By ASIF HAROON RAJA

IT IS now an established fact that PPP as a party claiming to be champions of democracy, rule of law and rights of the poor is in actuality anti-democratic, lawbreaker and anti-people. PPP and democracy repel each other since the two are synonymous. PPP leaders have remained too engrossed in filling their coffers with ill-gotten money and in striving to complete their five-year tenure by hook or crook. The only change the PPP leaders have brought in them from their deleterious conduct from 1988 till 1999 is to adopt a policy of selective reconciliation. Under this policy, those cooperating with them or suiting their psyche are to be shielded and protected from the hand of law and rewarded. They have been merrily working on the concept of making hay as long as the sun shines. Their closeness with Army leadership was a marriage of convenience to ensure their survival. The moment they suspected that they could be evicted from power by the Army, they became officious and belligerent.

Having remained out of power for 12 years and gone through trials and tribulations, PPP leaders have turned into hungry predators with ravenous appetite for power and wealth. They consider it their right to plunder because of their prolonged suffering. 12-year inaction has made them languid and inefficient. They swing into action only when their self interests are involved. During their period of exile the runaways had developed contacts with foreign agencies and in their greed to return to corridors of power and to further their selfish interests they sold their souls and agreed to accept any number of demands howsoever injurious to national interests.

Among many blunders committed by Gen Musharraf during his nine-year rule, secret deal with Benazir Bhutto (BB) hatched by USA and UK in July 2007 which paved the way for issuance of black law known as National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) on 5 October 2007 was his gravest sin. It resulted in takeover of power by the NRO washed vultures as a consequent to massively rigged elections in February 2008. Notwithstanding her flaws, BB was charismatic, visionary and had earned a place among world comity. Her sudden death generated a huge sympathy wave which enabled the PPP to capture power. Those in good books of BB were sidelined and the hypocrites adept only in misusing power, disregarding rule of law and multiplying wealth through corrupt practices took up top slots. They befool the jayalas by raising emotional slogans in BB’s memory but have taken no steps to locate her murderers or to fulfill her mission of providing food, shelter and clothes to the poor.

It was owing to over three million bogus voters and programmed pre-poll rigging that the dream team of the US comprising three liberal parties assumed power. Although the manifestos and ideology of PPP, MQM and ANP were different, corruption became the unifying factor. Above all, the master coordinator made the three bedfellows. JUI-F was also shoved in the same bed since greedy Fazlur Rahman was Maulana in name only. Since PML-N’s victory in Punjab was not in the script, Salman Taseer was appointed as governor to keep Shahbaz ministry under pressure. No sooner the government was formed under PM Gilani; the legislators and bureaucrats pounced upon the body of Pakistan and started eating its flesh voraciously. While PPP politicians feasted upon state corporations and foreign aid, MQM milked Karachi and ANP devoured railways. While ANP has remained a steadfast ally of PPP, MQM has been coming in and out of coalition quite frequently. Divided PML-Q is the recent ally.

In accordance with the given agenda by Washington, the ruling clique had consented to denuclearize and secularize Pakistan; minimize the role of military establishment in Pakistan’s decision making processes and to convert Pak Army into a counter terror force only; to place ISI under interior ministry; to push Kashmir issue on backburner or accept Indian plan to make Line of Control as permanent border; to accept India’s hegemony and to virtually convert Pakistan into a compliant state. They agreed to appoint Washington nominated persons on key posts. These included Maj Gen ® Mehmud Durrani as Defence & Foreign Affairs adviser to PM, Husain Haqqani as Ambassador in Washington, Wajid Shams as Ambassador in London, Rahman Malik as interior minister. They agreed to make Pakistan’s economy subservient to IMF; to fight war on terror unquestioningly with full force; to allow drone strikes in FATA from Shamsi airbase; to abide by written and unwritten secret agreements between the US and Mush regime.

Making Zardari as the most powerful civilian president in August 2008, making the legislature under Gilani as a dummy and keeping judiciary under PCO judges were part of the plan to maintain one-window operation between Presidency in Islamabad and power centres in Washington. Slogan of supremacy of parliament was designed to bring heads of three services and ISI completely under the effective control of executive head and supreme commander. Grant of 3-year extension to Gen Kayani and one-year to Lt Gen Pasha on persuasion of Gilani were aimed at making them do as told to do and also to ensure safety of PPP’s fulltime tenure.

When Kayani thwarted government attempts to place ISI under Malik and not to restore sacked judges, and after Raymond’s arrest when he and Pasha started taking preventive measures to safeguard Pakistan’s security interests and that of the two premier institutions, ‘Operation Get Geronimo’ was conceived by CIA. British PM, Zardari, Haqqani, Wajid Shams, Rahman Malik and Salman Faruqui were taken into confidence. False-flag operation was undertaken to belittle Army, ISI and PAF and to undermine the credibility of heads of these institutions so that they could be made pliant. Rulers gladly accepted the US plan since they lacked moral authority to keep the military under their thumb because of their involvement in mal administration and mal practices and loss of confidence of the people.

Since the top leaders were part of the conspiracy, instead of feeling shocked and finding out who were responsible for the security lapse, Zardari and Gilani declared the US intrusion on 2 May as ‘historic’ and ‘great victory’. Haqqani and Wajid’s statements to the media were meaningful. However, when they found that the Army and ISI had taken the incident too seriously and were groping for clues to get to the bottom of the stealth incursion by an ally, and the public was on a rampage, Zardari panicked fearing his involvement might not get exposed. The reason why he got nervous was the intelligence fed to him on 4 May by US Ambassador Munter on the advice of CIA that Army was contemplating a coup. He suggested to him to approach Pentagon since in his view Admiral Mullen could be the only one to restrain Kayani.

When jangled nerved Zardari approached sneaky Haqqani, the latter suggested that unless the yearning desires of Washington were fulfilled it would be difficult for him to convince the US CJSC to twist Kayani’s arm and tell him to keep his hands off civilian government. Getting a nod from him, Haqqani hastened to draft the memo containing six offers and took his old friend Mansoor Ijaz into confidence. He selected him to deliver the explosive memo to Mullen since he like him was anti-Army/ISI and both had been exchanging notes since 2005. Mansoor had also written several articles in newspapers against Pak Army and ISI. Another reason of confiding in him was his close associations with high officials of US military establishment.

Whether Haqqani himself chose him, or someone else advised him, or whether Zardari told Haqqani to draft and deliver the memo, or Salman Faruqui conveyed the message of Zardari to him, or Haqqani suggested to him; or Haqqani did it at his own accord, or Mansoor approached him and fed this idea to him at the behest of CIA are some of the puzzles yet to be solved. My hunch is that memo was engineered by CIA to pitch Army against the government and compel Kayani to takeover power.

Whatever be the hypothesis, it is a proven fact that memo is a reality which was conceived and formulated in early May. It is also a fact that Haqqani and Mansoor traveled to London on 9 May where their meetings with two British senior officials were arranged by Wajid Shams and they flew back to Washington the same day. Mansoor delivered the memo to James Jones and the same was forwarded by him to Mullen on 10 May. Both Jones and Mullen have confirmed receiving the memo on prescribed dates. It is also known that Mullen didn’t take any action on the memo since he had not been fed with intelligence by CIA about the possibility of a coup as feared by Zardari. Mullen was otherwise in no position to caution Kayani who in that timeframe was in black mood and Pak-US military relations had dipped low. Another known fact is that between 9 and 11 May, Haqqani and Mansoor had extensive chats on Blackberry cell phones and also exchanged messages on laptop.

Once the 2 May crisis cooled down and things began to normalize, Zardari and Haqqani forgot about the memo. In their bid to gain confidence of the two generals under fire of media and politicians, Gilani went out of the way to bail them out when they attended All Parties Conference and explained their point of view on 14 May. It was another attempt to make them submissive. Rather than getting defensive and acquiescent, Kayani and Pasha went about dismantling CIA’s network which had tentacles in all important urban centres and also got hold of CIA’s informers. ISI had a mammoth task to locate thousands of CIA agents that had sneaked in on the quiet with the help of Haqqani and Malik and with the blessing of Gilani. Besides CIA, Blackwater and five other intelligence agencies operating from Afghanistan to destabilize Pakistan were also to be taken care of.

The US and UK trainers involved in espionage were booted out. Diplomats and NGOs engaged in subversive activities were kept under scrutiny. Security forces continued to maintain offensive posture to keep foreign paid terrorists in FATA, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan on the run. Cross border terrorism from Kunar and Nuristan was plugged. These tough measures were not to the liking of Pakistan’s adversaries who had spent colossal amounts to get closer to nuclear sites and destroy them. Not only they were not succeeding in taming Pak Army and ISI, Afghan Taliban were getting more and more stronger. Series of offensive attacks by Taliban in and around Kabul in August-September unnerved the US military and intelligence leadership.

CIA then decided to play up memo that was lying in pending tray of the new CJSC. This time the purpose was to provoke the Army and ISI to topple the government or as a minimum spoil civil-military relations and then keep provoking both sides and create favorable situation for a headlong clash. Fame hungry Mansoor was nudged to leak the story in Financial Times on 10 October and to gradually heat it up. His story came as a rude shock for Haqqani but he, Zardari and Gilani played it down thinking that Mansoor being a chronic Army basher would not pursue it and also that none will believe him. However, memo case took a dramatic turn after Gen Pasha held a secret meeting with Mansoor in London on 22 October. The meeting convinced the spy chief that memo was not a fantasy but a reality and someone had made a dangerous plan to cause immeasurable harm to Pakistan with the help of US military.

Promises made by the architects of memo had grave implications upon security interests of Pakistan and gave an insight to vile intentions of the authors of memo. The very sovereignty and integrity had been bartered away just to restrain Gen Kayani from launching a perceived coup to let the gang of corrupt remain in power. Playing the film fast forward, Haqqani has been sacked, put on exit control list and a three-member judicial commission is presently investigating the case in response to the petitions filed by seven petitioners including Nawaz Sharif who himself appeared before the SC to submit his petition. While Mansoor has surrendered his rights of his phones, Haqqani has not done so for obvious reasons and has hidden his Blackberry sets saying he has misplaced them.

Haqqani wants the case to be closed forthwith and allowed to proceed abroad since he imagines that he may be killed, but Mansoor wants the probe to reach its conclusion and is ready to come to Pakistan despite threats to his life. The government is also striving hard to dissuade the Supreme Court (SC) to terminate the probe and is also creating hurdles for Mansoor to block his entry in Pakistan thereby heightening suspicions as to why it doesn’t want to ascertain the truth. Mansoor is expected to present himself on 26 January, but being a CIA man, he cannot be fully trusted.

When the memo case took an ominous turn for the schemers and not only put the government in the dock but also Haqqani - the blue-eyed boy of USA, and the Army kept up its defiance against the US dictates, the US military in collaboration with Afghan military attacked Salala Army border posts on 26 November killing 24 soldiers. This blatant intrusion meant to intimidate the Army also backfired. Vital NATO supply lines to Afghanistan remain closed; military and intelligence cooperation has almost ceased. Pakistan Army has rejected US military report on Salala terming it as biased and a mixture of half-truths. Closure of Shamsi base has drastically reduced drone strikes. In two months, only two strikes have taken place. Parliamentary Committee has formulated new terms of engagement with USA. A strategic shift of the government is on the cards. This can be discerned from five-day visit of Gen Kayani to China and Foreign Minister Rabbani’s intended visit to Moscow.

Finding itself in a fix, the US once again fed false news to the government that Army had got aligned with the judiciary and was contemplating a coup. It baffled the already jittery duo owing to closing jaws of memo and NRO and on two occasions with short intervals Gilani spoke offensively against the COAS and DG ISI. Sacking of Secretary Defence was also a knee-jerk reaction which reflected poorly upon Gilani’s conduct particularly when he blew hot and cold and chewed his own words repeatedly. While maintaining an aggressive posture against the Army, Gilani and his legal team also adopted a non-cooperative attitude towards the SC hearing implementation of NRO case.

Gilani and Babar Awan stubbornly maintained that no letter would be written to Swiss courts to reopen money laundering case pending against Zardari since he enjoyed immunity. The President emphatically stated that he will not allow trial of grave of Benazir Bhutto and that he will accept Parliamentary Committee’s decision on memo and not that of SC. When the judicial commission gave itself six options to proceed against the delinquent on 10 January and fixed 16 January as the cutout date to deliver the hammer, Gilani tried to counter the dual threat of judiciary and Army by seeking fresh vote of confidence in National Assembly and to pass a resolution authorizing him to confront the two institutions frontally.

The allied parties however opted reconciliation over confrontation and rendered support for continuation of democracy only. On the 16^th, the SC finally struck and issued a show cause notice to Gilani on the charge of contempt of court and asked him to present himself on 19^th to explain his point of view before the final verdict was announced. Gilani may either be disqualified or imprisoned unless he renders apology to SC and agrees to write a letter to Swiss court, or resigns. Notwithstanding his last minute theatrics, for all practical purposes he has cooked his goose. Chairman NAB who had been behaving arrogantly has come down to earth and submitted his unconditional apology to SC which has been accepted. Babar Awan’s legal license has been temporarily suspended. Decisions of the SC have been hailed by all and sundry except for beneficiaries of NRO who number 8041.

Whatever the decision of the SC on the next hearing, it will not help in stabilizing the political situation which is in a flux, nor in steadying the continuously plummeting economy, or in alleviating the problems of the people, or in ending the war on terror. Although SC will reestablish that it has teeth and can bite, but clash of institutions will benefit the adversaries of Pakistan only. It will be in fitness of things if the government honors the decisions and directives of SC gracefully rather than continuing with its confrontational attitude and making a mockery of itself. Instead of wasting its energies in belittling premier institutions, the government should divert its defiance towards the adversaries of Pakistan. It should sincerely concentrate on solving multitude of problems of the state, or else throw in its towel and let a better team to steer the country out of multiple crises.

The writer is a retired Brig, author of several books and a freelance columnist. Email:asifharoon7751@yahoo.com

By RAMZY BAROUD

REGARDLESS of who may rule Israel, little change ever occurs in the country’s foreign policy. Winning parties remain obsessed with demographics and retaining absolute military dominance. They also remain unfailingly focused on their quest to initiate racist laws against non-Jewish residents of the state, and continue to hone the art of speaking of peace, while actually maintaining a permanent state of war.

Every few years the media becomes captivated by Israeli democracy. Commentators speak of right, left, center, and anything in between. Despite Israeli elections still being a year and a half away, media pundits are already discussing possible outcomes of the vote against the peace process, economic reforms, social equality, and so on.

In a recent article, Israeli columnist Uri Avnery decried the fact that the main opposition to the rightwing parties – “the Likud, the Lieberman party and various ultra-nationalist, pro-settlement and religious factions” – is no other than the center-left Kadima. The party, led by the “incompetent” Tzipi Livni, is allegedly in “shambles”. Moreover, left parties, such as Labor and Meretz, are not expected to pose a real threat to the right party conglomerate, despite their temporary rise in the polls.

As genuine as he is, Avnery is once again presenting the false hope of a savior emerging to save Israel from itself. Avnery envisions Israel being rescued from its ‘neo fascists’ and  returned to the over-romanticized scenario of old, when early Zionists supposedly dreamed of an Israel governed by universal ethics, true democracy, peace and social equality . “I fervently hope that a different kind of new political force will emerge – a center-left party with a clear and inclusive message: social reform, narrowing the gap between rich and poor, the two-state solution, peace with the Palestinians and the end of the occupation.”

But this is as far as the imagined narrative of a kinder, gentler Israel can possibly go. Many outside Israel struggle to reconcile familiar discourses of democracy and equality with the reality on the ground. True, the ailment is not exclusive to Israel itself, but few other self-proclaimed democratic countries have such a massive gap between mainstream political discourses and actual policies.

Recall, for example, what the media touted as Israel’s own ‘Arab Spring.’ Even those who knew Israeli history hoped for a fleeting moment that the mass protests throughout Israeli cities could actually challenge the political and social status quo in Israel. But not Seraj Assi, a columnist and PhD student at Georgetown University. Assi wrote: “The dirty secret of the Tel Aviv protests is that the bulk of those middle-class Ashkenazi protestors are moved by a racist hysteria. They are simply afraid of being moved to the city peripheries and the far less fashionable parts of the country. For when they complain that they only feel at home in Tel Aviv, they explicitly express a racist desire to stay away from the development towns and neighborhoods populated by Arabs, poor Mizrahi and Ethiopian Jews.”

Indeed, the protests labored to stay clear of contentious discussions of military occupation, war, and even racial inequality within Israeli itself.

Not even the one-sided war on Gaza, which resulted in the killing of over 1400 Palestinians, was enough to raise the level of mass consciousness to challenge political and military apparatuses in Israel in any meaningful way. Under the title, ‘The Moral and Military Meltdown in Israel’, Hamid Dabashi, Professor of Comparative Literature at Columbia University, wrote: “It is not just the worst of the Israelis who (according to a recent poll by Haaretz) condone and actively support the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza, but so have their very best, their intellectuals, professors, journalists, filmmakers, novelists and poets, from Amos Oz to David Grossman to A. B. Yehoshua to Meir Shalev and scores of others” (Jan 12, 2009).

While rightwing Israeli parties are often dismissed as anti-peace and hawkish, the ‘liberal’ Zionists in the Israeli Left have been viewed by some as an alternative, capable of writing wrongs and achieving the long-awaited peace. These are mere ‘delusions’, argued Roger Sheety in a recent article. “Scratch just a little below the surface and you discover that .. when it approaches the Palestinian person in particular, (Liberal Zionism) suddenly stops and fully reverses itself,” he wrote (Jan 9).

Sheety suggests a “clear and concise word for this phenomenon…hypocrisy.” But ‘hypocrisy’ might be too easy a term to explain this very involved trend in Israeli politics, which defined the Zionist movement long before the state of Israel was established in 1948. A most compelling book by Israeli author Tikva Honig-Parnass traces the roots of liberal Zionism from an insider perspective. False Prophets of Peace: Liberal Zionism and the Struggle for Palestine is a profound addition to a growing library that challenges ‘liberal’ Zionists’ claim to liberalism or progressiveness.

After reading Honig-Parnass’ book, one is left with a clear impression that liberal Zionists are neither ‘Israel’s best’ and nor is their double-speak a simple reflection of hypocrisy. Liberal Zionists were, and remain at the heart of the problem. After all, the Israeli Right didn’t emerge as a powerful player in politics until the late 1970s. All that proceeded – the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing, the Law of Return, the 1967 war and further colonial expansion, and even the war on Gaza in 2008-09 - were orchestrated by Israel’s Zionist Left leaderships. More, the “systematic institutional discrimination against Palestinian citizens was (also) applied through the strengthened power of the Zionist Left,” Honig-Parnass argues. Even the most ‘radical’ forces in Israel are tainted, as the Zionist Labor movement rallied around racial discrimination against non-Jews before the establishment of Israel; later laws made racial discrimination against non-Jewish laborers the status quo, as is the case today.

To hold hope in the new election cycle in Israel is like waiting for false prophets. No salvation will be heralded by some imagined center-left party that will bring “an end to the ultra-rightist frenzy,” as hoped by Avnery.

The task will not be easy, but a true shift in Israeli politics can only occur at the foundational level by confronting the country’s Apartheid-like political institutions. More, by challenging the “Zionist Left political and ideological perspectives,” a way could open for “progressive forces among Jews and Palestinians to fight together against the Zionist/Jewish state,” as suggested by Honig-Parnass.

- Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story (Pluto Press, London).

PAKISTAN may be the only country in the world where persons involved in heinous crimes including treason not only get away unpunished but also hold top appointments. Whatever little sting the law courts and accountability courts had has been smudged by this government. There is no accountability of the corrupt and criminals since the rulers themselves are NRO cleansed. Those wanting accountability of the wrongdoers are scoffed at, threatened and suppressed. Crossing all limits, the PPP leadership is averse to an open and fair probe on a highly sensitive matter of memo having grave implications for national security and integrity. Likewise, it has flouted Supreme Court’s (SC) ruling given on 16 December 2009 making NRO null and void. It continues to maintain a stubborn stance of defiance even after the SC rejected the review petition on NRO and directed the government to implement its order by 10 January 2012. Countdown will terminate on 16 January and the nation is keeping its fingers crossed.

The government is employing all conceivable tricks and techniques under the sun to wriggle out of memo scandal and to prevent reopening of cases pending against President Zardari in foreign courts. It is creating umpteen hurdles in the way of three-member commission investigating memo case and the bench pursuing implementation of NRO. The PPP is past master in delaying tactics and in playing the theme of victimization. The top guns of the PPP involved in massive corruption managed to prevent law courts from delivering judgments for eleven years. Their tactics couldn’t have succeeded without the connivance of weak-willed and purchasable judges and prosecutors. The culture of higher courts under chief justice Iftikhar has undergone a radical change. The apex courts have ultimately realized that the judiciary in Pakistan has earned a very bad name and people have lost faith in judicial system. For too long the judiciary had played into the hands of military and civilian dictators. The higher judiciary had a big role in validating wrongful acts of the rulers and in validating military rules under the miscued doctrine of necessity.

The judges having gone through a prolonged ordeal of two years under a military dictator Gen Musharraf have decided to restore the image and reputation of the judiciary. They appreciate that without the public pressure the sacked judges could not have been restored in March 2009. They know that the people deprived of justice were overjoyed over their reinstatement and hold high hopes in the liberated judiciary. They want to live up to the high expectations of the people by delivering justice based on fairness and without caring for the high status of the accused. The culture of uprightness, honesty and evenhandedness is however alien to the PPP leaders who believe only in cheating, chicanery, looting, delinquency, nepotism and cronyism. They prefer self over national interests; they neither believe in rule of law nor in system of accountability. PCO judges suited them the most and they had tried very hard to retain Dogar as chief justice but failed.

The law makers and upholders of rule of law and constitution are themselves the biggest violators of law. They keep raising the slogan that parliament is supreme but their personal conduct displayed in the last four years of their rule has been deplorable. Not only they have been bending and breaking laws of the land at will, they have been contemptuously defying the apex court with impunity. Never before any government in Pakistan has defied and insulted the Supreme Court so brazenly. Zardari-Gilani duo has been promoting cronyism and favoritism and destroying public corporate enterprises. The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has been made impotent to enable them to shield, protect and promote corrupt and inept officials holding key appointments and to disregard merit. Even those involved in mega scams and convicted by the courts are pardoned by Zardari and reinstated or given better jobs. Adnan Khwaja and Riaz Shiekh are two recent examples. The duo and their loyalists give preference to loyalty to the political party over the state and the constitution. Appointments of Husain Haqqani and Wajid Shams as ambassadors and Rahman Malik as interior minister simply to please Washington give an insight of the outlook of rulers.

Babar Awan with a fake doctor’s degree held the important post of law minister for a long period merely because he maintained a bellicose posture against Sharif brothers. He openly bribed members of Bar Council and lawyers to buy their loyalties and spent millions from exchequer. He has been in the lead to deride and defy the SC. While he mistakenly thinks that his clownish acrobats are cheered by the people, in reality they consider him no more than a court jester pleasing his boss in Presidency. He is principally responsible for putting the ruling party in a blind alley. In his greed to become Punjab Governor or Senate Chairman, he has gone too far and made himself highly vulnerable. The SC sword can fall upon him anytime.

PM Gilani as executive head instead of feeling most concerned about memo affair is least concerned and wants it to be hushed up. He still is of the view that removal of Haqqani from his post should have ended the matter. He got so perturbed over Gen Kayani and Lt Gen Pasha submitting their affidavits to the Supreme Court different to the one submitted by the government that he is not reconciling with it. He had lost his cool on 26 December since he was fed with false intelligence that Gen Kayani was set to overthrow his government. But he cooled down after Gen Kayani issued a statement that he had no intention of launching a coup and toppling a democratic government. He however hastened to add a meaningful sentence in his rejoinder that there will be no compromise on national security.

Seeing that the memo case was taking a dangerous turn and that the two generals were not prepared to take back their affidavits in which it was categorically stated that memo was a reality and must be probed, the PM once again got off balanced on 9 January while giving an interview to Chinese Daily. Fearing that the Army had developed an understanding with the SC, he outlandishly dubbed the depositions of Kayani and Pasha as illegal and unconstitutional on the basis that they had not taken his consent or permission of the Defence Ministry. He thus reignited the fire which had almost died down. His stance was negated by the Attorney General who cleared the mist by saying that replies submitted were very much in accordance with legal procedure.

The five-member SC bench in its sitting on 10 January pronounced President Zardari, PM Gilani, Law Minister Maula Bux Chandio, Babar Awan, Law Secretary Masood Chishti and NAB chief retired Admiral Fasih Bokhari as chief delinquents. It stated that they have consistently been showing naked defiance and apathy towards SC and could be proceeded against on charges of contempt of court. Axes had been honed and raised above shoulders, and heads of the five put on the chopping block, but before bringing down the axes, the accused were given last chance to save their necks from getting chopped. Showing unprecedented restraint in the face of extreme provocation, the SC has dished out six loaded options. The leading option is to disqualify both Zardari and Gilani. However knowing that Jayalas have an old habit of making too much fuss and complaining that they have been indicted unheard, milder options include letting Zardari to appear before the court to plead for immunity; or the PM to resign and hold early elections. The government has to choose one of the options till the next hearing scheduled on 16 January.

As if his harmful interview was not enough, Gilani further upped the ante by sacking Secretary Defence retired Lt Gen Lodhi on charges of misconduct and creating misunderstanding between institutions and gave additional charge of Secretary Defence to his blue eyed Secretary Nargis Sethi. His only fault was that the Personal Secretary of PM had called him in his office and asked him on behalf of PM to sign the affidavit concerning memo case prepared by the government, but he regretted to do so. Lodhi has decided to approach the court and plead his case that he has been unjustly removed from service without giving him show cause notice or carrying out any inquiry.

It was speculated that Gilani’s offensive move had been made to pave the way to sack Army chief and DG ISI. The Army launched a quick riposte in the form of a terse rejoinder which not only clarified that routing of affidavits were strictly in line with laid down legal procedure but also gave a veiled warning that indigestible insinuations would have serious repercussions. Gen Kayani called a conference of his PSOs and corps commanders next morning. Adding to it was the newspapers story about newly posted brigade commander of notorious 111 Brigade. It gave a loud message that the Army would not take the insults lying down.

Despite assurances given by Army Chief that he respects democracy and the Chief Justice who said that the door to martial law has been shut forever, Zardari, Gilani and his confidantes continue to suffer from hallucinations of a military coup. Puppet Gilani whose strings are in the hands of Zardari has become so confused that he is taking somersaults repeatedly and eating his words. There must be something to hide that Haqqani and his guardians are feeling so disturbed and are feeling so edgy. Wittingly or unwittingly, the corrupt and inept government is opening the door for the Army to step in so that it could become a political martyr, but Kayani has no such intentions and would like a change taking place through democratic process.

Finding itself stuck in a blind alley, Gilani in consultation with Zardari called an emergent session on 12^th January in his bid to seek vote of confidence and then declare war against the judiciary and Army’s top leadership. But his effort backfired because of lukewarm response of allied parties who didn’t favor policy of confrontation. Seeing that Gilani was heading towards a head on suicidal clash with the judiciary as well as the Army, the three allied parties of PPP got nervy and firmly advised its leadership to avoid collision at all costs and opt for reconciliation.

Nawaz and Imran have warned of launching country wide protest movement if the government tries to defy SC ruling on 16^th and doesn’t hold early elections. PML-N is actively contemplating en-block resignations from Assemblies. These fast forward events have taken the wind out of the sails of jingoistic PPP leadership and it is quite likely that from now onwards there will be a visible change in its attitude and things would get back to normal. Holding of Defence Committee meeting on 14 January chaired by PM and attended by CJSC and three services chiefs has been viewed as a positive sign and it seems that ice has begun to melt.

Irrespective of the apparent thaw, one thing is clear that government-Army relations will not be as cordial as they were prior to 2 May. The Army will not support the government in its confrontation with the judiciary. The government will avoid fighting political war on two fronts. In the face of twin threat, Zardari will make concerted efforts to regain confidence of the Army chief. One way is that he uses his discretionary powers to reinstate sacked Secretary Defence. He will also advise Gilani that rather than he getting disqualified, he should voluntarily resign so as to pacify SC and thus ease pressure of judiciary on him and the government. This move will enable the government to buy time, hold Senate elections and be in a stronger position to make preparations for elections by October and also to take some corrective measures to improve its image.

Saner elements however disfavor early elections arguing that no single party will be able to gain simple majority to form a government. A hung parliament with the same lot of politicians in their view will be unable to steer the country out of the mess created by current government. They opine that chief justice backed by Army should be mandated to form a care taker regime for about two years, which should select honest and efficient technocrats capable of clearing the mess. In my view, Imran Khan should head this regime. Once the economy comes out of the woods, institutions become healthy, fresh electoral rolls are prepared by independent Election Commission, fair and free elections could then be held. Or else, people may be asked at the termination of caretaker regime’s tenure whether they would prefer the government of technocrats or parliamentary system. There is lot of weight in this suggestion and may be pondered over.

The writer is a retired Brig and a freelance columnist. Email:asifharoon7751@yahoo.com

IPS — Defence Secretary Leon Panetta’s suggestion that the end of the U.S. troop presence in Iraq is part of a U.S. military success story ignores the fact that the George W. Bush administration and the U.S. military had planned to maintain a semi-permanent military presence in Iraq.

The real story behind the U.S. withdrawal is how a clever strategy of deception and diplomacy adopted by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in cooperation with Iran outmanoeuvered Bush and the U.S. military leadership and got the United States to sign the U.S.-Iraq withdrawal agreement.

A central element of the Maliki-Iran strategy was the common interest that Maliki, Iran and anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr shared in ending the U.S. occupation, despite their differences over other issues.

Maliki needed Sadr’s support, which was initially based on Maliki’s commitment to obtain a time schedule for U.S. troops’ withdrawal from Iraq.

In early June 2006, a draft national reconciliation plan that circulated among Iraqi political groups included agreement on “a time schedule to pull out the troops from Iraq” along with the build-up of Iraqi military forces. But after a quick trip to Baghdad, Bush rejected the idea of a withdrawal timetable.

Maliki’s national security adviser Mowaffak Al-Rubaei revealed in a Washington Post op-ed that Maliki wanted foreign troops reduced by more than 30,000 to under 100,000 by the end of 2006 and withdrawal of “most of the remaining troops” by end of the 2007.

When the full text of the reconciliation plan was published June 25, 2006, however, the commitment to a withdrawal timetable was missing.

In June 2007, senior Bush administration officials began leaking to reporters plans for maintaining what The New York Times described as “a near-permanent presence” in Iraq, which would involve control of four major bases.

Maliki immediately sent Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari to Washington to dangle the bait of an agreement on troops before then Vice President Dick Cheney.

As recounted in Linda Robinson’s “Tell Me How This Ends”, Zebari urged Cheney to begin negotiating the U.S. military presence in order to reduce the odds of an abrupt withdrawal that would play into the hands of the Iranians.

In a meeting with then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in September 2007, National Security Adviser Rubaie said Maliki wanted a “Status of Forces Agreement” (SOFA) that would allow U.S. forces to remain but would “eliminate the irritants that are apparent violations of Iraqi sovereignty”, according to Bob Woodward’s “The War Within”.

Maliki’s national security adviser was also seeking to protect the Mahdi Army from U.S. military plans to target it for major attacks. Meeting Bush’s coordinator for the Iraq War, Douglas Lute, Rubaie said it was better for Iraqi security forces to take on Sadr’s militias than for U.S. Special Forces to do so.

He explained to the Baker-Hamilton Commission that Sadr’s use of military force was not a problem for Maliki, because Sadr was still part of the government.

Publicly, the Maliki government continued to assure the Bush administration it could count on a long-term military presence. Asked by NBC’s Richard Engel on January 24, 2008 if the agreement would provide long-term U.S. bases in Iraq, Zebari said, “This is an agreement of enduring military support. The soldiers are going to have to stay someplace. They can’t stay in the air.”

Confident that it was going to get a South Korea-style SOFA, the Bush administration gave the Iraqi government a draft on March 7, 2008 that provided for no limit on the number of U.S. troops or the duration of their presence. Nor did it give Iraq any control over U.S. military operations.

But Maliki had a surprise in store for Washington.

A series of dramatic moves by Maliki and Iran over the next few months showed that there had been an explicit understanding between the two governments to prevent the U.S. military from launching major operations against the Mahdi Army and to reach an agreement with Sadr on ending the Mahdi Army’s role in return for assurances that Maliki would demand the complete withdrawal of U.S. forces.

In mid-March 2007, Maliki ignored pressure from a personal visit by Cheney to cooperate in taking down the Mahdi Army and instead abruptly vetoed U.S. military plans for a major operation against the Mahdi Army in Basra. Maliki ordered an Iraqi army assault on the dug-in Sadrist forces.

Predictably, the operation ran into trouble, and within days, Iraqi officials had asked General Suleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard, to intervene and negotiate a ceasefire with Sadr, who agreed, although his troops were far from defeated.

A few weeks later, Maliki again prevented the United States from launching its biggest campaign yet against the Mahdi Army in Sadr City. And again, Suleimani was brought in to work out a deal with Sadr allowing government troops to patrol in the former Mahdi Army stronghold.

There was subtext to Suleimani’s interventions. Just as Suleimani was negotiating the Basra ceasefire with Sadr, a website associated with former IRGC Commander Mohsen Rezai said Iran opposed actions by “hard-line clans” that “only weaken the government and people of Iraq and give a pretext to its occupiers”.

In the days that followed that agreement, Iranian state news media portrayed the Iraqi crackdown in Basra as being against illegal and “criminal” forces.

The timing of each political diplomatic move by Maliki appears to have been determined in discussions between Maliki and top Iranian officials.

Just two days after returning from a visit to Tehran in June 2008, Maliki complained publicly about U.S. demands for indefinite access to military bases, control of Iraqi airspace and immunity from prosecution for U.S. troops and private contractors.

In July, he revealed that his government was demanding the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops on a timetable.

The Bush administration was in a state of shock. From July to October, it pretended that it could simply refuse to accept the withdrawal demand, while trying vainly to pressure Maliki to back down.

In the end, however, Bush administration officials realised that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, who was then far ahead of Republican John McCain in polls, would accept the same or an even faster timetable for withdrawal. In October, Bush decided to sign the draft agreement pledging withdrawal of all U.S. troops by the end of 2011.

The ambitious plans of the U.S. military to use Iraq to dominate the Middle East militarily and politically had been foiled by the very regime the United States had installed, and the officials behind the U.S. scheme had been clueless about what was happening until it was too late.

Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, was published in 2006.

DISSIDENT VOICES

WHILE the US military and NATO have off and on committed unfriendly and hostile acts against its ally Pakistan since 2006, attack on Salala on 26 November by NATO helicopters killing 24 soldiers and injuring 16 was by far the worst. It was a premeditated and well-calculated massacre meant to give a tough message to Pakistan to behave or face the music. The big question is why this gruesome attack was launched at a time when things are not going well for ISAF and Pakistan’s cooperation in the endgame of Afghanistan is vital. The attack didn’t occur at the spur of the moment but in my reckoning was the cumulative affect of unreasonable grouses which Washington has been gathering against Pakistan over the years. It will be worthwhile to recapitulate some of the major events of the yesteryears.

There is no denying the fact that the US made Pakistan its coalition partner in war on terror because of its motivated interests and not because of love of Pakistan. The US had ditched Pakistan in 1989 and had befriended India. Over the years, the gap between USA and Pakistan kept widening mainly because of influence of India and Israel. Differences further widened after Pakistan turned nuclear and military dictator took over. Indo-US-Israel nexus formed in mid 1990’s saw nuclear Pakistan with a strong conventional military power and fairly strong technological base a big danger to its future designs and had marked it as a target. With the active blessing of Washington, Indian and Israeli jets had on few occasions come close to destroying Kahuta plant.

Therefore to say that there was a sudden change of heart after 9/11 is absurd. Pakistan was never regarded a friend by USA and will never consider it in future as well. It has been hiring Pakistan to serve its short-term interests and rudely pushing it aside after its objectives were accomplished. A stage has been set for another boorish break-up. The only difference is that in all previous marriages of convenience, Pakistan was not the target; this time it is the target.

The Indo-US-Israeli nexus duly joined by UK and Germany had made up their minds to make judicious use of Afghan soil for denuclearizing and Balkanizing Pakistan and making it a satellite of India through covert means. Well-sounding phrases like ‘making amends for past mistakes; and ‘lasting relations’ were gimmicks to dupe Pakistan and after lulling the senses of its leadership and disabling the nukes, striking it from within at an opportune time. India also embarked upon similar strategy to befool Pakistani leaders that it would resolve all core issues including Kashmir. In reality, it wanted to make Pakistan forget about Kashmir and accept its hegemony. While our adversaries on the quiet kept weaving the web around Pakistan, our myopic leaders lured by aid flow kept praising them and calling them their sincere friends.

In its honeymoon with the US, Pakistanis got the first jolt when George W. Bush administration struck highly controversial Indo-US civilian nuclear deal in March 2006 and didn’t give the same to Pakistan. The US went out of the way to build India’s military power and its nuclear strength without caring for the regional military imbalance. Its visible tilt towards India became a cause of concern for Pakistan, particularly when the US ignored Pakistan’s defence needs and counter terror equipment and even made its aid conditional to its performance against terrorists.

The warmth in Pak-US military and intelligence agencies relations started getting diluted after Pakistan was blamed for the terrorist attack on Indian Embassy in Kabul in July 2008. The US tilt towards India was again seen in the aftermath of Mumbai attacks when Indian military became highly belligerent. Since Mumbai drama backfired, India’s design to put its Cold Start doctrine to test in Sindh and South of Sutlej couldn’t materialize. Indo-US objective of getting ISI declared as a rogue outfit and to declare Pakistan’s nuclear program as unsafe boomeranged.

The US became more demanding and aggressive in 2009 after Barack Obama replaced George Bush and formulated Pakistan focused Af-Pak policy. It was designed to make Durand Line redundant and to allow ISAF to operate inside FATA freely. On several occasions Obama hurled threats that the US forces would hit a target in FATA unilaterally whenever actionable intelligence came their way. When Gen Kayani put his foot down, Obama reacted by intensifying use of drones in FATA. He also demanded firmer action by Pak Army against the militants. ‘Do more mantra’ and vilification campaign against the Army, ISI and nuclear program gathered pace. Pakistan became the convenient target to fire upon by all and sundry. Governed by its policy of appeasement, Pakistan kept offering its second cheek to the domineering bully.

In 2010, some strains occurred in Pak-US military relations. The reason behind it was continuously deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan. Two troop surges had failed to control the rising power of Taliban. Casualty rate of ISAF had increased substantially. Apart from reverses in Afghanistan, another worrying matter for schemers was that Pakistan Army’s image had shot up and it had disarrayed the TTP. The conspirators were extremely unhappy to see Pak Army successfully coming out of the well laid out ambushes in Swat and South Waziristan (SW). Separatist movement in Balochistan backed by foreign agencies was also going nowhere and its top leadership was in exile. Not knowing how to explain its failures, the US military in Afghanistan in conjunction with Karzai administration enhanced their trend of leveling unfounded and baseless allegations against Pakistan, its Army and ISI, and blamed them for whatever went wrong in Afghanistan. This unholy practice of blame-going is still continuing.

Failing to arrest the down slide in Afghanistan and to weaken Pak Army and Pakistan’s nuclear program, the US devised another scheme in the form of Kerry-Lugar aid bill, which was aimed at cutting Pak Army and ISI to size and allowing CIA network to reach up to our nuclear arsenal and missile sites. This move ran into snags because the Army smelt the rat and raised serious objections. When Pak Army couldn’t be ensnared in the laid out traps of Swat and SW, Pentagon and CIA hatched another plan to trap and defame Pak Army by pushing it into the cauldron of North Waziristan (NW). Gen Petraeus pronounced NW as the major cause of ISAF’s reverses in Afghanistan and claimed that bulk of terrorism was flowing into Afghanistan from NW. Successive postponement of planned operation in Kandahar was attributed to safe havens in NW. Desperate to bog down another Corps size force and thus drastically reduce Pak Army’s operational effectiveness, Pakistan was pressed to launch a major operation in NW similar to Rah-e-Rast and Rah-e-Nijat and eliminate safe havens of al-Qaeda and anti-US militants. Pakistan’s reluctance to open another front when Swat and SW had not been fully stabilized was not well received in Pentagon and in Langley, which had its effect on civilian power centres in Capitol Hill as well.

The dawn of 2011 further strained Pak-US relations when Raymond Davis was arrested on 27 January after he murdered two motorcyclists in Lahore and was put in Kot Lakhpat jail. Preliminary investigations revealed that pretending to be a diplomat, he was CIA contractor and in connivance with CIA Station Officer in Islamabad Jonathan Bank, he had been playing a major role in destabilizing Pakistan. Although he was released on 16 March after the US agreed to pay blood money to the next of kin of the deceased, the US feeling insulted never forgave Pakistan. It felt more offended when ISI started pushing out under cover agents of CIA and also monitoring the activities of US diplomats.

Gen Pasha during his meeting with CIA Director in Langley insisted that full details of CIA agents and the US Special Forces personnel based in Pakistan under different guises to be provided and repatriated at the earliest. When Panetta refused to oblige, Pasha had to abruptly call off the meeting and fly back, which further angered CIA. In retaliation, not only spate of drones increased, Operation ‘Get Geronimo’ was hatched to teach a lesson to ISI and Pak Army. Stealth assault in Abbottabad was launched on 2 May with multiple objectives, but the main purpose was to discredit the Army, ISI and PAF in the eyes of the public and getting rid of the two eyesores - Gen Kayani and Gen Pasha.

When the defenders of Pakistan - COAS and DGISI – survived the western-local media cum PML-N politicians’ debilitating onslaught and civil-military relations remained cordial, the US refused to reduce terms of engagement in war on terror and intelligence sharing in writing, turned down the calls to vacate Shamsi airbase and to terminate drone war as was envisaged in 14 May joint resolution of the parliament. Instead of attending to Pakistan’s concerns, the US played upon the theme that some elements within Pak Army and ISI had facilitated Bin Laden’s stay in Abbottabad. It then invented another story that Haqqani network (HN) based in NW was involved in cross border terrorism and its safe havens must be liquidated. HN was demonized and pressure on Pakistan was further stepped up. Pakistan’s continued refusal to mount an operation in NW, saying that with its hands already full, it could ill afford to activate a new battlefront became a major irritant.

Fearing that the US may block military and economic assistance to Pak Army, Gen Pasha undertook whirlwind tours of China and some Arab countries in May to solicit financial assistance. He availed the opportunity to apprise his hosts that ISI and Army had no knowledge of Bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad and that Pakistan was stabbed in the back by its ally. He received a favorable response from all quarters. To suggest that he had gone there to seek assistance of Arabs to topple the sitting government is ridiculous. Once GHQ decides to bring down the ruling regime, it will neither inform any other country nor would need external assistance. All the four Generals who forcibly grabbed power did so without outside assistance.

After series of attacks on US-NATO targets by Taliban in Eastern Afghanistan in July-September 2011 including attacks on US Embassy and NATO HQ on 13 September, which blew apart tall claims of US military that lot of progress had been made, the US military lost its cool when Burhanuddin Rabbani was murdered on 20 September. Admiral Mullen went crackers and started hitting the roof on 22 September. He didn’t mince his words in directly accusing ISI’s linkage with HN claiming that it was the ‘veritable arm’ of ISI. Demand for eliminating sanctuaries of HN in NW became vociferous but Pakistan continued to resist.

Revelation of memo directed against the very independence of Pakistan by Mansoor Ijaz on 22 October was yet another conspiracy to sever civil-military relations and to tempt Gen Kayani to launch a coup against the government. Mansoor is not a friend of Pakistan. Reportedly, he is connected with CIA, MI6 and RAW. He was the carrier of the memo but leaked the story five months and 12 days after it was drafted and handed over to Admiral Mullen. Memogate scandal has given rise to an assumption that President Zardari, our Ambassador in Washington Hussein Haqqani (now sacked) and our High Commissioner in London Wajidul Shams knew about the 2 May attack and when the operation failed to fetch the desired objectives, the memo was drafted at the behest of Zardari and delivered to Mullen through Jim Jones on 10 May.

While the purpose of USA was to inflict harm to Pakistan, it is a different matter that the memo affair came as a blessing in disguise. It helped in exposing America’s chosen man Haqqani and getting rid of him. His absence from Washington in the ongoing difficult days is acutely felt by his patrons in Washington. They are apprehensive that he might divulge many secrets shared between him and US leadership. Haqqani may prove to be more dangerous than Raymond Davis. Supreme Court is seized with the issue and hopefully it will extract the truth and bring the traitors to justice. Panicked by Supreme Court’s assertiveness, Federal government has taken an irrational stance that memogate scandal should be investigated by the Parliament and not by Supreme Court, not realizing that great majority of elected parliamentarians are corrupt and dishonest.

It was in the backdrop of utter failures of US military, NATO and Karazi regime in Afghanistan on the political, economic, social and military fronts and their repeated failures to earth Pakistan that provoked them to launch an unprovoked attack at Salala. It was an act of sheer frustration and desperation. This latest hostile act has boomeranged in a big way and has impelled our weak-willed leaders to take steps which they should have taken long time back to roll back the US blatant intrusions and making a mockery of Pakistan’s sovereignty. They have dared to take series of measures because the top leadership is caught up in memogate case and shield of NRO has been taken away by the Supreme Court. It is anyone’s guess whether the President recuperating from his stroke will return from Dubai or not. The ruling regime closely associated with USA is standing on a very slippery ground.

The writer is a retired Brig, author of several books and a defence analyst. Email: asifharoon7751@yahoo.com

BENAZIR Bhutto (BB) was the first women prime minister in the Muslim world. She remained in power twice and earned worldwide fame. Helped by her husband Asif Ali Zardari, the couple amassed substantive wealth during the two stints in power. During Nawaz Sharif’s second tenure (1997-99), the Ehtesab Bureau had prepared dozens of cases against the couple concerning money laundering and corruption. When she realized that the noose was tightening around her neck, she decided to go in exile to London in 1998. During her period of exile, she was leading a Queen’s life abroad. She shuttled between London and Dubai where she had palatial residences. All her children were with her and attending their schools. Her husband had been released from jail by Gen Musharraf and he had joined his family in Dubai in 2006. Her ailing mother Nusrat Bhutto was also in Dubai. She was free of worries of administering a difficult state like Pakistan where her father Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (ZAB) had been hanged to death. God had given her everything and the couple had so much of wealth and property abroad that they could spend the rest of their lives in royal style.

Yet she chose to return to Pakistan in 2007 at a time when the whole country was engulfed in the flames of terrorism and life had become insecure due to frequent suicide attacks and bomb blasts. She preferred to go back despite massive smear campaign against her by the state machinery. She stuck to her decision knowing that she couldn’t do so under normal circumstances because of high profile pending court cases. She was so obsessed with the idea of becoming the prime minister for the third time that she didn’t mind accepting the crutches provided by Gen Musharraf and Washington. She happily struck a power sharing deal with Gen Musharraf. Instead of contesting the court cases she gladly agreed to the issuance of infamous NRO, which absolved her and her top PPP leaders including Zardari of all the corruption charges. In return, the elected members of PPP didn’t block Gen Musharraf’s election for second five-year tenure on 6 October 2007. The appeal of power was so strong that she ignored repeated warnings of her well-wishers that her life was in danger. The Taliban had given her threats because of her controversial statements, which she made to earn the confidence of Washington.

Since she was destined to die an abnormal death in Pakistan, death pulled her in that direction and all the obstacles lying in her path got removed and she landed in Karachi on 17 October 2007. Before homecoming, she wrote a letter to Musharraf and named three persons whom she felt could harm her. As a consequence to bomb blast on her cavalcade in Karachi in which she had a narrow escape, an FIR was registered on 19 October in which Chief Ministers of Punjab and Sindh and DG IB were named as suspects. On 26 October, she sent an e-mail to Mark Siegel which was passed on to CNN Wolf Blitzer. It said if anything happened to her she would hold Musharraf responsible. E mail was made public by Zardari on the following day of her murder on 27 December 2007.

Millions of Jayalas and her fans who loved her couldn’t save her from the assassin’s bullet. Her sudden and tragic death paved the way for Zardari who had been left behind in Dubai by her and had not been given party ticket to contest the election scheduled in January 2008. The dubious ‘will’, supposedly left behind by BB helped Zardari in taking over as co-chairperson of PPP and his son whom he named as Bilawal Bhutto as chairman. But for sudden and tragic death of BB, Zardari could never have become the President. That way, he benefited the most as a consequence to her departure.

BB’s pompous life, her charms and gaiety have all become part of history. PPP leaders shed crocodile tears to express their deep sorrow, cut cakes on her birthdays, hold death anniversary every year, plonk her name on roads, airports and educational institutions, and raise vociferous slogans that ‘BB Zinda Hai’ (BB is alive). They perform these theatrics merely to keep the Jayalas under her spell, but the fact is that no amount of chest beating or sloganeering will bring her back to life. The best service they could have rendered her was by fulfilling the mission of ZAB and BB of providing bread, clothes and shelter to the poor and alleviating their sufferings. Alas! Their four year misconduct must have made the two great leaders quiver in agony in their graves. The ones who were closest to BB have all been sidelined and opportunists and unelected persons allotted plum appointments.

Four years have lapsed and so far BB’s murderers have not been traced. This is in spite of the fact that Zardari stated that he knew her killers. Probe by the UN Commission at taxpayers cost wasted more than a year and ultimately proved inconsequential. Inordinate delay in solving the murder mystery has given rise to suspicions that the ones trying to catch the culprits maybe the actual murderers. Musharraf, Zardari, Rahman Malik and Babar Awan are among the suspects. While Musharraf is in exile since August 2008 and is desperate to enter into the political arena in Pakistan and try his luck in coming elections, the other three are holding topmost appointments. Zardari purposely preferred seat of President over Premiership to acquire immunity from prosecution by courts. With powers under Article 58-2b and seat of co-chairpersonship, he became the most powerful civilian President.

Rahman Malik and Babar Awan are neither elected nor old PPP stalwarts, but are closest to Zardari and are playing a lead role in state affairs. On the fateful day of BB’s murder, these two gentlemen were sitting in the escort car which was supposed to remain nearest to BB’s car. After BB finished her speech in Liaquat Bagh and was on her way out, surprisingly her vehicle wheeled right instead of left and the escort car sped away towards Islamabad. At the time of suicide bombing against her vehicle and sniper firing, her vehicle was unescorted. There was nobody to evacuate her to the hospital. Rehman Malik, appointed as her security in-charge, returned to the hospital much after the gruesome attack. There are several other intriguing aspects like prompt washing of the scene of murder, refusal of Zardari to conduct post-mortem of the body which have not been answered. The government is in no hurry to expedite the investigation. In fact, after the UN inconclusive inquest, the matter had been put in a cold freezer and was reactivated only when media made noise and pressure from within PPP ranks intensified. Nawaz Sharif upped the ante during his recent public address in Larkana. He pledged that if voted to power he would catch and punish the killers of his sister BB. Feeling the heat, Rahman Malik has now claimed that all conspiring elements and those involved in BB’s assassination had been arrested and would be exposed at an opportune time. This is yet another farce being played.

Having seen the fate of BB, it seems Musharraf has not learnt any lesson. Like her, he is also vying to return to Pakistan. He is leading a comfortable life in London and receives heavy payments for his lectures in various educational institutes in USA and western countries. He has accumulated so much of wealth during his little over eight-year stint in power that he can live a lord’s life in London where he has an expensive flat in elitist constituency. The magnitude of his wealth can be measured from the fact that he managed to establish a political party which he has named as All Pakistan Muslim League (APML). He has announced to return back before March 2012. The APML will spend Rs117 million for publicity campaign to welcome him. Rs 629 million will be spent on transport and other arrangements for his public meeting upon his arrival.

During his rule, seven attempts were made on his life; two of these were deadly. He is accused of subverting the Constitution twice which falls under Article 61 of the Constitution. He is accused of getting Nawab Akbar Bugti murdered in August 2006. An FIR to this effect has been registered in Quetta and based on the petition filed; the court has issued his warrants of arrest. Afghan Taliban must not have pardoned him for his betrayal. The Baloch and Pashtuns of FATA hate him since he had initiated military operations against them. Religious groups also bear a grudge against him since he had mistreated them. Victims of Guantanamo Bay Prison as well as family of Dr Aafia Siddiqui who had been handed over by him to USA cannot forgive him. Sharif brothers also carry a deep rancour and want his trial.

Great majority of people are of the view that his flawed policies and issuance of NRO to prolong his rule are responsible for the current deplorable state of affairs of the country. Despite all these threats, he is determined to return because the perks and privileges he can enjoy in Pakistan are unavailable in the west. His fans have led him up the garden path that owing to poor performance of the present regime, the people will welcome him. They are right to some extent since it cannot be denied that in terms of governance, economic management, competence and results obtained, Musharraf’s rule was much better. However, weighing the pros and cons, the weight of cons is heavier than the pros. He cannot be excused for the compromises he made to please USA. Pakistan is suffering on account of those compromises which impinged upon security and national interests.

His recent demand for security guarantees from Pak Army is similar to the one made by BB. He must remember that ground situation has radically changed. In 2008, the US was in a strong position to twist the tail of NRO cleansed rulers. Zardari had secretly made an agreement with UK and USA not to impeach or try him and to provide him safe exit in return for accepting him as the next president. He had committed to his mentors that Musharraf would be given a choice whether to stay in Pakistan or proceed abroad and that he would be allowed to stay in the Army House till the completion of his house in Chak Shezad and provided full security as long as he stayed here.

He was allowed to proceed abroad with full honours and to carry with him security guards, personal assistant and a batman. He retained these facilities for quite some time. Pak-US relations are at present at its lowest ebb and terms of engagement are being revised. Zardari himself is under substantial pressure and is planning to move over to London from Dubai for treatment. There are strong rumours that in the light of shield of NRO taken away by the Supreme Court and linkage of memogate with 2 May incident getting established, he may opt to prolong his stay abroad till such time the situation reverts to normal. Under the changed circumstances and security threats, wisdom demands that Musharraf should stay put in London for some more time and let the tempers of his adversaries cool down. If he thinks that he will become a fourth force and become popular like Imran Khan, he is sadly mistaken.

The writer is a retired Brig and a freelance analyst. Email:asifharoon7751@yahoo.com

By DR. SHAHID QURESHI

AFTER the Bonn International conference in Germany and protest boycott of Pakistan due to NATO attack on its border post and killing of 24 soldiers, it is high time that Pakistan – US and other stake holders in Afghanistan sit down with cool minds and look for a viable exit plan which is acceptable to all the parties including militants.

Surely as many analysts say that; ‘solution to problems in Afghanistan lies within and not outside’. The recent tension between the US and Pakistan due to the 26/11/11 incident has already made things worse in terms of mutual trust. It is important to find out who are the beneficiaries of the mistrust and tensions between Pakistan and US?  Those who allegedly made big promises in Pakistan and couldn’t deliver must have myopic vision as well as overestimated themselves. Problems in Afghanistan are not because of its neighbours? One must see who want this conflict prolonged?  Are they drug dealers, arms dealers or private mercenaries?

It is very important to understand how US and NATO are seen and perceived within Afghanistan. In response to a question from an international tv channel I was of the view: “The US is seen as an invader in Afghanistan. The people who are fighting the invaders come from all walks of life. The militants see this war against invasion and occupiers. USA is a great power there is no doubt about that, but to be great, they need to show themselves what greatness is.

Greatness is not [measured] by you going in bombing and killing millions of people because you have this terrible incident (9/11) that took place in your country ten years ago. In response to this terrorism millions is placed,thousands killed without knowing why they are being killed. The United Nations mandate was to fight with the al-Qaeda. It wasn't about reconstruction or to fight with the Taliban. The cost of the war is overwhelming. Seven billion dollars a month to fight with 150 al-Qaeda suspects across the whole country, plus one hundred thousand troops.

US should learn and leave Afghanistan as soon as possible to cut losses. One should know that sometimes it is better to use common sense than the intelligence, as intelligence doesn't work all the time? There are incidents where the intelligence has failed to provide correct information. The problem of the US is that if they solve their internal problems, lots of external problems will automatically be resolved. And one of the problems the US is facing is their internal debt and deficit. And that is caused by the bankers.  Many experts are saying that US real enemies mostly lie in the Wall Street who has robbed the US government and the US people billions and trillions of dollars. The US's real enemies are in the Wall Street. US need to stop war in Afghanistan which is costing them about seven billion dollars a month.

The best solution for the US is to wrap up and leave. The sooner they leave the better and they will save money as well as lives of the human beings mostly the Afghanis and Pakistanis. The problems we are having in Pakistan are not because of the Pakistanis, it's because of the US invasion of Afghanistan.

Pakistan was very peaceful before the 2001 invasion. There were no suicide bombings and no violence. That is the cause which people must understand. If the people that are partners in this war start blaming each other, then there will not be any outcome from it, especially with the involvement of the US with neighbours like Iran, Pakistan, China, and Russia to solve this problem as soon as possible, that will be in the interest of NATO and US forces, and will save hundreds and thousands of lives.

The real problem is the occupation. This is an illegal occupation in Iraq as well as in Afghanistan. And my friend in Washington must understand that the real enemies of your country where you are sitting now or your adopted country are the bankers in the Wall Street where the people have been conned in the broad daylight.

If the US is thinking of taking a military action inside Pakistan it would be really an unwise move with drastic consequences for the region. On the one hand the US would like to talk to Taliban to have a meaningful negotiation but on the other hand United States is also bombing the same Taliban.

If Taliban wants to come in the main stream they should also start talking to the forces who are occupying Afghanistan. I am looking into the future because in the past they were isolated because nobody recognized their legitimacy. Now if the Taliban or the people in Afghanistan want to have legitimacy, they need to become part of the negotiation process.

At the same time United States should not blame its friends for its failures.We know that the US is on the way out, and we also know that US wants honourable way out but that does not mean that they should blame the neighbouring countries for its mistakes.

The problem with the US policy makers is that they are more interested in what they want to hear instead of what they should know? British have a long experience in this region, dealing with the Pashtuns. They have written hundreds and hundreds of books about their tradition culture. Pashtuns are going to be staying there even when the US is long gone?

As far as the Indian factor is concerned they were quite clever for example they did not send their troops into Afghanistan but they did send their civilian operators or intelligence agency staff to conspire against Pakistan? That is what it is coming from the many sources that there are camps operating against Pakistani interests from inside Afghanistan. But in the long run, the problem with the United States is that something which they can get by simple adjusting their own policy instead of accepting that. They want the other side to adjust themselves simply which is not even possible for them to adjust simply asking the other side to do something which they don't even have. British role is very crucial because the Brits have a lot of experience in Afghanistan and they can assist the United States in terms of a suitable and smooth withdrawal without losing its friends in Pakistan as well as Afghanistan. The solution lies inside Afghanistan and all it need is to talk to everyone who matters and not over them.

THE idiot of the headline is me in the sense that I am not an economist and have never had any formal association with study of the theory and practise of economics, but… I began to understand why what is today called Western capitalism was bound to crash way back in the early 1970’s when I was researching and producing an epic documentary on the everyday reality of global poverty and its implications for all.

When I reflected on what I had witnessed and learned while researching in 120 countries (as well as at the World Bank and many UN agencies) and filming in 69 of them, I let commonsense be my guide. It led me to the conclusion that capitalism was not of itself the problem. It was the short-sighted and stupid way Western capitalism was managed.

Now I’ll put some flesh on that bone.

By the early 1970’s truly informed development experts were drawing attention to the fact that our one small planet was divided into two worlds – the Rich World containing about 20% of humankind (and known in development jargon as the North), and the Poor World containing about 80% of humankind (and known in development jargon as the South).

In the Poor World an estimated 15 million children under five were dying each year from malnutrition and related and easily preventable diseases such as diahorrea, measles and whooping cough – in a word poverty, abject poverty. And an estimated 300 million more were born brain damaged because of malnutrition in the wombs of their mothers. But those statistics told only a part of the story. The majority of the human inhabitants of Planet Earth were living on the margins of life, without some and in many cases all of the basic necessities for life – shelter, adequate nutrition, clean water, health care, education and work/job opportunities. On each and every continent I asked the poorest parents what was the one thing they most wanted. This was before the age of the mobile telephone and I expected many of them to say a television or some such gadget. What they all said in their various ways echoed one of the poorest Indian women. Her answer was, “Education for my children so they don’t have to live like animals as we do.”

The rich nations were creating their wealth by selling goods and services. It followed that if this wealth creating process was to have a sustainable future and Rich World citizens were to enjoy ever rising material standards of living as promised by their politicians, the global market place needed more and more consumers with the purchasing power to buy what the Rich World nations had to sell.

If the managers of Western capitalism (corporate chiefs, bankers and politicians) had not been short-sighted and stupid, they would have said to themselves something like the following. “If we don’t now invest in the development of the poor of the world and bring them progressively into the market place with purchasing power, we are going to run out customers in the numbers needed to buy what we have to sell in order to sustain our system.”

If the necessary investment had been made over 10, 15 and even 20 years, (it would have needed that amount of time in order to guarantee that the money and other development assistance provided could be absorbed and put to best use with minimum corruption), victory in the war against global poverty and underdevelopment – the only war that matters – would have been assured. To give just one example… The disastrous population drift from the rural areas where there was a future to the urban centres where there was not and is not a future for many of the drifters could have been halted and even reversed.

Making the investment needed on the necessary scale would have meant that the investing Rich World nations would not have grown so rapidly and their citizens would have had to accept a little less in the way of ever rising material standards of living, but that would have been a small price to pay for giving Western capitalism a sustainable future and all of our children wherever they live the prospect of a future worth having. (Whereas today they do not have a future worth having).

Instead of starting down the road to making capitalism work for the benefit of all in global terms, the system’s Western managers opted to keep things going by flooding the Rich World with credit cards to enable its citizens to live beyond their means and get deeper and deeper into debt. “I need” was replaced with “I want”. (My working class father used to say to me, “Boy, if we can’t afford it, we don’t look in the shop window.”)

There was bound to come a time when Rich World citizens simply could not afford to go on buying on the scale needed to keep Western consumer capitalism going.

Then, partly to fuel debt-driven consumer and government spending, the greed-driven, totally irresponsible bankers drove the final nail into Western capitalism’s coffin by playing their leveraging games, producing debt instruments with a face value of hundreds of trillions of U.S. dollars but which were not backed and supported by real assets. (A good friend of mine was the senior risk manager for one of the world’s biggest banks headquartered in London. She told me that for five years she and her team tried to warn top management that leveraging with Mickey Mouse instruments was creating a catastrophe, but top management didn’t want to listen. It was focused only on bonuses).

If Jeremy Clarkson had said that banking chiefs should have been taken out and shot in front of their families, I would have smiled and said to myself, “If only.”

And I would not have bailed out the banks with taxpayers’ money. I would have let them go bust. (The first rule of capitalism is supposed to be that if you get it wrong you go bust). But before making that decision public I (as prime minister) would have said to my people something like the following. “Don’t panic. The money we would have to put into bailing out reckless and irresponsible banks will instead be used to create a new national bank which, rather like the High Street banks of the old days, will exist only to serve the needs of their customers.”

There’s no question that banking chiefs were short-sighted, greedy and stupid, but… They were not the architects of what future historians will call the crash of Western capitalism. They, the architects, were the politicians who deregulated the banks and financial markets. The leading architect was Britain’s Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. On 27 October 1986, she initiated the “Big Bang” in the City of London, the sudden deregulation of the banks and financial markets. In the name of “financial liberalism” she truly believed that markets would work better, more efficiently, if they were free of rules and restrictions. In her view millions of decisions made every day by traders in a free market would be better for all of us than decisions that had to be made with reference to rules and regulations drawn up by committees of the great and the good.

Though I might be exaggerating to make a point and may be misrepresenting her to some extent, she seemed to be saying, “We need not bother too much with our old industries and ways of creating wealth, the banks and the markets will do it for us.”

Events were to prove that she could not have been more naive and more wrong, but before they did American presidents starting with Ronald Reagan had followed her lead.

My understanding of the situation today can be summarized as follows. The debts of Western governments are so big that no Western country will be able to generate the growth and so the money needed to repay them. On that basis I can see only two scenarios for the future.

One is that in order to repay the debts, governments slash expenditure across the board, cutting, cutting and cutting back massively on budgets for everything including state pensions and social welfare benefits and services. Unemployment rises to unthinkable levels and living standards plunge to unacceptable levels. Eventually the citizens revolt and violence escalates. What passes for democracy is shut down and martial law is established. Orwell’s 1984 finally arrives. (Soon after Edward Heath ceased to be prime minister, my wife and I had lunch with him. I asked him what his biggest fear for the future was. I expected it to be related to global poverty because he had been a member of the Brandt Commission which studied it. His reply, calm in delivery and matter of fact in tone, was, “That Britain will become the first police state in the democratic world.”)

In the other scenario all debts, including mortgages on homes, are written off and we all start again.

By definition a re-start would have to be based on a rock-solid commitment to fairness with a real intention to make capitalism work for the benefit of all.

This idiot is in quite good company. American Martin Weiss is the founder of the Weiss Rating Agency (WRA). In his latest presentation he makes the following claims about his agency’s astonishing success in predicting economic disasters of the past 40 years, a claim which is confirmed by all the major American newspapers and economic journals.

Months in advance WRA warned about the S&L crisis of the 1980’s; the great insurance company failures of the 1990’s; plus the great “Tech Wreck” of the early 2000’s.

WRA was the only firm in the world to warn of the financial crisis of 2008 more than a year in advance, specifically naming nearly every major company that later collapsed.

Today Martin Weiss says this:

Barring a miracle, an historic, world-changing event is about to end the American way of life as we know it. This monumental event will plunge vast numbers of families into the nightmare of poverty, homeless and hunger. In a worst case scenario you will see soaring crime, the confiscation of property, the suspension of civil rights, and even the enforcement of martial law by the U.S. military.

The world-changing event he is anticipating is a decision by China to stop buying U.S. debt, which will mean, he says, that America will no longer be able to borrow money; and that, he adds, will see the beginning of “America’s Financial Doomsday”.

My own biggest fear which I have been expressing to friends in private for a number of years is that the unfolding economic crisis may take us all the way to World War 111. It could happen for two related reasons. One is the need of governments to deflect the attention of their own people away from the mess within. The other is the need to have an outside party to blame. There’s a case for saying that some American politicians are already setting up China for blame.

We shall see…

Footnote

European plans to bring in tough budget controls are irrelevant, even a farce. They are designed to stop the present unfolding catastrophe from happening again, but they won’t do anything to solve the present debt crisis. European leaders are shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.

Alan Hart has been engaged with events in the Middle East and globally as a researcher, author, BBC and a correspondent for ITN and BBC. visit Alan's website.

UNRESOLVED Kashmir dispute, inflexibility of jingoistic and scheming Indian leaders to reconcile with Pakistan’s existence as an independent state and their burning desire to gain unchallenged hegemony over all South Asian nations has kept India and Pakistan on the warpath. Lack of trust built up as a consequence to three wars and two local conflicts together with competing interests of two rival super powers during the cold war gave grist to antagonism. Trust deficit and sense of insecurity came in the way of meaningful reconciliation between two neighbors.

Moscow helped India in development of its economy and became the biggest supplier of weapons to build up its military power. It also thwarted settlement of Kashmir issue by applying veto power whenever the issue came under the scrutiny of UN. Washington on the other hand outwardly declared Pakistan as its most allied ally and provided economic and military assistance so as to prepare it to confront communist challenge from the north, but inwardly it all along vied to earn the friendship of India. When the defensive arc to contain communism was being built, India and not Pakistan was the first choice of USA. When India declined, only then Pakistan was offered membership of SEATO and CENTO.

The US tilt towards India was first seen during and after 1962 Sino-India border conflict. In 1965 and 1971 wars when five times superior Indian forces invaded Pakistan, instead of helping Pakistan, the US indirectly benefited India. Whenever Pakistan’s interests clashed with India, the US shied away from annoying India but never hesitated to hurt Pakistan. Ignoring India’s strategic alliance with USSR and its vociferous opposition to US policies, the US diligently kept wooing India to bring it in its loop. The US avoided censuring India even when it welcomed Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan in December 1979 and later condemned US sponsored proxy war against Soviet forces.

The US dream to win over India came to fruition in 1989 when India’s chief patron suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of Afghan Mujahideen duly assisted by Pakistan and decided to withdraw from Afghanistan under Geneva Accord. Fragmentation of USSR and end of cold war left India out in the cold. It however hastened to snuggle into the waiting embrace of USA and declared itself America’s natural ally so that it could become its strategic partner and also breakup Pak-US relationship. India didn’t waste any time in forging intimate relations with Israel since it knew that route to winning the heart of Washington was through Tel Aviv. By mid nineties the three countries formed a well-knit nexus to pursue common agenda against the Muslim world. Nuclear capability of Pakistan became a common worrying factor and hence the trio vowed to disable it either physically or covertly.

Armed uprising in Indian Held Kashmir (IHK) since 1988 has locked up over 700,000 Indian troops, which has reduced Indian military’s offensive options against Pakistan and impacted its economy. Massive human rights violations against Kashmiris have given a bad name to the democratic credentials of secular India. Pakistan’s tit for tat response to Indian nuclear tests in May 1998 and its impressive developments in delivery means extinguished the fire of jingoism of BJP leaders and roaring lions turned into mewing cats. Pakistan’s Kargil venture in summer of 1999 humbled Indian military might. USA and G-8 countries came to the rescue of India and bailed it out of an embarrassing position by pressuring Pakistan to withdraw its irregular troops from the heights occupied deep inside Dras-Kargil-Leh sectors in IHK. Indian media converted India’s humiliating defeat into victory on the media plane and censured Pakistan for aiding and abetting terrorists.

In the face of series of setbacks, India was desperate to settle scores with Pakistan. Terrorist attacks in New York and Pentagon on 9/11 impelled USA to invade Afghanistan so as to punish the perpetrators of the unforgivable crime which had embarrassed the sole super power and deeply anguished the Americans. New rules were framed by USA to combat global terrorism which envisaged elimination of terrorist networks and punishment to those who harbored or aided the networks. The US offensive plans suited India the most since it opened a godsend opportunity to India to not only regain its influence in Afghanistan but also to encircle and trap Pakistan.

India offered its services to tackle both Afghanistan and Pakistan simultaneously, but when it failed to convince the US leadership, both decided to first weaken Pakistan from within through a well coordinated covert war, disable its nuclear capability and then go for the kill by end 2008 if not earlier. In accordance with the chalked out plan, Pakistan was pushed into the inferno of war on terror so as to gradually enfeeble its political, economic and military strengths and to rip apart its social fabric. India in the meanwhile embarked upon another round of force modernization program with the generous assistance of USA, Israel, western world and Russia. India kept increasing its defence budget every year to be able to procure latest state-of-art weaponry and technology.

Unearthing of Dr AQ Khan nuclear network enabled USA to launch a vicious propaganda campaign against Pakistan’s nuclear program so as to undermine it. At the same time, the US in complete violation of NPT and CTBT, signed a civil nuclear deal with India to bolster its nuclear capability. In order to prevent Pakistan from exercising nuclear option, Indian military formulated Cold Start doctrine, which entailed use of 7-8 pre-positioned mechanized battle groups close to the border, jumping across and confining limited war to border belt only. Later on, the numbers of self-contained battle groups were increased to 15 and targets marked.

Pakistan lowered its guard after declaring ceasefire along Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir, signing of peace treaty with India in January 2004 and accepting false promises of Indian leaders that all chronic issues including Kashmir would be resolved through composite dialogue. Once India completed fencing of LoC and controlled the highly explosive situation in IHK with the assistance extended by Pakistan, it concentrated all its efforts towards Pakistan’s western border.

RAW transferred bulk of its assets to Afghanistan and with close cooperation of CIA, MI-6, Mossad, BMD and RAAM, it managed to create TTP in FATA, and BLA, BRA, BLF in Balochistan. Later it developed links with TNSM in Swat. RAW had already established its network in rural and urban Sindh with the help of 5^th columnists and regional political parties and was also associated with a political party in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It made contacts within Afghan refugee camps and managed to recruit sizeable numbers of agents to undertake clandestine operations. With consistent efforts of six intelligence agencies based in Kabul, Pakistan got engulfed in flames of terrorism. Foreign funded, trained and equipped militants in Balochistan and in FATA played havoc and jolted the foundations of the country. With aggressive India in the east and militarized environment on its northwestern and southwestern borders together with growing militarization of Indian Ocean to its south, it made the geo-political situation of Pakistan extremely dangerous.

From 2009 onwards the six hissing rattlesnakes in Kabul started stinging Pakistan more frequently. Suicide and bomb attacks, group attacks and drone attacks were stepped up and vilification campaign against its premier institutions intensified. The gang of six employed multiple means to systematically chip the foundations of Pakistan. It included sabotage and subversion, supporting insurgency in FATA and in Balochistan, drone war, violation of airspace, economic and diplomatic coercion as well as enticement, and threats of physical attack. 2009 and 2010 proved to be worst years for Pakistan. It suffered heavy casualties on account of suicide and drone attacks and military operations in Swat, Bajaur and South Waziristan. These strongholds of the militants duly funded, equipped and trained by RAW-RAAM-CIA were cleared at a heavy cost.

Although Pakistan found out the involvement of foreign powers, yet it remained closely aligned with them and continued to do more as demanded by USA because of the docility of ruling regime. The first strains in Pak-US relations appeared after the arrest of CIA agent Raymond Davis in January 2011. Relations became rocky after the 2 May stealth assault by the US Special Forces in Abbottabad and dropped to lowest ebb after the unprovoked brutal NATO attack on Pakistani border posts in Mohmand Agency on 24 November causing death to 24 soldiers and injury to 16. For the first time the political and military leaders have jointly taken purposeful steps to express their displeasure to Washington and so far are standing firm on their decisions taken in the Defence Cabinet Committee meeting on 27 November duly approved by the Parliament. Gen Kayani has taken the right decision to authorize commanders in the field to instantaneously shoot intruders without waiting for clearance from higher HQs. Our troops deployed along the western border should kill any rattlesnake trying to slither into our territory.

The US could not have taken Pakistan for granted and treated it like a vassal had our political leadership behaved honorably. Its loathsome policy of appeasement emboldened USA to behave like a master. It is to be seen how long the NRO cleaned rulers will be able to withstand the US pressure. They have passed the first test by not attending the Bonn conference on 5-6 December and may also pass the second test of getting Shamsi airbase vacated by 11 December. The real test will be how long the supply routes for NATO containers will remain blocked.

Till such time the US renders an official apology and give a firm commitment that no such violation will ever take place in future, it punishes the culprits and adequately compensates the families of the victims, agrees to reduce terms of engagement in war on terror in black and white, stops its vilification campaign against Army and ISI, ceases its demand for  an operation in North Waziristan, prevents India from supporting insurgency in Balochistan, and agrees to provide civilian nuclear technology as given to India, Pakistan should shun its friendly overtures. If the US refuses to fulfill the above noted requests, Pakistan should disassociate itself from war on terror as well as from stranglehold of the US aid. Historically, Pakistan has made greater progress when under the US sanctions.

The writer is a defence analyst. Email: asifharoon7751@yahoo.com

THE nation had yet not got out of the shock of premeditated target killings of hundreds of innocent residents of Karachi at the hands of militant wings of three political parties duly patronized by political leaders with vested interests, when Dr Zulfiqar Mirza’s dropped the bomb by revealing that MQM Supremo Altaf Hussain had allegedly made an offer to Tony Blair in 2001 that the MQM would render assistance in axing the ISI and breaking the country. A still bigger bomb exploded in the form of Mullen memo scandal which overshadowed all other issues. Mansoor Ijaz, a Pakistani-American national and a successful businessman with a dubious past came into prominence after he wrote an infamous article in Financial Times on 10 October 2011. Besides his diatribe against the Army and particularly ISI which he strongly recommended to be declared a rogue outfit, he mentioned that after the 2 May 2011 incident, he had been contacted by a senior Pakistani diplomat on 9 May on behalf of Pakistan government to convey a six point memo to Admiral Mike Mullen. The commitments given in the memo were that in case the US prevents Gen Kayani from sacking PPP government, the government in return would help in proving that ISI was complicit in harboring OBL, and Americans would sit in judgement in inquiry commission; a new security team of Washington’s choice would be put in place; American troops would be given carte blanche to conduct operations on Pakistani soil to get hold of wanted men; nuclear assets would be put under a verification regime and disciplined; ISI-Haqqani network will be severed and the ISI cut down to size; Pakistani officers involved in Mumbai carnage would be handed over to India.

It also transpired that HH and Ijaz flew together to London on 9 May and met British chief of staff David Richards and Secretary Ministry of Defence and after showing them the memo and getting their blessing, the two flew back to Washington the same day. On 10th May, Ijaz forwarded the secret memo to Mullen through his friend retired Gen James Jones. Mullen denied receiving the memo but on 16 November he retracted his earlier denial and stated that he had received the memo in May but paid no attention to it since it was unsigned. He added that he didn’t know Ijaz. Later on, James Jones also confirmed that he was the conduit to deliver the memo to Mullen, and confirmed that he knew Ijaz since 2005. It transpired in mid-November that the senior diplomat was none other than much-talked about Husain Haqqani (HH), our Ambassador in Washington since April 2008.  On 03 December, Ijaz made a slight change in his story asserting that he was sure it was President Zardari who had authorized the memo and that both Zardari and HH were in the know of 2 May attack.

This memo story was vehemently denied by Presidency, Mullen as well as HH, but Ijaz maintained his stance and stated that he was ready to present himself before inquiry commission or apex court in Pakistan with forensic proofs. Reportedly, DGISI held a meeting with Ijaz in London on 22 October and he gave him the proofs he held in his Blackberry mobile set and computer. It was only when Gen Kayani got concerned about the treasonous memo with grave ramifications and he asked President Zardari on 15 November to summon HH and extract the truth that the President got serious.

In line with track record of PPP leaders of denial, HH denied having conceived, drafted and delivered the memo to Ijaz for onward delivery to Mullen. He denies having been asked by Zardari and argues as to why he should have sought controversial Ijaz’s assistance to become the delivery man when he himself was well connected with US military and civilian officials. He may not have written down the memo but he could have dictated the contents to Ijaz. HH cannot deny that he and Ijaz were pals for the last ten years and both harbored anti-Army and anti-ISI feelings. HH has not denied having asked Ijaz to draft and deliver the memo. It is said that HH chose Ijaz owing to his controversial reputation so that if memo issue backfired, his charges could be refuted.

Intriguingly, the contents of memo are exactly what the US aspires for and are precisely what Benazir had promised to fulfill in return for her safe re-entry into Pakistan and taking over power for the third time. Zardari also committed to USA that he would make the Army and ISI totally subservient to his wishes, will settle Kashmir issue on the lines as agreed to by Musharraf, accept Indian hegemony and allow land route to India for its trade with Afghanistan and Central Asia, allow the US-NATO troops to operate in FATA, fight the militants with full force, open up nuclear program for the US and IAEA inspection and agree for its joint control by the US and Pak Army security apparatus. Contents of the memo matched the language of what HH had written in his book ‘ Pakistan : Between Mosque and Military’. The entire focus of the book was against the Establishment and ISI. Memo contents are also similar to the clauses in Kerry Lugar Bill, in which all the anti-Army and anti-ISI clauses were added by Haqqani. Even the offer made by MQM chief Altaf Hussein to Tony Blair in 2001 as alleged by Zulfiqar Mirza was on similar lines. Wikileaks revealed that the entire lot of our politicians held secret meetings with former US Ambassador Anne to seek US favors. Hence, there was nothing startling about the memo.

Although HH has been sacked and Sherry Rahman appointed in his place, however, still there are some intriguing questions which warrant answers. The US has spent colossal amount on secret war in Pakistan to accomplish its objectives. Whatever the US had wished for has been penned down in the memo. How come both Mullen and Leon Panetta showed complete disinterest in the explosive memo and left it in pending tray? With highest in Pakistan making such lucrative offers, which the US craved for, it is mind boggling as to why the US ignored the memo. What was Ijaz doing between May and first week of October? Was it HH who conceived the memo and forwarded it to Mullen through Ijaz, or he was authorized either by the President or PM or both; or it was Ijaz’s doing? If it was lone venture of Ijaz, why did he blow his own cover? Is it that he got frustrated by lack of response from CJSC that he blew the whistle to gain importance?

If HH is speaking the truth and that he has been trapped by Ijaz at the behest of conspirators as alleged by him, why did he readily step down from his post? If Ijaz is a liar, why did he meet DGISI and offered to present himself before judicial commission or any investigative body along with forensic evidence to prove whatever he had alleged was true? If the top PPP leadership is clean and has no connection with the memo, why has it reacted so viciously over the decision of Supreme Court to appoint a commission to investigate the memo? Lies uttered by Babar Awan during his press conference betrayed his and PPP leadership’s acute anxiety. Why the gnawing fear? People are connecting Memogate with 2 May incident, 22 May attack and NATO attack on 26 November, which further thickens the plot. Are these links of the same chain? Is it that the rulers want the Memogate to remain shrouded in mystery since they do not want to get exposed? Parliamentary Committee formed by the PM is a mere ritual to gain time and then forget about it. Highly controversial Asma Jahangir notorious for her western and Indian leanings and preconceived notions against the Army as well as superior judiciary has jumped into the fray to defend HH.

The big question is, why did Zardari panic after 2 May, when the wrath had fallen on the Army, ISI and air force and their high image crashed? Why the government remained tight lipped for over a week and why was it so reluctant to form a commission to investigate 2 May episode? It can be conjectured that the President had hoped that the Army would cave in and seek government’s help to bail it out as had happened during Kargil episode. That way, he would be in a position to dictate terms and make Gen Kayani agree to the US demands. He didn’t expect that the Army and ISI would react so strongly and decide to resist the US aggression. Strong reaction by the Army panicked him and he feared that the Army holding the government’s policy of appeasement, corruption and incompetence responsible for the incident would impel Kayani to launch a coup and takeover. Feeling guilty, he may have got jittery that his connection in 2 May attack may not be found out.

Seeing it from another angle, known for his shrewdness and secrecy, why Zardari threw caution to the wind and sought Mullen’s support through HH and Ijaz? Why couldn’t he take a safe route by talking to President Obama or Hillary Clinton on hotline, or asked Munter to convey his message? I have a gut feeling that HH might have put fear of military takeover into Zardari’s heart and convinced him that he at his behest would get the US assistance from CJSC since Obama administration was not likely to cede to their request. He chose the military under the assumption that since the Pentagon and CIA hated Gen Kayani and Gen Pasha intensely and were averse to Pak nuclear program, the offer made would be warmly welcomed. Reason to rely on HH was his strong aversion towards military establishment and ISI, and also his links with the US military senior officials.

He therefore directed anti-Army HH in Washington to seek the US help. However, by the time the memo was drafted and sent to Mullen on 10 May, joint session of the Parliament had been called by the PM on 14 May and DGISI was asked to narrate his side of the story. When the Parliament absolved him, and a joint resolution was passed, the US lost interest in the memo and CIA in frustration planned another sting operation on Mehran Naval Base on 22 May, which again was indirectly directed against the ISI as well as Navy to discredit the two institutions in the eyes of the public.

Possibilities: One; the President authored the memo with the help of his confidents and authorized HH to deliver it to Mullen. Two; President shared his anxiety with HH and latter convinced him to seek the US assistance and volunteered to do the needful at his end. Three; it was entirely the doing of HH aspiring to become the next prime minister with the blessing of USA . Four; It was the US-Mansur Ijaz joint venture to create rift between the Army and Presidency; then instigate Gen Kayani to topple the government and takeover. Or else, instigate Zardari to sack Kayani and Pasha and then implement the points mentioned in the memo.

HH’s resignation has certainly not ended the memo case. His patrons and fans say that he has been penalized and as such the matter should end. Several articles written by hypocrites are appearing in newspapers, eulogizing his great services and presenting   him as a scapegoat. In my view it is just the beginning of the end. Zardari, some unknown confidants of Zardari, HH, Cameron Munter, Ijaz, James Jones, Panetta, Mullen, David Richards and British Secretary Ministry of Defence are involved in memo controversy. If Ijaz has a dubious character, so has HH. There are many questions that need to be answered. The whole game plan and the motives of all the actors involved need to be found out and the culprits given exemplary punishment. Supreme Court took the right decision to nominate ex DG FIA Tariq Khosa, well reputed for his honesty and uprightness to investigate and put up his findings within 15 days. However, due to a storm raised by PP leaders, Khosa has declined to head the commission.

It is an act of treason which falls under Article 61 of the Constitution; hence it cannot be taken lightly. Raymond Davis involved in anti-state activities was let off by the President disregarding public sentiments. This time, our own topmost leaders supposed to protect Pakistan are purportedly culpable. The case of high treason must be taken to its logical end at all cost. Possible connection of memo affair with recent NATO attack should also be investigated by the judicial commission to clear the mystery which has greatly perturbed the nation. I pray that the probe proves Ijaz guilty; but God forbid if his contention comes true, it would be the most deplorable and detestable event of our history since no one in power had ever gone to such an extent of compromising the very existence of the country.

The writer is a retired Brig and a defence analyst. Email:asifharoon7751@yahoo.com