 
NEW JERSEY, JAN 12 - Has the United States turned against
Musharraf....or turning against him? Or is it just an anti Musharraf
camp's wishful thinking? May be not. There appears to be several
speed bumps on the US-Musharraf friendship highway which may have
shown up on anti-Musharraf camps radar as blips. They may have then
looked for signs of a U-turn or a pit stop by the U.S
administration.
Pakistani
establishment's decision to go ahead with Iran-Pakistan-India gas
pipeline instead of the TAP (the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan
project) is a major irritating
milepost on the Beltway. So is Balochistan, China's rest area on its
western highway to the Gulf oil. Throw in Musharraf's inability to
rope in bin Laden et al and the picture gets murkier than ever. If
you add NWFP's refusal to revise Madrassa policy and pack off the
foreign religious students, the picture gets ominously dirtier.
In the 70s and 80s, such a scenario would have been a happy hunting
ground for the sleuths, spooks and the covert guys.
Given all of the above plus power players in Pakistan appearing to be
throwing new spin balls - Jamali being the latest - it is very probable
that Musharraf is in the hot seat.
Jamali has come out now with his actual reason of giving up
Musharraf's side seat - the timing of which is interesting. So is Benazir's latest decision to ignore Khar's past and her party
stalwart's opposition to his involvement and hand over Punjab PPP to
him. She is visiting USA next week and plans to meet some important
people also.
Shujaat is unnecessarily silent these days. Silence they say is golden so is
"no news is good news". Both Jamali and Shujaat
seem to have broken the rule.
Daily Times, an influential Punjab based English daily newspaper
which is closely monitored here in the USA, has in more than two
occasions, within a one month span, written very critically of
Musharraf and his game plans.
VOA's last week round table telephonic "power talk" with the
Balochistan stakeholders is another indication that aberrations or
crisis in Pakistan politics are closely watched, deciphered,
analyzed and discussed overseas and matched with regional geo-political interests
- by all parties
concerned including Pakistan itself.
While Murtaza Solangi, the VOA news
anchor, on more than one occasion during the interview, succeeded in highlighting the insurgency as a civil
disobedience albeit mini civil war, the establishment failed on the
other hand to highlight
its "developmental work" in Balochistan beyond building cantonments,
cadet college and roadways connecting them.
If Saleem Shahzad, Asia Times Online's Pakistan bureau chief is to
be believed, the US may really be turning against Musharraf.
In his latest insightful piece that appeared on Asia Times Online today, Shahzad writes,
with authority that..... :
"Musharraf's firm grip on the affairs of state has until now served
Washington's interests well, as he has been able to steer the
country into the US camp as an ally in the "war on terror".
However, with the Taliban nowhere near defeated in Afghanistan and
Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda still unbroken (the two major reasons
that the US solicited Pakistan's assistance in the first place), the
US is looking at its allies in Islamabad in a new light: Musharraf
may be more the problem than the solution.
An indication of how things have slipped in the region is news that
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has openly called for a truce with
Taliban leader Mullah Omar. This was not how events were supposed to
play out.
According to sources close to the power corridors in Washington who
spoke to Asia Times Online, the administration of US President
George W Bush is now convinced that a weaker Pakistani army is as
necessary now as a powerful one was when Islamabad did a U-turn on
its support for the Taliban soon after September 11, 2001.
This realization has taken root over the past few months, and
developments since last November have been enough to set alarm bells
ringing among the military leadership of Pakistan.
Goings-on in Balochistan
Rebellious tribesmen in the restive but resource-rich province of
Balochistan have for decades challenged the writ of the central
government in Islamabad. The Baloch insurgents have traditionally
received weapons via Kandahar in Afghanistan, and via sea smuggling
routes.
The Pakistani army has engaged in a number of operations in
Balochistan over the years, and the most recent is continuing. The
involvement of the military is highly unpopular not only among
Balochis, but also among many segments of Pakistani society.
What is new in Balochistan, and which is causing concern in
Islamabad, is the emergence of two sons of insurgent tribal chief
Nawab Khair Bux Muri as organizers of a strong financial network to
fund the insurgency.
 "The whole operation of financing the Baloch insurgency is directed
from Qatar, although this is a very unlikely place. One of the sons
of Khair Bux Muri - Gazn Muri - has been shuttling between Qatar and
the UAE [United Arab Emirates] and is the main financial link
between the insurgents in Balochistan, where command is in the hands
of a brother, Balaach Muri," a top Pakistani security official told
Asia Times Online.
"The real question, though, is not the transmission of money, but
from where Gazn Muri is getting this kind of huge money. The answer
lies in the activities of another brother, Harbayar Muri, who is
based in London."
Although the official would not spell it out in as many words, he
was questioning how Harbayar Muri could raise funds in Britain,
where there is a negligible Balochi expatriate community. It was a
clear hint at the involvement of Western intelligence agencies,
which have strong centers of operations in Qatar-UAE and London.
Political maneuvering
The US is also making some backroom political moves in relation to
Pakistan's interests in the region.
According to a contact who spoke to Asia Times Online, a person
close to the US Central Intelligence Agency paid a low-profile visit
to New Delhi in the third week of December and briefed strategic
planners on Washington's plan to try to curtail the role of the
Pakistani army, while at the same time renewing support for
democratic forces in Pakistan.
India's cold shoulder on the diplomatic front toward Pakistan and a
policy statement against the military operation in Balochistan was
an immediate outcome. Islamabad promptly responded by accusing India
of meddling in Balochistan, charges that Delhi strenuously denied.
The same person then visited Islamabad and held high-level meetings
with political personalities. On his return to the US he stopped
over in Dubai in the UAE and held detailed meetings with former
Pakistani premier Benazir Bhutto, who lives there.
A sudden upsurge in the activities in Pakistan of the Alliance for
the Restoration of Democracy - which Bhutto supports - followed.
Musharraf's mystique
The US first made contact with Musharraf in a meaningful way when he
was still Corps Commander Mangla and he approached the Americans
through a Pakistani mediator. Musharraf had no particular request,
but the move was seen as "unusual and meaningful".
The US concluded first that he was ambitious and only wanted power,
and that he had a flawed, "split" vision.
US officials noted that to build a constituency in the Pakistani
Army, Musharraf embraced the Kashmir issue and enthusiastically
supported the liberation movement there.
Last year's earthquake in Kashmir, in which the extensive jihadi
influence in Pakistan-administered Kashmir was made clear (they
played a significant part in relief operations), convinced the
Americans that the Pakistani army would never back out from its
strategic activities in Kashmir through supporting the armed
struggle in the Indian-administered part of the Valley.
Musharraf, who derives much of his legitimacy from the army, simply
cannot afford to abandon this cause. The militancy will continue.
In this regard, the US noted the ill-fated Pakistani army venture
into Kargil in Kashmir in 1999, which was conceived by Musharraf
shortly before he took power. Pakistan believed that India would
respond to the aggression by going to the peace table, but instead
it launched its troops in a full-out assault, quite ready to go to
all-out war. Pakistan pulled back its troops from the ill-conceived
operation.
On the domestic front, the Musharraf administration in essence
facilitated the formation of the the six-party alliance, the
Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), which made impressive political gains
in the general elections of 2002.
The aim was to scare the Americans by pointing to the emergence of
Islamic fundamentalism in order to garner US support for Musharraf's
uniform.
Similarly, the sweeping defeat of the MMA in local elections late
last year amid widespread claims of fraud was to show the Americans
that Musharraf had the ability to outwit fundamentalism. In this
game, Musharraf's split vision does not allow him to visualize what
kind of a message he is really passing on to Washington.
According to Asia Times Online information, Washington has now
decided that the best outcome would be for a new man to replace
Musharraf, 64, as chief of army staff, and at the same time to
encourage liberal democratic forces to take over parliament.
As for Musharraf, the ideal way out for him is to become a civilian
constitutional head of the country."
My two cents: Pakistan's fifty eight years of political
"musical chair" will unfortunately continue. Sometimes,
the country is
located at the right place but at the wrong time, sometimes it finds
itself at the wrong place when the timing is right. We got to wait for
Pakistan to be at the
right place at the right time. Until then have coffee, tea or beer
my friends. No Mithais please! |
Articles/Opinions
