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NEW JERSEY, JUN 28 - America's influential news
intelligence service Stratfor - sometimes called the cousin
of CIA, has come out again with its (third quarterly)
analysis with emphasis on Gen Musharraf's survival score.
Things look bad, not so promising for the General, but there
is a sliver of hope for the Pakistani nation on the other
hand, if the report has to be taken seriously.
Given the political turmoil in Pakistan, the biggest
question is what will become of President Gen. Pervez
Musharraf as the crisis heats up before the election season,
scheduled to begin during the third quarter, writes
Stratfor.
Says the report, "the situation continues to deteriorate,
but Musharraf still has a few cards left to play. This does
not mean he can salvage his position; rather, he can alter
the magnitude and direction of his decline so that he could
still be in the picture even after the end of the third
quarter.
The political storm that erupted more than four months ago
with Musharraf's ill-fated decision to sack the country's
chief justice, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, has intensified
to the point where the embattled general's only
chance for political survival is to step down as military
chief and work out a power-sharing agreement with a civilian
government, as Stratfor forecast in the previous quarterly.
The presidential election is scheduled for sometime between
Sept. 15 and Oct. 15, but in an attempt to hold onto his
power, Musharraf is considering delaying it until after
parliamentary elections, Stratfor observes. To do so,
President Musharraf would have to dissolve parliament and
the provincial legislatures sometime in July and hold
parliamentary elections within 90 days. Musharraf will also
allow the Supreme Court to rule in Chaudhry's favor, says
the intel forum, and reinstate the top jurist as a means of
defusing the growing anti-Musharraf movement. This is
unlikely to work, however, because Musharraf's dual role as
president and military chief will continue fueling the
already irreversible crisis, STRATFOR adds
Therefore, the analysis continues, "Musharraf will spend the
better part of the third quarter trying to create conditions
that will help his regime survive the coming elections. He
will be unable to make any concrete deals with his opponents
unless he decides to retire from the military and assume the
role of a civilian president, which could help him remain at
the helm for a while, but with reduced powers.
For continuity purposes, the United States is pushing
Musharraf to work out a deal with the civilian parties to
safeguard his position as president, but if Musharraf is
forced out, there will be few tears shed for him in
Washington. The United States does not care much who is in
charge in Islamabad as long as the military establishment
can ensure that U.S. military supply lines in Pakistan are
not disrupted. For the United States, stability in Pakistan
is what matters, and as long as the military has a hand in
running the show, Pakistan's political crises will be
self-contained enough to allow the United States to continue
its counterterrorism operations in the region.
According to Stratfor, the other country with a
vested interest in seeing that Pakistan's military stays in
control of the situation is India. "As long as the generals
are safeguarding Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, India will be
amenable to working with a new civilian government in
Islamabad," the Stratfor's latest analysis concludes.
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