LEIGH SALES: Dr Dana Allin is the senior fellow for transatlantic affairs at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. He is a specialist in US foreign and defence policies, and he joined Lateline from London earlier this evening.
Dr Allin, thank you for joining Lateline. I'll move onto Iraq in a moment, but if we could begin with the events in Pakistan, what do you think are going to be the consequences for Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf of what we've seen unfold at the Red Mosque in the past few days?
DR DANA ALLIN, INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES: Well, his position appears to be pretty precarious and I think that the - there has been a strong sense that the Musharraf era may be coming to an end, and the question is whether it's going to be - what kind of transition there's going to be.
LEIGH SALES: If Musharraf was ousted from office in Pakistan, what would it mean for the war on terror?
DANA ALLIN: It's obviously an extremely delicate position for the United States and for other countries, particularly Britain I might add. Musharraf has been seen as an important ally in this war, and in most respects he is, but he has obviously been in a very delicate position, in a very complicated and fractured country. The notion that a kind of wave - an Islamist government would be likely to take over I think is much overblown, but sort of the continuation or return to the kind of fractured and corrupt kind of situation Pakistan has had in the past would obviously not be conducive to sort of the long-term stabilisation of the country, the fighting of Taliban and so forth.
LEIGH SALES: Given that very precarious situation that General Musharraf is in, is there much more the United States can do at this time to pressure him to actually crack down on Islamic militants within his own country?
DANA ALLIN: This has always been the dilemma. There is a feeling that there have been a lot of complaints that the Musharraf Government has not been really fighting the Taliban, I mean it's gone after Al Qaeda in many ways, but not fighting the Taliban on the border areas. And therefore Pakistan has become a kind of sanctuary for the ongoing insurgency in Afghanistan. But the problem is the interests of the United States - and in particular, as I say Britain - are kind of divided here because the last thing that Britain needs is a civil war in Pakistan.
LEIGH SALES: All right, let's turn to Iraq. How much should we read into Republican opposition we're seeing in Congress at the moment?
DANA ALLIN: I think it's very significant. It doesn't tell us exactly what's going to happen, it doesn't tell us if the Democrats are going to be able to get enough votes to get - to basically pass legislation that would really force an end to the war or a deadline for withdrawal. But there's a palpable sense that the dam has broken in American politics. Only large-scale defections on the Republican side could really pressure the President to change course and this may now be happening.
LEIGH SALES: If legislation did pass through the Congress though, aimed at forcing a withdrawal from Iraq, couldn't the President simply veto that?
DANA ALLIN: Yes, he could and that's why you really, you have to have a super majority, and that's why a lot of Republican votes are very significant. Of course, vetos can be overridden by two-thirds of both houses. But they're not there yet.
LEIGH SALES: Given the growing public and congressional opposition to the war in Iraq, how much longer can President Bush keep making this message of staying the course?
DANA ALLIN: Well, these speculations are always difficult because for at least a year now, many analysts have said he can't stay the course, he has lost political support in the United States. His own party - the law makers from his own party are terrified about losing the next election. President Bush has been pretty impervious to these political pressures, and its conceivable that he'll remain impervious. But there has been a lot of discussion at least in the White House about trying to put forward a plan or how to put forward a plan that might relieve some of this pressure.
So, it's clearly affecting the deliberations in the White House. We don't know - ultimately the most important deliberation is what goes on inside the brain of President Bush, and we don't really know what's happening there.
LEIGH SALES: What sort of a plan could relieve the pressure on this situation?
DANA ALLIN: The situation is still very fluid, but there does seem to be emerging the outlines of a consensus amongst the sort of dissident Republicans and the Democrats for basically a reconfiguration of the US presence, an end to its combat role in the middle of a civil war, a draw down to a much smaller force that would help guard the borders, help continue to train Iraqi forces and go after Al Qaeda, to the extent that it's seen as a problem. Whether that's a compromise that could get enough Republican votes and would satisfy the Democrats and sort of the strong anti-war feeling among many who simply want to withdraw completely, it's hard to say. But that's - I think - the kind of plan that's being talked about now.
LEIGH SALES: How does what we see going on in the Republican Party at the moment affect the presidential race? Is it likely to have any impact on the candidate that the party selects?
DANA ALLIN: Well, the leading candidates so far have been very strongly behind the President's policies. They've criticised the Bush administration for its conduct of the war overall, but they've supported the surge and they have continued to use sort of "Bush-ian" rhetoric, which is that there's no alternative to victory. I think what we're seeing is, you know, a big gap opening up between these leading presidential candidates, people like Giuliani, McCain, Romney, and the congressional leadership of the Republican Party. It's hard to say what kind of - what you don't see so far is any of these leading presidential candidates relenting. And it's hard to say - I think it's in a sense it's more likely the President will have to take the lead, that this will lead to pressure on the White House to announce a change of course, which I suppose then the Republican presidential candidates would have to get behind.
LEIGH SALES: We're continually told by our political leaders that a withdrawal from Iraq would be a victory for Al Qaeda, but what would be a bigger victory for Al Qaeda - leaving or staying?
DANA ALLIN: Well, first let me say I do think it would be a victory for Al Qaeda if coalition forces completely left. But I think the premise of your question, or the implication of your question is absolutely correct. It's probably a bigger victory to stay. This is a huge recruiting sergeant for the terrorist movement around the world, and as long as US and other coalition forces are staying and are seen as ineffective and are seen as bleeding, I think that's probably the biggest propaganda boom for Al Qaeda and its leadership.
LEIGH SALES: President Bush has asked the Congress to wait to see the final report by General David Petraeus, the US Commander in Iraq, due in September before they take any decisive action on Iraq. But realistically, what could change in two months?
DANA ALLIN: Well, it's a good question and I really don't know the answer to that. Especially given that General Petraeus has said that, you know, by September you're not really going to have a success of the surge anyway, he has suggested it's going to be a longer term process. I suppose that, you know, there have been suggestions that some of the sectarian ethnic cleansing and blood-letting has been diminished in those places where extra troops have gone in Baghdad. There's also some, more or less, encouraging signs of Sunni tribes getting together to fight Al Qaeda, or what calls itself Al Qaeda in Anbar province. So, he would probably highlight some of these things.
But here's the real rub: although you can enhance security on the ground by putting troops there, I don't think there's any question about that, there hasn't - there's been hardly any or really no progress in the kind of national compact to have a strong government that would reach out to the Sunnis, represent the Shiah, reach out to the Sunnis and really pull the country together. That I think is the huge weakness, and everybody seems to acknowledge that the political benchmarks that have been set for the Government have not been met, and they're not even close to being met.
LEIGH SALES: The debate on Iraq now centres on how to move forward. But if we can look back for a moment. Yes, the dictator Saddam Hussein was removed, but almost 4,000 US soldiers are dead and countless Iraqis. The war was started under the guise of the war on terror when there was no evidence according to the 9/11 Commission Report that Iraq had links to Al Qaeda, there was insufficient planning for the post-war operation, and a final result is something that US intelligence agencies agree has made international terrorism worse. Who is accountable for that?
DANA ALLIN: Well the political leadership of the United States, the Bush administration, is clearly accountable for that. It was a reckless move that's damaged, certainly damaged US power and international order. So, I think they're accountable. Whether they'll be made accountable is another question. You know, the President has lost all of his political capital. He ranks among the most unpopular presidents in the post-war period, and really, the most - in a sense for us - sustained period. So, his administration is in a certain sense, almost over. But you know, the folly of this Iraq policy is manifest in exactly the terms that you just laid out, you know, I don't know who pays the price.
LEIGH SALES: Dr Allin, thank you for joining Lateline.
DANA ALLIN: Thank you.
