US UAVs in Pakistan/Coup averted?

A murky business:

MEMO FROM ISLAMABAD
Pakistan Rehearses Its Two-Step on Airstrikes

Mian Khursheed/Reuters
Diplomatic Partners From left, Adm. Mike Mullen, Joint Chiefs chairman; Richard C. Holbrooke, special envoy; Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi in Pakistan last week.

With two senior American officials at his side, the Pakistani foreign minister unleashed a strong rebuke last week, saying that American drone strikes against militants in Pakistan’s tribal areas were eroding trust between the allies.

The Americans, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, and the special envoy, Richard C. Holbrooke, defended their strategy for Pakistan. Later, Mr. Holbrooke dismissed the salvo by the foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, saying it was to be expected.

In fact, both sides have grown accustomed to an unusual diplomatic dance around the drones. For all their public protests, behind the scenes, Pakistani officials may countenance the drones more than Mr. Qureshi’s reprimand would suggest, Pakistan and American analysts and officials say.

Why else would Pakistani military officials be requesting that the United States give them the drones to operate, asked Prof. Riffat Hussain, of the defense studies department at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad.

His answer is that senior Pakistani officials consider the drones one of their only effective tools against the militants. Moreover, using the drones takes pressure off the Pakistani Army, which has proved reluctant to fight the militants, or incapable of doing so, in the rugged mountains along the Afghan border.

“If the government of Pakistan was not convinced of the efficacy of the drone attacks, why would they be asking for the technology?” asked Professor Hussain, who also lectures at the National Defense University, the main scholarly institution for the military.

Most of the aircraft, about the size of a Cessna, take off with Pakistani assent from a base inside Pakistan [emphasis added], American and Pakistani officials acknowledge. A small group of Pakistani intelligence operatives assigned to the tribal areas help choose targets, while the drones, armed with Hellfire missiles, are remotely piloted from the United States, they said.

Permission for the aircraft to strike in the tribal areas was negotiated by the Bush administration with the former president, Pervez Musharraf, and then with the current leader, Asif Ali Zardari. The Obama administration has renewed those understandings [emphasis added], American and Pakistani officials say.

The cooperation has been successful. Nine out of 20 senior operatives from Al Qaeda on a list compiled last year have been killed, according to American military commanders, a fact the Pakistanis do not dispute.

But as effective as the attacks have proved, the Pakistanis’ discomfort with the drones is real. The larger issue surrounding the drone strikes is the trade-off between decapitating the militant hierarchy and the risk of further destabilizing Pakistan — by undercutting the military and civilian government, by provoking retaliatory attacks from the militants, and by driving the Taliban and Al Qaeda deeper into Pakistan in search of new havens [see end of this post].

Then there is the matter of public perception, particularly over the civilian casualties caused by the drone strikes, which infuriate Pakistani politicians and the media...

Earlier, a military coup may have been avoided:

Pakistan Dodges A Bullet
By David Ignatius

A month ago, Pakistan came close to a political breakdown that could have triggered a military coup. How that crisis developed -- and how it was ultimately defused -- illuminates the larger story of a country whose frontier region President Obama recently described as "the most dangerous place in the world."

A detailed account of the March political confrontation emerged last week during a visit to Islamabad by Ambassador Richard Holbrooke and Adm. Mike Mullen. As described by U.S. and Pakistani officials, it's a story of political brinkmanship and, ultimately, of a settlement brokered by the Obama administration.

At stake was the survival of Pakistani democracy. Allies of President Asif Ali Zardari attempted to cripple his political rival, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif. The opposition leader took to the streets in response, joining a "long march" to Islamabad to demand the reinstatement of Pakistan's deposed chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry. The march threatened a violent street battle that could have forced Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani, the army chief of staff, to intervene.

The confrontation demonstrated the fragility of Pakistani politics. But it also showed that after some initial mistakes, the three key players -- Zardari, Sharif and Kiyani -- were able to defuse the crisis. The lesson for nervous Pakistan-watchers is that however enfeebled the country's elite may be, it isn't suicidal.

"I think Pakistan's politicians are growing up. They are realizing that you have to meet the people's needs or you get kicked out," says Shuja Nawaz, the author of "Crossed Swords," a study of the Pakistani military.

For the Obama administration, the Pakistani crisis posed the first big diplomatic test. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, joined by Holbrooke and Mullen, helped coax the Pakistani officials back from the brink. This intervention was deftly handled, but it deepened America's involvement in Pakistani politics -- a process that is creating a dangerous anti-American backlash.

The crisis began in late February when the Zardari-backed Supreme Court ruled that Sharif and his brother Shahbaz, the chief minister of Punjab, could not hold office. The governor of Punjab, also a Zardari loyalist, then seized control of that powerful province -- in what Pakistani commentators saw as a putsch by the president against his chief rival.

The lawyers' movement began its march on March 12, pledging to occupy Islamabad until the government restored Chaudhry to his post. Zardari sent a police force known as the Rangers into the streets of Lahore, apparently hoping to intimidate Sharif and the marchers. But Sharif evaded the police and joined the protesters as they headed north toward Islamabad.

Kiyani then faced the moment of decision. According to U.S. and Pakistani sources, Zardari asked the army chief to stop the march and protect Islamabad. Kiyani refused, after discussing the dilemma with his friend Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Meanwhile, Kiyani called Sharif and told him to return home to Lahore, according to one source. And he called the leader of the lawyers' movement, Aitzaz Ahsan, and told him to halt in the city of Gujranwala and wait for a government announcement.

Pressure on Zardari was also building within his People's Party. According to a U.S. official, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani told the president on the night of March 15 that he would resign if Chaudhry wasn't reinstated. (Zardari's camp says it was only a rumor of resignation.) In any event, Gillani went on television at 5 the next morning to announce that the former chief justice would return. The crisis was over.

Pressure for compromise came from Clinton and Holbrooke, in phone calls to Zardari and Sharif. According to Pakistani sources, the American officials signaled to Sharif that they wouldn't object to his becoming president or prime minister some day. Another key intermediary was David Miliband, the British foreign secretary, who urged dialogue with Sharif.

Last week's visit by Holbrooke and Mullen reinforced the deal. They saw the key players and came away hoping that the three could form a united front against the Taliban insurgency in the western frontier areas, rather than continuing their political squabbling. Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's ambassador to Washington, praised Holbrooke's diplomacy. "He brings hope that complex problems will be resolved."

On the political scorecard, Zardari came out a loser and Sharif and Gillani as winners. But the decisive actor was Kiyani, who managed to defuse the crisis without bringing the army into the streets.

From a post March 13, near end:

Meanwhile in Pakistan:

US and British diplomats were scrambling to broker a truce between Pakistan’s feuding political leaders tonight as thousands of black-suited lawyers defied a government ban to launch a mass protest across the country.

Richard Holbrooke, the new US special envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, telephoned Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan’s President, to discuss the unrest, which has raised fears that the army could take power once again [emphasis added]...