In my office hang photos of this writer with Pakistan's last four leaders. Two of them - Zia ul Haq and Benazir Bhutto - were murdered. Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif was ousted in a military coup led by photo number four, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who was deposed last year by Pakistan's military.
Either leading Pakistan is a job with very poor career prospects, or I'm a jinx. Take your pick.
Now, in a delicious irony, Washington is finally getting the democracy it has been calling for in Pakistan - and it's the Mother of all Backfires.
I've not met Pakistan's current president, Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of Benazir Bhutto. But I've written for decades about corruption charges that relentlessly dog him. At one point, I was threatened with having acid thrown in my face if I kept writing about the Bhutto-Zardari's financial scandals.
Asif Ali Zardari became known to one and all as "Mr. 10%" from the time when he was a minister in his wife's government, in charge of approving government contracts. Critics say the 10% and other kickbacks produced millions for the Zardari-Bhutto family.
But Benazir Bhutto repeatedly insisted to me that she and her husband - who was tortured and jailed for years on corruption charges - were innocent and victims of political persecution in Pakistan's utterly corrupt legal system where "justice" goes to the biggest payer of bribes, and politicians use courts to punish their rivals. Small wonder so many Pakistanis are calling for far more honest Islamic justice.
In 2008, Washington sought to rescue Musharraf's foundering dictatorship by convincing the popular but still self-exiled Benazir Bhutto to front for him as democratic window-dressing for continued military rule. Her price: amnesty for a long list of corruption charges against her and her husband. The US and Britain quietly arranged the amnesty for the Bhuttos and thousands of their indicted supporters (and other political figures).
Just before her assassination, Benazir told me jealous associates of Musharraf were gunning for her.
Asif Zardari then inherited Benazir's Pakistan People's Party, the nation's largest. He became president, thanks to strong US and British political and financial support.
Zardari repaid this support by facilitating the US war in Afghanistan, and allowed the Pentagon to keep using Pakistan's bases and military personnel, without which the war in Afghanistan could not be prosecuted. Washington promised Pakistan's elite, pro-western leadership at least $8 billion.
That sleazy deal has now come unstuck thanks to Pakistan's newest, rather improbable democratic hero, Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry. As chief justice of the Supreme Court under Musharraf, he was expected to rubber stamp government decisions.
Instead, Justice Chaudhry began enforcing the law by reinstating the dismissed corruption charges and examining the legality of Musharraf's self-appointed second term.
Musharraf, with shameful backing from Washington and London, had Justice Chaudhry kicked off the bench. He, and a score of fellow judges who would not toe the line, were placed under house arrest. Some were beaten. Their pensions were canceled.
But the ebbing of Zardari's power has resulted in the reinstatement by parliament of Justice Chaudhry, who promptly reinstated all the old charges. For the first time, Pakistan was tasting the true institutions of democracy at work.
Zardari has presidential immunity against criminal charges. But his chief lieutenants face prosecution, notably regime strongman, Interior Minister Rehman Malik, and Defense Minister Ahmed Mukhtar. Both are key supporters and facilitators of US military operations in Afghanistan, America's use of Pakistani bases, and Pakistan's war against its own rebellious Pashtun tribesmen (AKA "Taliban").
Opposition parties are demanding Zardari and senior aides resign. Islamabad is in an uproar just when Washington needs Pakistan's government to intensify the war against the so-called Pakistani Taliban and support President Barack Obama's expanded war in Afghanistan. Washington is also intensifying drone attacks inside Pakistan, that are provoking fierce public outrage against the US, and weighing air attacks on Baluchistan Province.
Skeletons are dancing out of Zardari's closets: $63 million in illegal kickbacks and commissions allegedly hidden in Swiss bank accounts; accusation of laundering $13.7 million in Switzerland. Charges of kickbacks on helicopter and warplane deals. In 2003, Swiss magistrates found Zardari and Bhutto guilty of money laundering, sentencing them to a six month suspended jail term, a fine of $50,000, and ordering them to repay $11 million to Pakistan's government.
Zardari has an estimated personal fortune of $2 billion; luxurious properties in the US, France, Spain and Britain, and on it goes. He avoided trial in Switzerland by claiming mental illness.
In 2008, Gen. Musharraf had all charges against the Bhuttos dropped as part of the US-engineered plan for a diumverate with Benazir.
The Bhuttos remain one of the largest feudal landowners in a desperately poor nation where annual income is US$1,027 and illiteracy over 50%. Pakistan has been ruled since its creation in 1947 by either callous feudal landlords, who bought and sold politicians like bags of Basmati rice, or by generals.
It appears that Zardari's days as Washington's man in Islamabad are numbered. Anti-American fury is surging, with popular claims that Pakistan has been "occupied" by the US, treated like a third-rate banana republic, and is run by corrupt, US-installed stooges and crooks. Shades of Iran under the Shah, and Egypt under Sadat.
Many Pakistanis blame the current bloody wave of bombings in their nation on US mercenaries from Xe (formerly Blackwater), and old foe India staging attacks in revenge for decades of bombings in Kashmir, Punjab and its eastern hill states by Pakistani intelligence.
Most Pakistanis believe Washington is bent on tearing apart their unstable nation to seize its nuclear weapons.
Washington is almost back to square one in turbulent Pakistan. When Zardari goes or is kicked upstairs as an impotent figurehead, attention will turn to Pakistan's 617,000-man military and its commander, Gen - or should we say "president-elect" Ashfaq Kiyani? He is already in almost constant contact with the Pentagon.
In 2010, the ugly acronym, "Afpak," will bedevil, befuddle, and consume the Obama White House that so unwisely and rashly ignored Gen. Douglas MacArthur's wise warning to avoid land wars in Asia.
As the US expands the Afghan War, its strategic rear area in Pakistan is up in flames.
Which one would you chose as an ally?
He may have issues with Zardari as the President of Pakistan. But he must realize that his personal choice means little when people of Pakistan accepted Zardari as the leader of PPP in an emphatic election victory, in restoration of democratic process in Pakistan.
Eric Margolis has been writing against the US polices in Pakistan for a long time, and is predicting failure with all earnest.
He has, in this article, has highlighted what the Pakistani people believe and who they blame for all the troubles that Pakistan is facing. But he has nothing to complaint against the individuals in the Pak media, villifying the Pakistani moderates and carrying out mis-information campaign against the US policies of forcing Pakistan to give up protecting the Afghan Taliban.
No one will ever find Eric Margolis writing against Pakistan's policy of (1) using terror as instrument of Foreign policy against its neighbours, and (2) destabilizing Afghanistan to seek strategic depth.
No mention of the fact that the current government did a far better job of evicting Taliban than anyone else in recent history.
Does Mr. 10% deserve his reputation--- absolutely.
But the dialectic of Pakistani politics is repeated all over Third World.
One chooses the less of two evils-- either a military dictator or corrupt taking civilian. It is only those with a fixed liberal tunnel- vision who attempt to shift the blame for Third World realities to a convenient U.S. bete noir.
PPP has shown lack of political will, but then they are not that much liberated as they don’t enjoy the two third majority and they are also bound by the towering influence of the establishment, and they have to keep their allies in sync on almost all the issues.
One has to give credit to the PML(N) that they haven’t brought out this issue to the roads of Punjab to create more antagonism towards Punjab in small provinces.
http://www.pakspectator.com/should-asif-ali-zardari-resign/
President Asif Ali Zardari is the symbol of unification and the shadowy forces have to accept that fact no matter how much bitter and hard that is for them. Asif Ali Zardari is the guaranttee of Pakistan’s integrity and they have to tolerate him, no matter what. Zardari was the man who kept the country intact when Benazir Bhutto was slain and he is the man who is keeping the bursting emotions in Sindh and some parts of the Balochistan, as once again Sindhi representation is being repressed.
A majority of Pakistanis believe he is corrupt. As Eric is pointing out, he is known as Mr. 10% all over Pakistan. Why is not any other Pakistani politician known as Mr. 25% or 15% or even 5%. If he were not corrupt, he would not have resisted Supreme Court's judgement, which is not specifically directed him at all and would not have resisted restoration of independent judiciary to start with.
You can't have cases against you and you start playing some kind of ethnic or religious card.
And if the US hadn't backed Musharraf, the guy who most likely ordered Bhutto's assassination, we'd have an actual leader in Pakistan now.
he's had his picture taken with only 4 Pakistani dictators - from his
previous work, I had assumed he has pictures going back all the way
to Jinnah.
Sometimes it's better to support someone who loves their country and not bribes. A world with leaders who are ethical is preferable to one with leaders who "support American interests" because those who support American interests seem to create more instability than anything else. The most stable rulers are ultimatly those who serve their countries.
Seems reasonable. If the taliban/al qaeda group gets one or two of those mobile nukes.....the landscape has changed forever.
Well you've had such successes with Afghanistan (Population 28 million) and Iraq (Population 25 million)...