musharraf wants is for the PPP to sweep the elections and for Benazir Bhutto to become a far worse headache for him than Nawaz Sharif. ... But equally, he doesn't want the MMA to blackmail, threaten and undermine him personally. So the best political arrangement that would suit General Musharraf would be a more "democratic" one in which the PMLQ still rules the roost, but the PPP is brought into the power sharing loop at the slight expense of the MMA. This 'strategy' will diminish the MMA's clout and enable the PMLQ-ISI to juggle General Musharraf's political opponents and partners at the centre and in the provinces...The real problem is that General Musharraf and his military colleagues still see the PPP as an "anti-establishment" force with which they cannot do business. They still see the mullahs as a "necessary evil" for various political and geo-strategic reasons. This is a wrong assessment on both counts. Unfortunately, it means there will be no significant roll-back of political Islam or liberal rebirth of Pakistan in the short term. Most regrettably, it also implies that the long term political stability and viability of Pakistan is not assured by the great helmsman.