Pervez Musharraf: Pakistan Ruler Who Mixed Military Tactics With Diplomacy, Failed In Both

From 1999 Kargil War to attempt at resolving Kashmir Issue & thereafter 2004 Islamabad Declaration – Pervez Musharraf’s Kashmir policy was riddled with failures.

Pakistan’s former president and army chief Pervez Musharraf breathed his last on Sunday at the age of 79 after a prolonged illness. During his lifetime, Musharraf, who died while in exile in Dubai, attempted everything a dictator can have in his playbook, but failed in each one of them.

A brilliant military officer, Musharraf rose to the pinnacle of power after staging a coup and overthrowing the then-Nawaz Sharif government in 1999 without imposing a martial law. But despite being Pakistan’s ruler, he failed utterly on the diplomatic front, especially with Islamabad’s immediate neighbour – be it with India or with Afghanistan.

With India, Musharraf shared a unique relationship from being India’s ardent enemy to becoming a trusted negotiator, whether it was during former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s time or later under PM Manmohan Singh.

Musharraf, The ‘Chief Architect’ Of  Kargil Conflict

Musharraf, who was Pakistan’s longest-serving president, was infamously called the “chief architect” of the Kargil conflict due to his plans to attack Kashmir and capture more territories than it already has. But he failed miserably due to poor planning and lack of strategy. Musharraf was Pakistan’s army chief at that time.

In his autobiography, In The Line of Fire, Musharraf wrote that he felt “ashamed” when the then Nawaz Sharif’s government called the Kargil conflict “a debacle”.

“As the chief of the army staff, I found myself in a very difficult position. I wanted to explain the military situation, to demonstrate how successful we had been, and point out the political mishandling that had caused so much despair,” Musharraf wrote.

Why Agra Summit Failed

After the Kargil war, when Musharraf came to power, he quickly shifted gears and donned the cap of a strategist even as he chalked out a four-point solution to the Kashmir issue. But once again, he failed in this adventure of his due to his military mindset and lack of diplomatic skills.

Musharraf, who was born in Delhi in pre-partition India on August 11, 1943, activated backchannel talks as soon as he seized power in an effort to solve the Kashmir issue. But, as always, his eagerness to hog the limelight proved counterproductive.

As a result of the backchannel talks, PM Vajpayee was quick to forget the losses India faced in the Kargil conflict as many of its soldiers got killed, and invited him for a summit in Agra in 2001.

That the Agra Summit was a “failure” had been admitted by former Pakistan foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri himself, who has served under Musharraf.

“In my opinion, one should not expect miraculous results from any summit meeting unless proper preparations are made beforehand. Perhaps this was the reason for the failure of the Agra Summit … The Agra Summit’s failure also highlights the importance of bipartisan support for resolving major Pakistan-India disputes,” Kasuri wrote in his memoir – Neither a A Hawk, Nor A Dove: An Insider’s Account of Pakistan’s Foreign Policy.

During the Agra Summit, Musharraf came out with what is known as ‘Musharraf’s Four-Point Kashmir Formula’ in which he suggested – (1) Demilitarisation or phased withdrawal of troops, (2) No change of borders of Kashmir, (3) Self-governance without independence and (4) A joint supervision mechanism in Jammu and Kashmir involving India, Pakistan and Kashmir.

According to Ahmed, this historical attempt by Musharraf failed because he “played up to” India’s press, and that he should have “kept quiet” and “kept a low profile”, wrote Khalid Ahmed, a senior columnist with Pakistan’s leading national daily ‘Daily Times’.

Islamabad Declaration

Then came the 2004 Islamabad Declaration under which Pakistan committed not to “permit any territory under Pakistan’s control to be used to support terrorism in any manner” even as Musharraf and Vajpayee vowed to begin talks on the ‘Composite Dialogue’.

That the Islamabad Declaration turned out to be a failure has been mentioned by several Pakistani leaders and generals who never agreed to the terms of the document.

He wanted to continue the negotiations under PM Singh but soon got mired in Pakistan’s internal politics with the assassination of another former PM Benazir Bhutto which ultimately led to Musharraf’s downfall. In August 2008, Musharraf announced his resignation.

Musharraf: Military Dictator To Ex-President 

Musharraf ran into troubles with his own country’s judiciary again due to his attitude of running that institution also as a military leader wherein he suspended chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and attempted to suspend the Constitution.

Apart from India, Musharraf was also responsible for bringing chaos to Afghanistan.

In 2001, after the September 11 New York twin-tower attacks, Musharraf allied with the US and supported Washington’s military campaign to oust the Taliban regime in Afghanistan as it sheltered al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, who was the main mastermind.

“The United States was not the only casualty of 9/11. The attacks hit Pakistan differently, but with equally savage force … No other country has faced as many threats on as many fronts. We stood with the United States, and we stand with the entire world, in opposing terrorism,” wrote Musharraf in his autobiography.