Mike Marqusee

General Pervez Musharraf has expressed irritation at the “aspersions’’ cast on Pakistan in the British media. After his extensive efforts to prove his loyalty to the US-British “war on terror’’ — efforts that have exposed him to assassination attempts — the general’s frustration is understandable. The alleged Pakistani links of the London bombers are a major inconvenience for this image-conscious military dictator.

Yet Musharraf has been a prime beneficiary of the western double standards of which he now complains. Just as previous autocrats (in Pakistan and elsewhere) were embraced because of their usefulness in the cold war, so Musharraf is embraced because of his willingness to fight the war on terror - and his crimes against democracy, serial and ongoing, are forgiven.

The parliamentary trappings should deceive nobody. This is a regime in which the final say on all policies rests with the military. Since seizing power in 1999, Musharraf has made himself president, repeatedly extended his powers and amended Pakistan’s constitution out of recognition. Through the establishment of the National Security Council, he has institutionalised the military veto over elected politicians.

In Pakistan, the recent round-up of suspected ultras and the announcement of yet another crackdown on extremism have been met with weary scepticism. “When you say mullah, you say military’’ is commonplace in Pakistan, where people have experienced the symbiosis between the two forces for decades. US-sponsored jihadism took thousands of Pakistani lives long before it blew back on the US on 9/11.

Since then, Musharraf has sought to package himself as a champion of “enlightened moderation’’. But the mullah-military symbiosis remains. As a result of the army’s manipulation of the elections in 2002, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), a coalition of rightwing religious parties that never achieved electoral success, became the official opposition and took power in the North West Frontier Province.

While Musharraf worked to exclude the main parties from the public arena, he treated the MMA as a kind of licensed opposition - not least as a safety valve for popular anger at the US over Iraq. In return, the MMA helped increase his powers.

Musharraf placates the west by high-profile security sweeps, while at the same time making one concession after another to the fundamentalists.

Military spending, at 4.9% of GDP already proportionately larger than in India, the US or Britain, has recently increased by 15% - despite the peace process with India. In addition, the military is one of the major landowners and controls massive financial resources (exempt from scrutiny). Retired and serving military officers also run a multitude of corporate ventures.

As elsewhere, the war on terror has licensed increased lawlessness by state agencies. In the latest sweeps, Musharraf’s men assaulted women students at a seminary in Islamabad and are reported to have killed at least 15 women and children in a raid. Military rule offers no antidote to fundamentalism. Indeed, the latter has prospered in tandem with the former. Musharraf will continue his crackdowns for the benefit of western patrons, but in the end only democracy and accountability, not PR, can tackle sources of violent obscurantism. — The Guardian