There has been much talk in the media about whether PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari is heading for a showdown with President Pervez Musharraf to force him out of office.

But it is not clear whether Zardari is really looking for a showdown, or instead a climbdown that would allow Musharraf to stay on with reduced powers, while also accommodating former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, whose antipathy to the former army general dates back to the 1999 coup.

For an outsiders’ view, The Australian boiled it down into a story headlined “Leaders duel in battle for Pakistan. 

“Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, enraged over a tirade against him by Asif Ali Zardari, last night cut off longstanding secret contacts with the dominant Pakistan People’s Party as speculation mounted he would launch a counter-strike to shore up his hold on power,” it wrote.

But there is also an interesting insiders’ view from Ikram Sehgal, a defence analyst close to the Pakistan army, who says that Musharraf might replace army head General Ashfaq Kayani with another man to counter any attack by his political opponents. 

“Offence being the best defence, there are signs that the Empire is now preparing to strike back. The perception of continuing absolute authority in the public mind is quite a virtuoso performance by Musharraf, given that this avid bridge player’s only remaining power base is the ISI controlled by talented cousin Lt Gen Nadim Taj,” he writes. 

“The distancing of the Army from politics is a myth as long as uniformed officers in the ISI manipulate political power. For the populace the Army and ISI are synonymous, the perception of their meddling in Pakistani politics is very much alive and well, and will probably remain so. All principal political federal and administrative appointments are presently subject to “clearance” by Nadim Taj.  So let’s not fool ourselves!

 ”"Unsubstantiated rumours are afloat that Musharraf will replace Kayani with Nadim Taj as COAS of the Pakistan Army, sooner rather than later–i.e., before the constitutional amendment to be tabled by the PPP takes away his powers to appoint the Service Chiefs. Even when trial balloons do not fly, the desperate will gamble, throwing caution and calculated risks to the wind. ”

All I might add is that officers in the Pakistan army are rather good at playing bridge (just like the officers in the Indian army).  So what will Musharraf go for? Will he declare No Trumps and try to win with a three of clubs? Or is he still holding the Ace of Hearts?
 

Question: “Does the Bush Administration still consider President Musharraf an indispensable ally?”

Negroponte: “Well, first of all, I think what you — your first question is prompted by the fact that at times in the past, when we talked about the war on terror, particularly in the wake of 9/11, we personalized the characterization of Pakistan’s collaboration with us by saying that Mr. Musharraf was an indispensable ally in the war on terror. And I myself used that phrase on a number of occasions.

“But it really is shorthand for the nation of Pakistan and it’s a shorthand for saying that we have an — I mean, Pakistan is in an indispensable situation in terms of dealing with the threats we confront in the war on terror because of the border area, because of al Qaeda, because of the position that this whole al Qaeda threat poses to our interests, the interests of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the rest of the world. So I think that’s — that would be what I’d say to that one.”

Am I alone in thinking that “shorthand” is an extraordinary word for the Americans to use about Musharraf? The reference is all the more interesting in the context of speculation on whether the rift between former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and Pakistan People’s Party leader Asif Ali Zardari will take pressure off Musharraf to quit.  

The Washington Post, in an article headlined “Sidelined Musharraf Still Exerts Influence“, says that the former army general has continued to influence the country from the shadows, even after his political allies were trounced in elections in February.

“In the past week, the coalition’s acrimonious split — over how and when to restore judges fired by Musharraf — has dashed some of the hopes for democratic progress generated by elections in February,” it says. “Just as swiftly, it has generated talk of Musharraf as the political beneficiary, chortling at his adversaries’ failures and sensing a chance for political muscle-flexing if not rehabilitation.”

An analysis in the Daily Times, however,  suggests the row over the judiciary could produce a backlash against Musharraf, particularly given a pledge by the lawyers’ movement to hold a major protest on June 10 to champion the restoration of the judges. The backlash would also hit Zardari, accused by some of his critics of bowing to American pressure and resisting demands by Sharif that Musharraf be forced out of office. 

“The lawyers and many civil society groups are expected to start street protests for the restoration of the judges. Several political parties are also expected to join them,” writes Hasan-Askari Rizvi in the Daily Times. “The PML-N (Sharif’s party) will certainly not hold back because such a situation would strengthen its position. The movement will target the government, especially Musharraf, and Asif Ali Zardari.”

It looks like volatile times ahead in Pakistan.
 

After the Feb.18 poll demolished Musharraf’s parliamentary support, predictions abounded that the politically isolated U.S. ally would be forced from power within weeks or months. Politicians had even talked about impeaching him.   

 But first, they decided, the priority was to reinstate the judges Musharraf dismissed during a brief period of emergency
rule late last year in order to stop the Supreme Court ruling unlawful his re-election by the outgoing parliament. 

Critics poured scorn on Musharraf for not taking the honourable way out by resigning, having delivered an election
that was fairer and less violent than feared.  

Instead, Musharraf sat tight, and the calculation made by the president’s camp could well be working out. Musharraf’s aides always reckoned an alliance between the Pakistan People’s Party of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and the party led by her old rival Nawaz Sharif would be a short-lived affair.   

They felt the PPP, now under the leadership of Bhutto’s widower Asif Ali Zardari, had more to fear from Sharif’s resurgent Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), than it did from Musharraf. 

Sharif went some way to fulfilling these predictions by pulling the PML-N’s nine ministers out of Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani’s 24-member cabinet, because the PPP failed to meet a deadline on Monday to restore the judges.  

For now the PPP-led government is leaving the ministries vacant, apparently in the hope that Zardari can talk Sharif round, or a compromise is reached over how and when to reinstate the judges.  

The PPP wants to link the reinstatement of the judges to constitutional amendments that could also include steps to strip Musharraf of presidential rights to dismiss a government.  

So there is a common sense of purpose, even if the coalition partners disagree on strategy, and the PML-N has promised carry on supporting Gilani’s government without being part of it.  

Yet, so long as the judges issue remains unresolved the government will be at risk of the PML-N pulling out entirely. 

If a lawyers’ movement, that championed the judiciary in its face-off with Musharraf last year, resumes street agitation,  Sharif must choose whether to back the lawyers and risk destabilising Gilani’s government further.  

The Pakistani people, as they showed in the February poll, had wished for better things from the civilian politicians after nine years under a military-backed government.  

A growing sense of disillusion hasn’t been helped by the United States energetic diplomacy in Pakistan.  Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher met Zardari and  Sharif in London last week as negotiations between the coalition  partners were about to fail.  

There was already a suspicion that Washington is somehow engineering Pakistan’s future by propping up Musharraf, and wants Sharif kept out of government because of doubts about his commitment to the war on terrorism.   

Western governments had encouraged Bhutto to work with Musharraf last year, though it was unclear what Bhutto would have ulitmately done if she’d lived.  

Many Pakistanis now suspect that Zardari could be planning to turn to Musharraf’s camp for support after shedding Sharif, but it is premature to jump to conclusions.  

The best that can be said of the split in the coalition at the moment, is that it has been relatively amicable, with the PML-N continuing to support the government.  

Both sides have refrained from getting into a blame game, and have instead issued statements expressing understanding for the position taken by the other.  

Pakistanis fear however this is the beginning of the end of the coalition and their dream team will give way to one that has little to do with last February’s election.  

She needn’t have looked further than to events last  week to see why America sits rather uneasily on the Pakistani mind, a heavy hand of friendship that Pakistanis are increasingly chafing against.

The New York Times reported that the Pentagon had cancelled the appointment of Maj. Gen. Jay W. Hood as the senior American officer based in Pakistan following weeks of criticism in the Pakistani news media over one of his previous jobs : commander of the U.S.  prison at Guantanamo Bay.

“During General Hood’s command from 2004 to 2006, military authorities force-fed with tubes detainees who were engaging in hunger strikes at the Guantánamo prison, a step they justified as necessary to prevent the prisoners from committing suicide to protest their indefinite confinement,” the newspaper said. “Also during General Hood’s tenure, reports that an American guard may have desecrated a Koran stirred wide protests in the Islamic world.”

The surprise was more that he was named to Pakistan in the first place, where resentment about Guantanamo runs deep. It was seen as all the more insensitive  given that a new government had taken over in Islamabad promising  a different approach to tackling Islamist militancy. For while the Pentagon might have been trying to send a crisis-tested 33-year army veteran to Islamabad at a pivotal time in the war against the Taliban and al Qaeda, it was his Guantanamo command that stuck in the Pakistan mind.

“Guantánamo Bay itself has become a symbol of injustice, torture and abuse of Islam, and sending a commanding officer from there to Islamabad begs the question: What is the message coming out of the Pentagon for Pakistanis by this insensitive act?” Shireen M. Mazari, director general of the Institute of Strategic Studies, wrote in The News back in March when the appointment was announced.

There was even more coming on Capitol Hill where, according to Pakistani news reports, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee told the Foreign Affairs Committee of Congress that while the late Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People Party was doing a good job, coalition partner Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), led by Nawaz Sharif, “needed to be watched.”

Her comments, widely reported in the Pakistan press, prompted admonishment at this kind of micromanagement of the affairs of a sovereign nation and warnings that it was a recipe for disaster.

Indeed the News  argued that the more the United States or members of its political establishment criticised Sharif the greater would be his following in a country rife with anti-American sentiment. Conversely Bhutto’s widower Asif Ali Zardari might cringe at praise from Washington because it would not do him any good at home.  

The best Washington could do, the News said, would be to distance itself from governance of the country. It might even arrest the anti-Americanism that  many Americans find hard to accept.  

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.

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