FEB 6 - Benazir Bhutto and her party have made it clear to
Washington that they would be willing to accept President
General Musharraf in exchange for fair parliamentary
elections and an end to criminal charges that keep Ms Bhutto
in exile, says a Washington Post column published on Monday.
Columnist Jackson Diehl notes that the PPP and the Muslim
League-N have formed the Alliance for Restoration of
Democracy and “they are the obvious partners for a
government that genuinely aims to modernize the country and
marginalize … extremism”.
If such a partnership has not materialized, it’s not because
the parties are unwilling to accept Gen Musharraf. “Only Mr
Musharraf refuses to deal with them”, he writes.
The writer claims that in private, the Bush administration
has been urging Gen Musharraf for sometime to come to terms
with Pakistan's moderate democrats even though
"Musharraf continues to enjoy US
support, "and this was the reason behind former Pakistan
premier Benazir Bhutto not getting to see US President
George W. Bush at a prayer breakfast last week," wrote Stratfor
in its most recent analysis.
Relevant story:
Why Washington Disappointed Bhutto
Mr Diehl also rejects the US administration’s argument that
religious extremists will take over Pakistan if the current
government goes, noting that Washington uses the same
argument to “defend the continued US pandering” to Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak.
In Pakistan’s case, he says, such an argument is
“particularly perverse”. That's because “the second most
popular leader in Pakistan behind Gen Musharraf, according
to polling by the International Republican Institute, is not
an Islamist but former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, the
leader of the moderate and pro-Western Pakistan People's
Party”.
Benazir announced on Sunday that she would return to the
country at the end of October or beginning of November this
year and rejected any meeting with US officials,
saying they were unpredictable. She was addressing a
press conference at the residence of Dr Manzoor Javed in
Maryland.
There has been intense speculation in Pakistani political
circles that Bhutto will eventually cut a deal with
Musharraf - of course at Washington's prompting - enabling
her return to Pakistan and take over as a proxy leader,
leaving the General as President and Nawaz Sharif out in the
wilderness. "But some of her pronouncements on Pakistan's
'strategic' issues were so out of line (at the press
conference) that it is doubtful the country's military will
tolerate her return in any capacity," commented India's
influential newspaper Times of India in its news report
today.
Ground realities, rationales aside, if Washington wants
Benazir and Musharraf to tango, they will tango, says Syed
Khurram Habib, a New Jersey based Pakistani-American.
(Filed By Irshad Salim)
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