A Priceless Opportunity

[muse]

Earlier we said we should keep our powder dry and see what the All parties Conference can or will deliver - but the US is already working that angle:


Munter meets Zardari after talks at Foreign Office
By Syed Irfan Raza



ISLAMABAD: US Ambassador Cameron Munter met President Asif Ali Zardari at the presidency on Tuesday after his second meeting in two days with Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir.

Presidency’s Spokesman Farhatullah Babar only said the president and the ambassador discussed bilateral relations. He declined to give details of issues taken up, but sources said that the ambassador might have conveyed to the president some message from his government.

Earlier, the president and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani met at the presidency and reviewed the situation. They were joined by Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar, Secretary General to the President Salman Faruqui and Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir, said Mr Babar.

The meeting discussed the upcoming all-party conference convened on Thursday to formulate national stance on allegations levelled by the US against Pakistan’s armed forces and its intelligence arm ISI.

“Reposing confidence in the ability of democratic leadership to stand united at all times that call for unity, the president expressed the hope that the country’s political leadership would be able to reach consensus on issues of national concern,” the spokesman said.

The meeting also discussed the devastation caused by floods in Sindh and relief and rehabilitation measures.

 

[muse]

Friends:

Monitor what happens with the All Parties Conference ---



PM calls for national unity to tackle current challenges
APP



PESHAWAR: Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani on Wednesday underlined the need for national unity and cohesion to tackle the challenges faced by the country.

During an address at the Lawyers Convention, organised by the Peshawar High Court Bar Association (PHCBA) at PHC premises, he said that, “we also should unite on a single point agenda for the defense, integrity, solidarity and sovereignty of Pakistan.”

“There is no danger to the country if the 180 million people of Pakistan stand united,” he added.

He said “Pakistan is our country and we should all unite irrespective of political affiliation and party politics”.

Gilani, who was the first elected prime minister to address Peshawar High Court Bar Association, lauded the constant and firm support of lawyers.

He said “our forefathers, lawyers, academicians, civil society had rendered matchless sacrifices during and later in creation of Pakistan and it was our national obligation to stand united for safeguarding our country’s sovereignty.”

He also lauded the active role played by the legal fraternity during the judges’ restoration movement, for supremacy of Constitution, rule of law and restoration of sustainable democracy in the country.

He said lawyers, civil society and political forces had played a leading role against dictatorship and restoration of undiluted democracy in the country.

He said Father of the Nation, Muhammad Ali Jinnah was also associated with legal profession, and added “parliamentary democracy in the country was the fruit of the matchless struggle made by our forefathers under the dynamic leadership of Quaid-e-Azam.”

The PM said that the challenges could be tackled through the Constitution, given by PPP Founder Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Shaheed.

He said that it was the 1973 Constitution that protected the country.

 

[SQ8]

Muse.. I am not encouraged by Useless Raza Gilani's statements.
Moreover.. the PA session may see the usual Mullah parties come up with useless "attack the US" arguments.
Im skeptical as to how the AP conference may reach a fruitful result.

 

[muse]

Muse.. I am not encouraged by Useless Raza Gilani's statements.
Moreover.. the PA session may see the usual Mullah parties come up with useless "attack the US" arguments.
Im skeptical as to how the AP conference may reach a fruitful result.

It's a Pakistani reality born of innumerable disappointments with politicians bereft of vision - Mr. Gilani is spewing "unity", setting the public up for the blame game to follow, it's difficult to see beyond upcoming elections. But lets see if are right to be skeptical.

 

[Kinetic]

Calm down. There is a war like situation created artificially by the media with some extra chest thumping. There is nothing much wrong in US-Pakistan relation as shown by media. This is just temporary war of words, situation will be normal within weeks. Pakistan-US have historical bonds of time tested relation. US was always bound with Pakistan's progress.

 

[muse]

I like how Wajahat thinks and writes, I think you'll enjoy it too



The imagined US-Pak war


Wajahat S Khan
Saturday, October 01, 2011




It has begun, and you didn’t just hear it here. Television would have us believe that a (desperate) United States of America and the (entrenched) Islamic Republic of Pakistan are now at war...But it’s not official, and might as well never be.

The political impetus from Washington has come from a lack of clear gains for their commitment, no real direction or momentum for the “end-game” negotiations in a post-Nato Afghanistan, as well as the realistic and/or conspiratorial confidence that has accompanied the escalating and seemingly unilateralist and/or interventionist actions on Pakistani territory. The ‘individual actor’ theory (that Admiral Mike Mullen is facing retirement and thus wants a soldierly swan song) is too thin to stick, especially considering his recent meanderings in the Wall Street Journal. This spat was well thought out in the Pentagon, if not thoroughly ‘war-gamed’ on how the Pakistanis would react by the West Wing.

So far, despite the televised soothsayers promising war, diplomacy is emerging as the lunch special. But is this confrontation a tactical glitch, dramatic brinksmanship, institutional rivalry, a failure of public savoir-faire, or an extension of big game geo-politics?

Not new is the Pakistani conviction that the bottom-line purpose of US/Nato presence in ****** is meant to “denuclearise” and/or “balkanise” the country’s military itself, thus Islamabad’s security regime is counting on the political inevitability of the US pullout. Here, it is helped by the post-OBL reality check that the Americans are forced to implement on themselves – the less results the US military shows in relation to its to-do list (audited against the White House/Pentagon by a hostile and economy-centric Congress), the faster and more ensured the drawdown from Afghanistan will be. A bloody nose (the September 13 attack on the US Embassy in Kabul) will not hurt the pace of the withdrawal either.

But what’s hurting the Pakistanis is that Obama’s White House is looking down at the wrong end of the political-campaign gun. With a year left for the American elections, Obama and his advisors will not desist from saber rattling (thus the White House has not really backed down from Mullen’s position), even if it’s mere posturing. After all, it wouldn’t hurt the American president or his pollsters to get to play the “tough on national security” card and gain some good old bipartisan support (which he is already receiving). Everybody needs an enemy – even if you don’t fight him – especially in an election year. As Pakistan’s foreign minister correctly told the American broadcaster CBS this week, the local context of politics counts in both countries. That assertion is confirmed by the primary audience of Mullen’s accusations: a reservedly anti-Obama American legislature that is gunning hard for budget (aid) cuts.

But there is also a familiar big picture that Pakistan’s brass is imagining. Here, Pakistan is a mere square on the chessboard which defines America’s ‘permanent policing’ goal in South and Central Asia. In this narrative, China is the target of American encirclement; Balochistan is the platform as well as the army’s Achille’s Heel; and the Americans controlling energy channels that cut through the region (China’s Achille’s Heel is energy in this narrative) is the underlying purpose. That’s exactly what the GHQ is selling to Beijing: we are fighting your war, so don’t ditch us. Thus, a pitch for a ‘security pact’ with the PRC is reportedly in the works, but China is not biting – not yet.

So Pakistan will use the crisis to sell hard. Effectively “sick” of America and ready to be “fully aligned” with a new bloc, Islamabad (or is it Rawalpindi) is imagining a clean break from Washington as necessary. Encouraged by the tough new American discourse and confident that the logistical importance of its ground and air routes are critical to the US force presence in Afghanistan, Pakistan’s strategists won’t mind hurrying things along for the Nato pullout, and thus approve of taking the fight to the Americans (US Embassy attacks/Wardak truck bombing) to “counter-embarrass” them (after the OBL and Mehran episodes).

As for fixing the post-evacuation bargaining process in Pakistan’s (or its proxies&#8217 favour, or even just making the whole game of talking look redundant – more advertently to “co-target” America’s regional partner, India – those aiding or abetting US contacts with the Taliban, i.e. ‘negotiating’, will have to be eliminated (e.g. Burhannudin Rabbani’s assassination). And yes, shoring up regional support from likely (China, Saudi Arabia) and unlikely (Iran, Russia) quarters is being perceived to finally pay off, as for the first time in a long time, Pakistan’s narrative – that American presence in ****** is a permanent threat to all and sundry – will probably suit those countries. But that grand plan could only happen for the Pakistanis in the perfect world.

In the real world, India will compliment and complicate US posturing (New Delhi conducting back-to-back nuclear-capable missile tests while Pak-American ties slide south is no coincidence), so Pakistan will have to wisen up with its so-called archrival (which it is already doing by not responding to the tests in kind as well as making friendly noises through Amin Fahim about fast-tracking bilateral commerce over his recent trip to India). As for the military side, sure, Cameron Munter is doing the rounds at the foreign office and the presidency, General Mattis is being a good Marine with his air-drops into Chaklala Garrison, Hina Rabbani Khar has finally ditched her Birkin bag for a verbal bazooka, and General Kayani has cancelled a trip to Britain, but Pakistan will not – and cannot – confront the US militarily for this “clean break” to happen.

Instead, Pakistan shall (and already has) deploy its other options. Just this week saw political consolidation, diplomacy and counterintelligence gather pace. The prime minister chaired the All Parties Conference that symbolically, if momentarily, united the country’s various political factions. The Chinese deputy PM’s visit to Islamabad was incidentally timely, if token, and while the Saudi counterterrorism delegation which was visiting Rawalpindi was publically spun as an emergency intelligence gathering, the pre-scheduled joint military exercises with Saudi forces that were Bahrain-focused played out on a gullible – and increasingly Yanko-phobic-mainstream media as America-centric breaking news.

That is an indication of things to come. Pakistanis have long complained that nothing really binds them together. Could this “break up war” (which is definitely combative, but not in the military sense) provide the impetus that a new sense of ultra-nationalism will thrive on? After all, nothing brings a nation together like a militarised confrontation, even if it is imagined. Expect uber-nationalist warmongers to make hay (or man their jets) while the sun shines. Also expect the narrative on the documented and anecdotal “anti-Americanism” of Pakistan’s rank and file, masses and elite, to finally come full circle, especially on mainstream media.

But if this “good bye, good luck and don’t come again” approach that Islamabad is fast hurtling towards – that too with an unprecedented national consensus – is being piloted by the aggressive hawks in Aabpara who cannot look at Afghanistan as anything less than their fifth province (and at the present government as nothing less than an opportunistic, Western-liberal stage-show) will they back down, especially after the public display of American “thanklessness”? Surely they are perceiving this as their finest hour: with the imagined trappings of a grand-regional anti-American coalition in the works, coupled with fantasising about the historical achievement of staring the Americans down, the Pakistani combatants of the Yanko-Pak war are seeing a victory in this crisis the same way as a guerilla sees it against a superior force: not losing is good enough, and depriving the big gun of its goal is even better.

As for their raison d’être, well, it just changed: if you’re going to beg, beg on your feet, not on your knees. And if you have to beg, might as grovel before sympathisers (China), role models (Saudi Arabia), lukewarm neighbours (Iran) or potential wildcard benefactors (Russia). Not your estranged, angry and abusive Uncle Sam. That is the new world of imagined, even schizophrenic, Pakistan-centric multi-polarity.



The writer is a former fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School and a broadcast journalist. Email: wajahat_ khan@hks.harvard.edu

 

[Developereo]

That’s exactly what the GHQ is selling to Beijing: we are fighting your war, so don’t ditch us. Thus, a pitch for a ‘security pact’ with the PRC is reportedly in the works, but China is not biting – not yet.

That's a dangerous move. Everyone knows the US views China as the primary challenger to its hegemony in this century, but the Chinese want to downplay that rivalry, wisely enough. China is in no position to openly confront the US and surely doesn't appreciate Pakistan putting it on the spot as the "counterweight" to USA. It is the Indians, outside the West itself, who continually stoke the US-China rivalry in order to milk more deals from the West.

As for fixing the post-evacuation bargaining process in Pakistan’s (or its proxies&#8217 favour, or even just making the whole game of talking look redundant – more advertently to “co-target” America’s regional partner, India – those aiding or abetting US contacts with the Taliban, i.e. ‘negotiating’, will have to be eliminated (e.g. Burhannudin Rabbani’s assassination).

Sounds like the author is accusing Pakistan of the murder of Rabbani, as well as complicity in the Kabul attacks, as Mullen alleged.