The following is a guest contribution. Reuters is not responsible for the content and the views expressed are the author’s alone. The writer is a former High Commissioner of Pakistan and advisor to the late Benazir Bhutto, former prime minister of Pakistan.

By Wajid Shamsul Hasan

In his historic play Julius Caesar Shakespeare uses Ides of March to warn the Roman Emperor the tragic fate that was in store for him. And ever since ides of March is used as an appropriate phrase as a precursor to events of far-reaching consequences. In case of Pakistan’s history too this month has great significance on various counts. First and foremost, the Muslims in the sub-continent decided to seek and establish a separate independent homeland through a resolution adopted by All-India Muslim League on March 23, 1940 under the dynamic leadership of its leader Mohammad Ali Jinnah. And it was an astounding achievement-entirely to the credit of Mr Jinnah-that within the short span of seven years Pakistan was carved out of the Indian sub-continent to be a secular Muslim state to ensure freedom and equality to all its citizens-irrespective of their caste, creed or colour.

It is regretfully stated that his vision was distorted by self-conceited power troika comprising of the military, civil and judicial bureaucracy in league with the Mullahs who had opposed Mr Jinnah and Pakistan. His secular ideology was replaced with a so-called Nazaria Pakistan (religioin-based ideology) by which Pakistan was in time to come was to become a theocratic state. Pakistan’s slide today under President Pervez Musharraf has brought the country to such a pass that it has almost become a failed state on the verge of meeting the fate of Yugoslavia.

March has once again placed Pakistan face to face with an opportunity not only save the country but to translate into reality Mr Jinnah’s dream of a democratic and liberal Pakistan. On March 17 the nation proudly witnessed the coming into being of the elected National Assembly historically pitched to uproot the last vestiges of military dictatorship and to usher in people’s democracy amidst stories that the usurper general has decided to run for his life seeking refuge in countries that he had served better than Pakistan. On March 19 Pakistan became yet another first-thanks to Pakistan People’s Party-to elect a woman as the Speaker of the National Assembly.

Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto  had herself set the blaze by becoming the first ever woman prime minister in a Muslim country. And she would have indeed broken the record third time had she been not assassinated late last year. Highly competent and respected Dr Fahmida’s Mirza’s election as National Assembly  Speaker is yet another step forward towards empowerment of women-a mission pursued with religious conviction by martyred Benazir Bhutto and her party PPP and its present leadership.

The PPP-PML(N)-ANP-JUI coalition that has been clobbered sagaciously by PPP Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari and PML(N) leader Mian Nawaz Sharif-as a national consensus response– will have to face the insurmountable challenges of the dark legacy of Musharraf’s  mismanagement, reign of loot and plunder during his long dictatorship in cahoots with the political scavengers.

The task before the Coalition is onerous. It will have to take certain decisions that shall make or mar Pakistan’s future. Immediately it shall have to provide instant relief to the poor who cannot make their sustenance possible because of Musharraf-Shaukat Aziz pursued economic policies that made the rich richer and poor poorer. And along with that, they shall have to mobilise the nation to fight terrorism through a battle that would mostly require winning the hearts and minds of the tribal people who have been abused by Musharraf as the villain of the piece for blackmailing the Americans and the West that without him they cannot fight the terrorism menace. He has successfully made them believe him that he is solver of the problem and not part of the problem as is perceived by almost the entire nation. Obviously the crucial issue regarding the restoration of judiciary is also important. Hopefully it will be resolved in a manner that it will not only kill the snake but not break the stick–that is– without affecting the power and majesty of the Parliament.

In politics a week is a long time especially when there is a megalomaniac in power who would go to any end for his own survival. Although not much time is left for the transfer of power to the elected representatives of the people, one however feels apprehensive of the proverbial slip between the cup and the lips. Reports are that he is trying his best to re-play 2002 again and break the grand coalition to bring in a gang of power scavengers through the back door. He is at it in raising an old hand as his Quisling in PPP. Unlike 2002 when he was both President and the Army Chief, now denuded of his military uniform–he is a toothless wolf who can only bark but cannot bite. Whatever-one must not under-estimate the enemy. The best response to his machinations is for the Pakistani people, their democratic leaders and civil society to remain united and vigilant to collectively counter all his spanners in the wheels that will move the Pakistani nation onto a road to a sound democratic future.

For those who missed, it’s worth looking closely at Barack Obama’s latest comments on Pakistan made in a speech this week in which he repeats a call for the United States to shift its focus from Iraq to Afghanistan and Pakistan. ”This is the area where the 9/11 attacks were planned. This is where Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants still hide. This is where extremism poses its greatest threat.”

His plan is to rethink U.S. policy towards Pakistan – which has traditionally depended on cooperation with the military rather than civilian governments — to bolster the democratic aspirations of the Pakistani people, condition aid to Pakistan on its action against al Qaeda,  and show Pakistan that America is on its side.

But then comes the rub.  If the United States has intelligence about al Qaeda targets hiding in Pakistan then America should act if Pakistan will not, or cannot do so, he says.  So far that has meant sending in unmanned Predator aircraft to fire missiles at suspected Islamist hideouts, often leading to civilian casualties and outraging Pakistanis who feel their sovereignty has been violated.

So is there a contradiction in Obama’s commitment to Pakistan? Can the United States win over the people if it is also firing missiles at targets in its territory? Here is the whole excerpt:

“For years, we have supported stability over democracy in Pakistan, and gotten neither. The core leadership of al Qaeda has a safe-haven in Pakistan. The Taliban are able to strike inside Afghanistan and then return to the mountains of the Pakistani border. Throughout Pakistan, domestic unrest has been rising. The full democratic aspirations of the Pakistani people have been too long denied. A child growing up in Pakistan, more often than not, is taught to see America as a source of hate - not hope.

“This is why I stood up last summer and said we cannot base our entire Pakistan policy on President Musharraf. Pakistan is our ally, but we do our own security and our ally no favors by supporting its President while we are seen to be ignoring the interests of the people. Our counter-terrorism assistance must be conditioned on Pakistani action to root out the al Qaeda sanctuary. And any U.S. aid not directly needed for the fight against al Qaeda or to invest in the Pakistani people should be conditioned on the full restoration of Pakistan’s democracy and rule of law.

“The choice is not between Musharraf and Islamic extremists. As the recent legislative elections showed, there is a moderate majority of Pakistanis, and they are the people we need on our side to win the war against al Qaeda. That is why we should dramatically increase our support for the Pakistani people - for education, economic development, and democratic institutions. That child in Pakistan must know that we want a better life for him, that America is on his side, and that his interest in opportunity is our interest as well. That’s the promise that America must stand for.

“And for his sake and ours, we cannot tolerate a sanctuary for terrorists who threaten America’s homeland and Pakistan’s stability. If we have actionable intelligence about high-level al Qaeda targets in Pakistan’s border region, we must act if Pakistan will not or cannot. Senator Clinton, Senator McCain, and President Bush have all distorted and derided this position, suggesting that I would invade or bomb Pakistan. This is politics, pure and simple. My position, in fact, is the same pragmatic policy that all three of them have belatedly - if tacitly - acknowledged is one we should pursue. Indeed, it was months after I called for this policy that a top al Qaeda leader was taken out in Pakistan by an American aircraft. And remember that the same three individuals who now criticize me for supporting a targeted strike on the terrorists who carried out the 9/11 attacks, are the same three individuals that supported an invasion of Iraq - a country that had nothing to do with 9/11. “

Thanks to openDemocracy for highlighting this piece on EurasiaNet about a row between the Taliban and al Qaeda which it says has surfaced among bloggers on a website in Egypt.

“Islamic extremists who regularly post messages to a pro-Al-Qaeda website in Egypt are accusing Afghanistan’s Taliban of straying from the path of global jihad,” it says.  “Internet criticisms of the Taliban follow a February statement from Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar announcing that his movement wants to maintain positive and ‘legitimate’ relations with countries neighbouring Afghanistan.”

It caught my eye since it linked into comments in the Pakistani and other media about the relationship between pro al Qaeda Arab fighters and the Taliban based on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and its implications for Islamist militancy now spreading into the heartland of Pakistan.  The usual argument is that while elements in the Pakistan army and the ISI, the country’s powerful intelligence agency, might have some sympathy for the Taliban — a legacy of the days when they worked together to fight the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan — they blame al Qaeda for turning on Pakistan. 

In a blog on this earlier this month I highlighted a feature on Salon.com headlined Killing ourselves in Afghanistan in which the writer accused the ISI of working against American interests in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This had begun to change, however, said writer Matthew Cole, with the attacks on Pakistan itself. 

“Of late, however, the foreign-led Taliban factions in the Tribal Areas, the ones believed to shelter al-Qaida’s Arab leadership, have begun focusing more attention on destabilizing Islamabad than Kabul,” he wrote. “Now Pakistani intelligence has reason to work with the Americans, at least when it comes to some jihadis, including those known locally as ‘the Arabs’. Many of these insurgents were once aligned with the ISI, but no more.”

Is there a pattern emerging here? Is there a split between the Taliban and al Qaeda that could be exploited by the Pakistan army and the ISI? Or is this just more smoke and mirrors about an invisible enemy that nobody can either understand or control?

Earlier this month, Asif Ali Zardari, leader of the Pakistan People’s Party, said relations between India and Pakistan should not be held hostage to Kashmir.  The following is a guest contribution. Reuters is not responsible for the content and the views expressed are the author’s alone.

The writer is Vice Chancellor of the Islamic University of Science & Technology, Kashmir. The views expressed in this article, however, are those of a private citizen.

By Siddiq Wahid

 Soon after hearing Asif Zardari’s statement on Kashmir, I received a two line mass-email from a friend in Delhi saying that an unnamed “senior journalist” in Pakistan was “surprised” at the reactions to it in Kashmir. ‘Why is everyone so agitated about this positive statement?” the journalist had asked. My friend in Delhi wondered if the recipients of the mail had any thoughts on this question. I responded, tongue in cheek, that Mr. Zardari seemed a good candidate for an invitation to the many symposia on Kashmir so that he could be educated on the subject. My friend responded that I should be more “generous”, given that Mr. Zardari had come across as “quite reasonable” in his television interview. My friend’s response caused me to read and think a little more about this controversy.

It is clear that reactions in Pakistan to Mr. Zardari’s statement have alternated between perfunctory objections to benign disregard amongst the power-set, largely because of the exposure of a simple political reality about nation-states, to which Pakistan is far from immune: self interest. This reality has emerged with progressive clarity for Kashmiris ever since the funeral of the cold war regime. Witness how the radical resistance that surfaced in Kashmir in 1989 was used with such brutal efficiency by all the parties to self-interest so that today it is an unrecognizable shadow of its former self. In the face of this, the Zardari statement is “no surprise”, as averred by Gul Mohammed of the University of Kashmir.

The history of the pursuit of such self-interest is not recent. In the mid-1960s, Indian and Pakistani diplomats famously kept referring, in private, to the Kashmir dispute as a ‘simple’ matter that could easily be resolved once Delhi and Islamabad put their minds to it. However, statecraft demanded rhetorical posturing and selective leveraging, and the J&K problem was conveniently at hand; Mr. Zardari’s statement is an ‘outing’ of this reality. But sixty years has thickly layered the Kashmir problem and the last two decades are an indication of how complex it has become; in the light of that, as Sheikh Showkat Hussain has put it, we must regard the statement as that of a “politically immature” person.

Politically immature perhaps, but it is also that of a money-wise savvy person. If we read between the lines, Zardari was merely being the consummate businessman. What he meant, although not put as crudely as I am about to, is this: ‘I am a businessman and well understand all the talk about exchange of goods across borders, etc. India is a big market for me, so let us leave messy confrontations like Kashmir for future generations to solve because they are untidy for the bottom line.’ And what happens afterwards? ‘We shall see. Things will not go as wrong as the Americans and Europeans think it will, because we are no less reasonable than they are when it comes to such things as the proliferation of armaments and nuclear confrontation. It is that simple.’

This is how Mr. Zardari’s statement needs to be understood in an immediate sense; that of a businessman and political novice. But more disconcerting is the “surprise” of the senior journalist in Pakistan to the angry reactions from the entire spectrum of political thought in Kashmir, from the radical resistance to mainstream politicians. It betrays a lack of understanding of the Kashmiri frustration, for what is missed is that they are not responding to Mr. Zardari’s comments of today but to sixty years of political poor governance, political obfuscation and moral abdication. The timing of the statement, its cavalier affordability and the muted reaction to it in Pakistan can only increase the trust deficit that exists in Kashmir not just towards New Delhi but, increasingly, towards Islamabad as well. This is not good news for the unending ‘peace process’. The continued decline in the trust quotient will result in radicalizing opinions (of all shades including political, ethnic and religious opinions) in various directions, not just in Kashmir but the J&K State in its entirety; again, not a very good legacy for “future generations”.

But another observation of Mr. Zardari’s deserves positive mention - that the rapprochement between India and Pakistan must not be held “hostage” to the Kashmir problem - in its message to Kashmiris. And herein is the problem with the some of the reported reactions to the Zardari statement in Kashmir. Many of them have argued as if the India-Pakistan relationship needs to be held hostage to the Kashmir problem. A. Gani Bhat of the Hurriyat (M) has said that India and Pakistan cannot “live with the tension” of the rivalry between them. Such reactions betray a somewhat dated approach to the problem on the one hand, and a lack of confidence with the fundamentals of the struggle on the other. Is there really any of the “tension” that Professor Bhat refers to? Let us admit it, there is not. India and Pakistan have had a tacit understanding for almost six years now that the Kashmir problem is holding both their countries back, and that it must be resolved without damaging either of their sovereignties. Similarly, Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s argument that “supporting the Kashmir cause is in [Pakistan’s] vital interest” is a position, we must admit, that was jettisoned by Islamabad long ago. Indeed it has concluded (at least since September 11, 2001) that Kashmir is undermining its national interest and threatening its own security.

The point I want to make here is that Kashmiris need to find arguments that are not dependent on fears about another India - Pakistan clash over Kashmir. That is to give legitimacy to Zardari’s accusation of hostage-taking. If Delhi and Islamabad want to be friends, it does not spell doom for Kashmir. To react as if it is does is to admit of no independent existence of the Kashmir conundrum outside of the nationalist egos of the two states. Surely this cannot be the argument in Srinagar. If Delhi and Islamabad don’t exploit emotions over Kashmir any longer, it is because making Kashmir a bone of contention no longer serves their national interests. No more, no less.

If there is a need to analyse the stated objections in Srinagar and Islamabad, there is also a need to do so with what has not been said in Delhi about Mr. Zardari’s insight. It reflects a very confident and self-assured India. Why is this so?  “Shining” India, after all, seems to have given way to an “emerging” one, a term that is appropriately apathetic given the width and depth of poverty, corruption and other malaise that afflict this complex mega-country. Delhi’s silence, it seems to me, is in part a direct reflection of the ubiquitous American presence in Southasia. Washington has long been pursuing a strategy of cascading imperialism whereby it seeks to identify regional allies, whom it assures of its essential support in return for furthering U.S. interests in the region. In Southasia it has identified India as its primary partner, as suggested by Nicholas Burns in a recent article in Foreign Affairs. As such, its task is to watch over Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and, putatively, Burma. It is also seen by Mr. Burns as an overseer for China in his advocacy, rather patronizingly, that India must “ensure that China’s rise is peaceful” and, beyond that, also “prevent the Muslim world from turning its back on modernity.”  Given these global tasks, Delhi need not sweat over off-the-cuff remarks of a political novice.

The negative reactions from across the political spectrum in Kashmir to Mr. Zardari’s statement should demonstrate one thing to Kashmir-watchers in Delhi and Islamabad: that the Kashmir conundrum has now become one that is independent of New Delhi and Islamabad. It is in this context that the statement of the PDP Patron, Mufti M. Sayeed, that, “We should not mislead ourselves about brushing the [Kashmir] issue under the carpet as was done on earlier occasions”, must be seen. In other words: civic, social and economic issues in Kashmir are important, but the Kashmir polity is no longer content with running a municipality and wants to debate the central issue of their perceptions of sovereignty, or the quantum of their role in governing themselves. It is an open assertion of the fact that local aspirations can no longer be ignored, that it is the denial of these aspirations that has created the problem.

Although the PPP Co-Chairman’s remark on Kashmir is the spontaneous reaction of a political lightweight, it is reflective of Pakistan’s strategic direction in the context of globalization, despite recent “clarifications”. It is this that needs to be analysed and understood in Kashmir. Mr. Zardari has only understood ten percent of the Kashmir problem, and will soon come to understand the rest. Meanwhile it is critical that the State’s Kashmiris, particularly its radical resistance, and its non-Kashmiri population, together evolve and agree on an approach that is less Islamabad or Delhi centric, and more J&K State centric. All the peoples of J&K, admittedly of divergent political views, will recognize and appreciate it.

Siddiq Wahid

Ladakh House

Srinagar

March 6^th, 2008

With NATO saying it is nearing a deal to use Russian land and airspace to supply its security forces in Afghanistan, I’ve been trying to  work out what this could mean for Pakistan.

In the Asia Times Online, former Indian diplomat M K Bhadrakumar quotes U.S. military spokesmen as saying that about three quarters of all supplies are currently sent to Afghanistan via Pakistan. ”On the face of it, Washington should jump at the Russian offer of support to the NATO mission in Afghanistan,” he writes. “Pakistan has proved to be an unreliable partner in the ‘war on terror’. The growing political uncertainties in Pakistan put question marks on the wisdom of the US continuing to depend so heavily on Pakistan for ferrying supplies for its troops in Afghanistan.”

My first thought was to ask if this would mean a lowering of U.S. support for Pakistan and a concomitant reduction in the $10 billion in aid that it has pumped into Pakistan since 9/11 to obtain its help in the war in Afghanistan? Many Pakistanis complain the  United States has a long history of using and then abandoning Pakistan, most notably relying on it to arm and fund the mujahedeen fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and then losing interest when the Russians withdrew in 1989.

 But it seems highly unlikely that the United States would turn its back on Pakistan this time around since it can’t afford to keep driving Taliban and al Qaeda fighters out of Afghanistan only for them to seek refuge in Pakistan. According to a report published by the U.S. intelligence group Stratfor in January, “So long as the Taliban have sanctuary and logistical support from Pakistan, transferring all coalition troops in Iraq to Afghanistan would have no effect. And withdrawing from Afghanistan would return the situation to the status quo before Sept. 11. If dealing with the Taliban and destroying al Qaeda are part of any endgame, the key lies in Pakistan.”

In fact it would seem more logical that the United States would want to send troops to Pakistan to fight the Taliban and al Qaeda and prevent them seeking sanctuary there - as Defense Secretary Robert Gates suggested in January. That “offer” was promptly rebuffed by Pakistan and is even less likely to be acceptable after parliamentary elections in February left Washington’s ally, President Pervez Musharraf, fighting for his survival.

The new coalition government being put in place by the Pakistan People’s Party of the late Benazir Bhutto and the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif is expected to try to avoid the confrontational approach to Islamist militants which left many Pakistanis accusing Musharraf of fighting America’s war, and which many blame for bringing  mayhem into its heartland, including the latest bomb attacks in Lahore and Islamabad.

In a comment on a blog I posted last week, former Pakistan diplomat Wajid Shamsul Hasan writes that ”by exploring a more carrot-and-stick approach to dealing with the Taliban and al Qaeda than simply shooting at everything that moves, there may be greater dividends than were possible hitherto. Even the army has been uncomfortable with methods tried thus far.”

There are lots of pieces of the jigsaw missing here. Bhadrakumar says in his Asia Times Online article that NATO is so keen to secure Russian help in Afghanistan that it is willing to defer a decision on membership for Ukraine and Georgia in what he calls “a huge gesture by NATO to Moscow’s sensitivities”. Though the existence of such a trade-off has been denied by western diplomats, it does suggest  Washington is extremely worried about the situation in Afghanistan. If it is desperate enough to go cap in hand to Moscow to help it defeat the Taliban, can it also be patient enough to tolerate a new government in Pakistan trying a more softly, softly approach?

So to go back to my original question, what would a deal between NATO and Russia on Afghanistan, if confirmed, mean for Pakistan? Would the United States’ reduced reliance on Pakistan for supplies to Afghanistan lead to less involvement there? Or does it signal the opposite — that Washington is now so worried about Afghanistan that it will put even more pressure on Pakistan to crack down harder to cut off the escape routes?

In this context it’s perhaps worth rereading Henry Kissinger’s warning to the United States in an op-ed published last week in the International Herald Tribune. “A wise policy must recognize that the internal structure of Pakistani politics is essentially out of the control of American political decision-making,” he writes.

I just came across a feature on Salon.com headlined Killing ourselves in Afghanistan which I’d recommend to anyone interested in U.S. policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Writer MatthewCole has collected evidence which he says shows that some of the $10 billion given in U.S. aid to Pakistan since 9/11 has been used to fund Taliban militants killing American and other troops in Afghanistan. “In part because of Pakistani help, the Taliban have made a steady comeback and American and Afghan casualties are at their highest annual levels since the war began,” he writes. “Islamabad has denied complicity and Washington has maintained official silence, but the double-dealing is not surprising. It’s just the continuation of the Pakistani government’s former alliance with the Taliban, which was itself an outgrowth of a decades-old Pakistani policy of trying to exert control over the internal affairs of its chaotic neighbor.”

Cole quotes European and American analysts as saying thatPakistan stepped up aid to the insurgents in 2004 because the administration led by Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf saw that U.S. forces were achieving no better than a stalemate in southern Afghanistan, the Taliban’s stronghold. “The Pakistanis stepped into the resulting power vacuum by aiding the Taliban.”

As any journalist who has ever tried to write about this part of the world will know, establishing the truth is nearly impossible, and much of Cole’s evidence will no doubt be challenged, both in Islamabad and elsewhere. But what makes this article interesting reading is the way in which he has tried to put his own experience on the ground together with the CIA perspective on Pakistan.

“The Americans were quickly aware that the Pakistanis had no enthusiasm for fighting the Islamist insurgency,” he writes. “Gary Schroen, a former senior CIA official who led the first U.S. team into Afghanistan days after 9/11 and a former station chief in Islamabad, told me recently that where the Pakistan army does engage in battle against militants, they do so without vigor. ‘The Pakistanis don’t want to fight a counter-insurgency inside their own country,’ he said. “They don’t want to fight against Muslims, they want to fight against India.’ Ultimately, the Americans came to realize that the (Pakistan intelligence agency) ISI was not just avoiding conflict with the insurgents, or shielding them, but actively abetting them.”

That the U.S. administration did nothing about this, he considers “an American foreign-policy debacle”.

Whatever you think about his article, I’d recommend you read through to the end, for it’s only then that you realise that pinning down the relationship between Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Taliban is like trying to hit a moving target. Cole says that the Pakistan administration has now turned against many of theIslamist militants,  fearing that they are endangering Pakistan itself:

“Of late, however, the foreign-led Taliban factions in the Tribal Areas, the ones believed to shelter al-Qaida’s Arab leadership, have begun focusing more attention on destabilizing Islamabad than Kabul. Now Pakistani intelligence has reason to work with the Americans, at least when it comes to some jihadis, including those known locally as ‘the Arabs’. Many of these insurgents were once aligned with the ISI, but no more,” Cole writes. “The ISI and the Pakistani army are now at war with a powerful, many-tendriled insurgent band they helped to create. The ISI’s history of double-dealing has come back to haunt it.”

Cole’s article does what many journalists aspire to do — “a first writing of history”. It’s already history in the sense that Musharraf is now battling for survival. It’s history because Cole himself says that the attitude of Pakistan has changed. It’s history too in the sense that Pakistan, which for so long looked to Afghanistan to give it strategic depth againstIndia, is now trying to make peace with its much bigger neighbour.

So where does that leave us? As a journalist, who is interested in history, I’d like to know what you think. What did happen after 9/11 and what is happening now?

Benjamin Disraeli, one of Britain’s foremost prime ministers of the 19th century, once said that, “Coalitions, though sucessful, have always found this, that their triumph has been brief.”

News that Nawaz Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari have agreed on a coalition government raised the same issue.Will theirs be a brief triumph, or the start of a sea change in Pakistani politics?

And with both now calling for the restoration of the judges sacked by President Pervez Musharraf last November — in what appeared to be a quid pro quo from Zardari in return for Sharif agreeing to bring his party into the government — the pressure is mounting on the former army general.

In my last post on what is next for Musharraf, written immediately after the election, one commenter said even if Zardari’s PPP and Sharif’sPML (N) agreed on a coalition, that the government “after the honeymoon period is bound to have differences cropping up as they are ultimately two different parties having different ideologies thus paving the way for the return of the Musharraf allies.”

Has the mood changed since then? Is the pressure on Musharraf becoming irresistible?

Asif Ali Zardari has raised hackles in Kashmir and Pakistan by telling Indian news network CNN-IBN that relations between India and Pakistan should no longer be held hostage to the Kashmir dispute. The leader of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and widower of Benazir Bhutto said in an interview that the two countries should focus instead on building trade and economic ties.

“I am not getting hostage to that issue,” he said. “The idea is we feel for Kashmir, PPP has always felt for Kashmir, we have a strong Kashmir policy and we always had one. But having said that we don’t want to be hostage to that situation. That is a situation we can agree to disagree (on). Countries do, we have positions, you have positions. We can agree to disagree on everything.”

In the Kashmiri capital Srinagar, the Kashmir Times says his comments “evoked strong reaction and resentment from not only the separatists in the valley, but also from the mainstream politicians”. Greater Kashmir says Zardari had no right to speak on behalf of his country on “the mother of all the issues between India and Pakistan”. Thousands of Kashmiris had not lost their lives in the revolt against Indian rule just so that people like Zardari can promote trade and tourism, it says.

 Pakistan blogger moinansari goes further, accusing him of betraying the beliefs of his late wife and of her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. “PPP Treachery! Unelected Zardari’s True Colors are Showing!” it screams, in a lengthy blog which also includes quotes from both Benazir and Zulfikar Bhutto. ”Zardari has no right to speak for Kashmiris or Pakistanis,” it says.

To be fair, the reaction is more muted than it would have been at the height of the Kashmir revolt a few years ago. Even Greater Kashmir concedes that “no sane person in the subcontinent would advocate continuation of strain in the relations between the two neighbors.”

And aside from the blog mentioned, I can find very little in the Pakistani blogosphere about Zardari’s remarks. Is it a sign of the times or just a reflection of the internet that the response on Kashmir was minor compared to the torrent of blogs unleashed when Pakistan pulled the plug on YouTube? Was Zardari merely reflecting a new realpolitik in Pakistan, or did he betray the Kashmir cause?

Given the central role of the Wahhabi tradition in inspiring the Taliban and al Qaeda, it’s worth looking behind the scenes at the news that al Qaeda wanted revenge for the killing of Abu Laith al-Libi in Pakistan — in particular what exactly al Qaeda said about his death.

According to our Dubai correspondent Firouz Sedarat,  al Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri presented an eulogy for Libi in a 9:58 minute video, congratulating him for achieving martyrdom. He spoke of his death as a natural course in jihad.  ”Every time a martyr falls, another martyr grabs the banner from him, and every time a chief goes down in blood, another chief completes the march after him,” he says. These martyrs, Zawahiri declared to America and its “agents”,  are the “pioneers of the coming advance”.  

In his speech, Zawahiri accused “the enemy” of trying to weaken the resolve of Muslims. He referred to a response he had written to a document for the guidance of jihad by Sayyed Imam al-Sherif , who reportedly fell out with him over the use of violence. This document, he said,  presented an Islam desired by America and the West – helpless and submissive –  and was an insult to Muslims.

His comment appeared meant to scotch arguments, as seen in this report by Global Terrorism Analysis, that Islamist ideologues are  reviewing the role of violence in Salafism, the fundamentalist views propagated by the 18th century Sunni reformer Muhammad Abd al-Wahhab and inspiration for al Qaeda. The Nefa Foundation has a transcript.

The killing of the Pakistan army’s top medical officer this week was another reminder of the price being paid by the military in the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban. Lieutenant-General Mushtaq Ahmed Baig was the most senior army officer killed by militants to date.

 From my own experience of covering the armies of Pakistan and India, the loss of such a high-ranking officer would be a huge blow to morale, all the more so given the years of training and experience it takes to make someone of the rank of Lieutenant-General.  So it’s curious there has been surprisingly little public comment about it on the blogosphere.

The Daily Times asks in an editorial why a man known to be a pious Muslim was killed by a teenage suicide bomber who authorities presume was sent by Islamist militants. ”General Mushtaq Baig was in many ways an exemplary officer. Brilliant in academics and outstanding in his military career as a professional, he was also a meticulously honest man. His goodness sprang from his faith in Islam. He said his prayers five times a day regularly, read his Quran and had learned it by heart,” it says. “Why was such a man killed by someone who seeks to enforce Islamic sharia in Pakistan and has vowed revenge for the destruction of Lal Masjid in 2007?”

Was he just the latest victim of a militant backlash against the Pakistan military after army commandos stormed Islamabad’s Lal Masjid last July? Or is there a more complicated explanation?

In a thought-provoking article in the Asia Times Online, Syed Saleem Shahzad sees the killing as part of an upsurge in violence designed to dissuade the Pakistan army from cooperating with NATO to stop a spring offensive by the Taliban in Afghanistan. ”Asia Times Online investigations show that the Taliban’s three-pronged plan for their spring offensive comprises cutting off NATO’s supply lines running from Pakistan to Afghanistan, recruiting fresh volunteers and, most importantly, the creation of a strategic corridor running from Pakistan all the way to the capital Kabul,” he writes.

So what do you think? Was the Lieutenant-General’s death the result of a tragic but random combination of circumstances? Or was it part of a much bigger game plan?