US doubts Sharif’s commitment to war on terror

[dabong1]

US doubts Sharif’s commitment to war on terror




By Anwar Iqbal

WASHINGTON, Nov 28: US President George W. Bush has gone public with his administration’s reservations about Nawaz Sharif’s commitment to the war on terror, saying the former prime minister’s relations with religious parties raised doubts about his ability to do so.

“I don’t know him well enough,” Mr Bush said in an interview to American news agency AP when asked to comment on Mr Sharif’s return. He, however, noted that Mr Sharif had good relations with Pakistan’s religious parties, which raised doubts about his commitment to battling the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

“I would be very concerned if there is any leader in Pakistan that didn’t understand the nature of the world in which we live today,” Mr Bush said. The comments prompted the US media, which had already been expressing similar doubts about Mr Sharif since his return to Pakistan, to look back at the Sharif era with suspicion and doubt.

Several mainstream US newspapers – Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Herald Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle – quoted senior US officials as saying that they worry Mr Sharif’s potential role in any new Pakistani government could undermine efforts to hunt down Al Qaeda and Taliban militants, as well as hinder broader initiatives to modernise Pakistan’s economy and society.

They cite Mr Sharif’s political alliance with Islamist parties and his past weaknesses in coordinating counterterrorism actions with the US when he served as prime minister in the late 1990s.

“Sharif’s agenda is different. His agenda is to walk away from advances” made in Pakistan targeting the promotion of women and civil society, a senior US official told the Wall Street Journal.

“We’re really talking about moving back to the ‘90s, which means weak political parties. What’s the interest in that for Pakistan’s stability?”

Mr Sharif and his supporters have repeatedly denied US charges that he was soft on terrorism. They cite extensive efforts by his government to help the Clinton administration hunt down Osama bin Laden. They said Mr Sharif worked extensively for peace with India during the Kargil crisis in 1999. US officials said their concerns with Mr Sharif stretched beyond terrorism. They cite an attempt by Mr Sharif’s government in the 1990s to adopt strict Islamic penal codes.

“Mr Sharif’s return forebodes a strengthening of the religious right, which already has more seats in parliament than when he was prime minister,” The New York Times noted. Some officials blamed Mr Sharif for ‘condoning the nuclear proliferation efforts’ of Dr A.Q. Khan, ‘which aided the nuclear weapons programmes of North Korea, Libya and Iran,” San Francisco Chronicle pointed out.

It was also Mr Sharif who strongly supported the Taliban, sponsors of Osama bin Laden in securing power in Afghanistan, the Chronicle added. Other US officials, however, said Washington might be able to cooperate with Mr Sharif if he became prime minister again.

“There’s probably some bitterness towards us,” held by Mr Sharif, one such official told the Journal.

“But a few months down the road, I believe we’d probably have a working relationship.” Daniel Markey, a former State Department official now with the Council on Foreign Relations, told the Journal that ‘Washington appears to have taken a back seat, or at least a stance of resignation at the inevitable, as the Saudis, perhaps Pakistan’s most revered ally, engineered the return of Mr Sharif.”

Other newspapers noted that Mr Sharif’s return complicates the Bush administration’s support for Benazir Bhutto whom Washington has favoured as a more secular politician, and a more certain partner against Islamic extremists.

The US media pointed out that Washington’s distrust of Mr Sharif goes back to 1998, when President Clinton tried to persuade the Pakistani leader not to conduct a nuclear test but he ignored him.

The media noted that while Mr Sharif railed against Gen Musharraf for meddling with the Supreme Court, his supporters invaded the same court when he was the prime minister.

Several newspapers quoted Bruce Riedel, a member of the National Security Council in the Clinton administration, as depicting Mr Sharif as an ‘unforthcoming’ and ‘reluctant’ leader who did not know how to steer his country out of trouble during the Kargil crisis. Mr Riedel was one of a handful of Clinton administration officials who participated in the Sharif-Clinton meeting in Washington on July 4, 1999, held to prevent an allout war with India.

In a footnote to the saga, Mr Riedel recounts that Mr Clinton urged Gen Musharraf not to execute Mr Sharif as Gen Zia had executed prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1979.

“With our encouragement, the Saudis pressed hard for Sharif’s freedom,” Mr Riedel said, and finally in December 2000 he was sent into exile to the kingdom, from where he has now returned.

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

Mian Nawaz Sharif will have to be more assertive in governance should be win the elections.

He has no option but to toe the US line since a large amount of military equipment has been given to Pakistan during Musharraf's time. The spares are already required as in the case of the Cobra gunships. If the military aid dries up, then the military shall not be too delighted and that can be very embarrassing.

China is busy with her modernisation and race to quickly diminish the gap between her and the US. Therefore, she will not be in a position to funnel or match the massive aid that the US has given since, much that Pakistan is a close ally of China, China cannot relegated her national priorities to help a friend.

If Nawaz Sharif does not play ball with the US, then the squeeze will be brought about through the IMF and WB and the multitude of US allies and friends. There is no doubt that developing countries have to import certain items from the western countries that are critical for domestic progress.

Therefore, much that one may like to be a nationalist and want to pursue an independent policy, it is always restricted by external pressure groups.

Even KSA, which is close to Pakistan, is putty when the US desires.

And US currently calls the shot.

That is the reality of realpolitik!

As far as Zia executing Bhutto inspite of the US or KSA, it was to the interest to have a 'reliable' Zia over the maverick Bhutto!

And when Zia was dispensable, he went. The US Ambassador Raphael, Meyer M was made a stool pigeon for good reasons.

 

[BATMAN]

War on terror is very much Pakistan’s own war. Every government will be obliged to go after all foreign terrorists on Pakistan soil, with or without US.

Stop commenting on something you have no idea and don't creat new meanings out of a the article.

Let me clear you about Pakistan's relation with US in all this war.

It is not only cheap for US to hire Pakistan's soldiers to patrol Afghan border, it is politically in the favor of US administration otherwise they have to send more troops which has more political repercussions rather than sending some surveillance toys to PA.

 

[Cheetah786]

I firmly belive if nawaz sherief come in to power pakistan will become afghanistan.
But iam still hope full some friendly fire will take him out soon

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

War on terror is very much Pakistan’s own war. Every government will be obliged to go after all foreign terrorists on Pakistan soil, with or without US.

Stop commenting on something you have no idea and don't creat new meanings out of a the article.

Let me clear you about Pakistan's relation with US in all this war.

It is not only cheap for US to hire Pakistan's soldiers to patrol Afghan border, it is politically in the favor of US administration otherwise they have to send more troops which has more political repercussions rather than sending some surveillance toys to PA.

I find it a ridiculous for one to state that one should stop commenting on something.

What makes you feel one has no idea about what is happening around the world? Your paranoia? Unfortunately, all are not gripped by a 'frog in the well' affliction!

For Christ's sake, quit disembowelling bile and frustration when devoid of facts to counter issues.

So, you claim that the US is hiring Pakistani soldiers to patrol the Pak Afghan border? That is news. I did not know that the US is underwriting the Pak Army's pay!! Are you suggesting that the Pakistan Army is an appendage of the US? An insulting thought for any self respecting Pakistani, I will add. I thought they were merely giving what you call as 'toys'.

If you enlarge your vision, you will be able to analyse the events better than be mummified in thought!

What is the situation in CAR? What is the mode to entomb Russia and even assist in shrinking its borders? Heard of the Orange and Rose Revolutions and the problems in the Central Asian Republics or even of the Shanghai Five? They all happened because of internal reasons alone? Understand geo strategy, geopolitics and realpolitik before leaping into the blue and commenting on others.

It is imperative for the US to have its foothold in the Middle East as also in the Afghan Pakistan belt including Balochistan and Gwadar. It also serves the new strategic vision on Oil!

This long haul in Afghanistan is man made and serves the interest! Boil, but not boil over!

A thought!

 

[Awesome]

Seems like Uncle Bush has given his verdict on Nawaz's reelection.

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

In so far as the US and it strategy and just for your information since I am sure you don't read international news or strategic papers, here is something that will help you.

A 'surge' for Afghanistan?

A Marine proposal under discussion this week would redeploy troops from Iraq.
By Gordon Lubold | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the November 29, 2007 edition

Reporter Gordon Lubold talks about a potential new assignment for the US Marine Corps.

Kabul, Afghanistan - The top general of the Marine Corps is pushing hard to deploy marines to Afghanistan as he looks to draw down his forces in Iraq, but his proposal, which is under discussion at the Pentagon this week, faces deep resistance from other military leaders.

Commandant Gen. James Conway's plan, if approved, would deploy a large contingent of marines to Afghanistan, perhaps as early as next year. The reinforcements would be used to fight the Taliban, which US officials concede is now defending its territory more effectively against allied and Afghan forces.

Within the Pentagon, General Conway's proposal has led to speculation about which, if any, American forces would be best suited to provide reinforcements for a mission that, most agree, has far more political appeal than the one in Iraq. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has already recommended against the proposal, at least for now, a military official said Tuesday.

That leaves the decision up to Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

"It came down to an issue of timing," says the official, who didn't want to be named because of the sensitivity of the recommendation. "The chairman didn't feel that this was the right time."

Conway says that marines, who have been largely responsible for calming Anbar Province in Iraq, can either return home or "stay plugged into the fight" by essentially redeploying to Afghanistan. The general returned Monday from a trip to Iraq and Afghanistan, where he visited with marines and stressed that the Corps is not out to snatch a senior command billet in Afghanistan, nor is it trying to get out of Iraq "while the getting is good."

Critics of the plan worry that it would leave too much risk for the Army in Iraq, but Conway argues that the Corps would assume more risk in Afghanistan than it has now in Anbar Province, where violence has abated considerably.

"The trend lines tell us that it may be time to increase the force posture in Afghanistan," Conway says, in his first public comments on the matter since the proposal was leaked to the press last month.

Ideally, he says, the international community would provide more help for the roughly 50,000 coalition forces there now – about half of them American troops, mostly from the Army. About 300 marines are currently stationed in Afghanistan.

"But if it requires additional US forces," Conway says, "then it goes back to our suggestion that maybe we need more marines in there with a more kinetic bent."

Adm. William Fallon, head of US Central Command, which oversees operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan, is said to be "very strong" on the Conway option, says another senior military official, who asked not to be named, adding that the whole mix of forces must be looked at before a decision can be made.

"We're at the taking-a-hard-look-at-it stage," says this official. "The positive side of the Marines looking at this for a deployment is it would be a good mix of combat power and training and equip missions."

Secretary Gates's focus so far has been to seek more help from the international community to provide trainers and other forces to combat the resurgent Taliban.

Top Army and Air Force officials have expressed concern about the Conway plan, even as US officials on the ground in Afghanistan appear to welcome the idea.

The Corps would probably deploy a Marine Air Ground Task Force, a self-contained unit that brings with it its own headquarters, ground elements, logistics, and air-assault capabilities that may be especially suited to the scale of operations in Afghanistan, Conway says.

Gates has appeared to shoot down the idea in remarks over the past month. But sources say the Defense secretary hasn't yet been fully briefed on the matter.

Two years ago, the Pentagon was set to proclaim military success in Afghanistan and tie it up with a bow. But this year the security mission in Afghanistan has suffered from the US focus on Iraq and a heavy reliance on an international force.

NATO's command in Afghanistan, the International Security Assistance Force, has had some victories on the ground there, working with the nascent Afghan Army and police force. But the US considers some allied nations to be "casualty averse," not expecting to be engaged in heavy combat operations back when they signed up for what they considered a training-and-peacekeeping mission. Suicide attacks in Afghanistan are on the rise, and US casualties, though relatively few compared with those in Iraq, have increased as well, according to American military officials on the ground there.

Conway, for one, is convinced that Afghanistan's security needs inevitably will require more American forces – and that the Corps, with its "expeditionary" focus, is well suited to the mission. Already, he has sent two Marine battalions to mountain warfare training in California to prepare for the missions in Afghanistan should the request come.

The Corps is already beginning to plan the drawdown of its forces in Anbar in Iraq, where the bulk of Marine forces are deployed.

So far, the calm in Anbar, which began before the surge of US forces this spring, has continued, and Marine officials believe the strategy there has worked. It seems unlikely that a large contingent of marines would stay in Anbar much longer if that peace continues. Unless marines are sent elsewhere in Iraq, that would leave Conway an opening to redeploy them to Afghanistan.

Such a deployment would also ease the Corps' deployment tempo, a goal Gates established for both the Army and Marine Corps upon taking office in January.

The decision about which forces, if any, to send to Afghanistan has a political subtext. If the White House were to send more US forces into a country most Americans thought was already secure, Democrats would be sure to exploit the security retrogression during an election year.

Such a decision, too, would have reverberations within the Pentagon, since the US force that would return to Afghanistan would carry with it a political prize. While much of the American public wants US forces out of Iraq, many see Afghanistan as the more righteous mission, because the origins of the 9/11 attacks can be traced there.

"Marines may be jockeying for the longer-term and maybe more popular role," says Anthony Cordesman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington.

If more American forces are needed in Afghanistan, then the Pentagon must look at the "entire pool" of forces before it decides that what is best for the Marine Corps is also best for its policy in Afghanistan, says Mr. Cordesman.

Institutional memory lost?

Michael O'Hanlon, a senior analyst at the Brookings Institution, another think tank in Washington, is not necessarily opposed to Conway's idea, but he worries that taking marines out of Anbar, where they have been effective, could rob the US of vital knowledge about the province.

"The Marines know more about that province than the Army does," he says.

Marines are already being asked to help with the fight in Afghanistan. Last month, Corps officials announced that AV-8B Harrier jump jets – attached to the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit deployed aboard an amphibious assault ship – flew more than a dozen sorties over Afghanistan. The jets conducted reconnaissance, escorted ground convoys, and dropped precision-guided munitions on enemy targets, according to Corps officials.

A 'surge' for Afghanistan? | csmonitor.com

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

Seems like Uncle Bush has given his verdict on Nawaz's reelection.

What has he said?

 

[dabong1]

The Sharif factor comes into play
By M K Bhadrakumar

The United States is watching with anxiety Pakistan's painful march towards democracy, and it does not like the look of it. The return of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif to Pakistan has completely altered the political calculus and took Washington by surprise.

By insisting on Sharif's return to Pakistan, Saudi Arabia took matters into its own hands. Washington should have read the signal that something was stirring in Riyadh when, a fortnight earlier, the Saudi ambassador to Pakistan made an characteristic public display of intervening with President General Pervez Musharraf for the release of the former director general of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) , Hamid Gul, from detention under the draconian state of emergency provisions imposed this month.

Gul is no ordinary mortal. He has an impeccable record - both as a serving corps commander and as a retired general - of campaigning for Pakistan's destiny within an arc of Islamic countries stretching from Afghanistan to Turkey. He has consistently advocated strategic defiance of the United States. Twenty years ago, he co-authored a strategic rethink ("regional strategic consensus paper") while serving as the ISI chief under president Zia ul-Haq, preparing Pakistan for its post-Afghan jihad phase when the US was set to drop it as an ally.

Gul is a staunch believer in the "Islamic bomb". Of course, that was also the time in the late 1980s when Pakistan was considering the outright "sale" of a nuclear bomb to Saudi Arabia to rid itself altogether of the irksome dependence on American aid, apart from arranging the supply of Chinese long-range CSS-II nuclear-capable missiles to Saudi Arabia. Gul is an untiring believer in the jihad. Some say he once personally took Osama bin Laden to meet Nawaz Sharif.

Rise of Islamist nationalism
Yet, Washington didn't take note when Musharraf acceded to the Saudi request for Gul's freedom. The promptness with which the Saudi wish was accommodated by the Pakistani establishment should have alerted the US.

Unsurprisingly, the specter that is haunting the George W Bush administration is whether the baton of the democratic transformation of Pakistan will pass into the hands of conservative nationalist Islamic forces instead of the "moderate liberals" (read Benazir Bhutto) chosen by Washington. Bush admitted his personal sense of frustration when he told the Associated Press: "I don't know him [Sharif] well enough." Regarding Sharif's links with Islamic parties in Pakistan, Bush added: "I would be very concerned if there is any leader in Pakistan that did not understand the nature of the world in which we live today."

Sharif, on his part, point-blank refuses to acknowledge Bush's recent efforts to bring about Pakistan's democratic transformation. He would recall his association with president Bill Clinton and stress he didn't know Bush. On Wednesday, Sharif touched on Bush's "war on terror". Referring to the military crackdown in Pakistan's Swat Valley, Sharif said Islamabad ought to think before complying with the demands of foreign powers. He caustically added: "This is our country, and we know better how to solve our problems."

Sharif estimated his remark would find good resonance in Pakistani opinion. Senior unnamed US officials, in turn, have leaked to the American mainstream newspapers - including The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the San Francisco Chronicle - the Bush administration's disquiet that Sharif might spoil the "war on terror".

They paint Sharif as a conservative politician who connived with Abdul Qadeer Khan's nuclear proliferation and hobnobbed with the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and argue that he stands in the way of the emancipation of Pakistani women. They cherry-pick from Sharif's tumultuous political life and find fault with him for just about everything that went wrong in Pakistan in the recent two to three decades. But that is grossly unfair. There is almost nothing that Sharif did while in power at which Bhutto didn't try her hand.

The Bush administration squirms that its techniques of political management failed to work with the formidable Pakistani establishment. The rapidity of the unfolding of political events in Islamabad has left Bush with no option but to keep eulogizing Musharraf's leadership qualities - even as the general systematically rubbished Bhutto's political prospects. Maybe an apocalyptic vision of a Sharif-led Pakistan may help justify the Bush administration's continued support of Musharraf.

Washington's demands today have virtually narrowed down to a lifting of the emergency rule in Pakistan - something that Musharraf is in any case getting ready to do. In fact, Musharraf has no more use for the emergency rule now that he has overcome the judicial challenges that threatened to prevent him from becoming a civilian president. He remains obstinate only in his refusal to restore the pre-November 3 judiciary that he sacked. But that is understandable. The political parties themselves are divided about the issue.

Sharif's options
Sections of the Pakistani establishment keenly expect Sharif to unify the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) factions to thwart any residual chances of Bhutto's bid for power. They seek a repetition of the broad alliance on the pattern of the IJI (Islami Jamhuriat Itehad, or Islamic Democratic Alliance) of 1988, which was an alliance of the PML and Islamic parties with the help of the military and the ISI. The point is, even though Sharif may have a bitter feud with Musharraf, that doesn't diminish his acceptability to the Pakistani establishment, for whom he still remains a former ally.

Arguably, Sharif's natural inclination ought to be to settle for a deal with the military-intelligence establishment. But these are early days. Sharif is probing. He is grandstanding. He is reconnecting with his support base in Punjab. He is weighing what is there in the elections for him. Will his candidacy be accepted since he stands condemned by court judgement? The constitution debars him from becoming prime minister for a third time.

Meanwhile, some elements have been clarified. First, Sharif may not resort to agitational politics. He could easily be a rabble rouser, but the Saudis wouldn't want him to do anything by way of stirring up things that threatened to destabilize the existing political order in Islamabad. Saudi interest lies not in undermining nuclear-armed Pakistan but to be able to navigate it if the gyre of Shi'ite Iran's influence continues to widen in the region.

Again, Sharif continues to view Bhutto with distrust. Sharif is keen on the PML functioning within a united front under the banner of the All Parties Democratic Movement (APDM), but he can't ensure the alliance's cohesion, especially the Islamic parties. The ISI used to handle such matters for him previously. He also rejects an outright merger of his party with the ruling party PML (Q) but isn't averse to defectors from the "King's party" joining his ranks. The APDM on Thursday announced a boycott in principle of January's parliamentary polls (Bhutto did not), but that is not necessarily the end of the matter.

Within this code of conduct, it is not surprising Musharraf has concluded he could learn to live with Sharif's hot words as long as the elections go ahead as scheduled. Musharraf reiterated on Thursday soon after being sworn in as the civilian president that he is determined to hold the elections on January 8, "come hell or high water". The big question is whether the main political parties will participate. The legitimacy of the polls would ease pressure on Musharraf from the international community.

The powerful head of the PML-Q, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, and his cousin and Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi (who was until recently perceived to be the next prime minister) have hinted that a post-election understanding with Sharif cannot be ruled out. Sheikh Rashid, who is close to Musharraf, said: "You cannot rule out anything in Pakistan. If Musharraf can meet Benazir and if Nawaz Sharif can return to Pakistan before the elections, then everything is possible."

Musharraf himself hinted at the horse-trading that lies ahead when he hoped politicians wouldn't repeat the 1990s' political culture. He held out a sort of olive branch when he expressed the hope on Thursday in front of a distinguished audience in Islamabad that he "personally" thought that Sharif's return to Pakistan would "prove good" for the country.

Musharraf vs Kiani
Musharraf also announced on Thursday that Phase 3 of his program of democratic transition has commenced. Clearly, the speculation hogging the current discourses over Pakistan - as regards the inevitability of a clash of personalities involving Musharraf and the newly appointed chief of army staff, General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani - completely overlooks the obvious reality that these two protagonists are virtually joined at the hip in the post-election scenario in Pakistan.

Their core interests are inextricably intertwined. The Pakistani army can never hope to get a president anywhere as deeply committed as Musharraf for safeguarding its corporate interests. As for Musharraf, who lacks an independent political base, he would be intelligent enough to know the limits to his presidential authority.

At any rate, the last thing a quintessential soldier like Musharraf would do would be to bypass the military's interests in favor of "civilian supremacy". Historically, the nearest that the military could manage to reach by way of an entente cordiale with the presidency within the framework of Pakistan's ruling troika - comprising president, prime minister and army chief - was when the bureaucrat par excellence, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, took over in the dramatic circumstances following Zia ul-Haq's death in a plane crash in August 1988. But Khan still needed to ingratiate himself with then-army chief General Aslam Beg.

Musharraf and Kiani go back a long way. That is to say, the extent to which the military has gone to ensure that Bhutto doesn't become part of the troika in Islamabad, as was the case 19 years ago, must be put in its proper perspective. Musharraf and Kiani pursued a common agenda after determining what isbest for Pakistan's political stability. The military has successfully thwarted Washington from imposing Bhutto on the regime. An IJI-type ruling alliance would serve the military perfectly well at this juncture.

Regional implications
The regional and international implications are going to be far-reaching. If the US strategy, under the garb of creating a "truly democratic" regime in Pakistan, was to create a troika in Islamabad that would be amenable to its manipulation, things haven't quite worked as expected. Pakistan's army will remain the dominant force in the country's national life. But the US would have to continue to renegotiate Pakistan's cooperation for the "war on terror".

The new army chief shares Musharraf's basic outlook and, more important, shares Musharraf's limitations in partnering with the US against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Washington cannot afford to damage its equations with the Pakistani military by threatening to cut off aid. Don't even threaten violation of Pakistan's territorial integrity by US Special Forces. The US would do well not to push the military unwillingly into clashes with their own tribesmen, either.

The US will be compelled to factor in with greater sensitivity the Pakistani military's adversarial stance with regard to India, which also includes its widespread resentment about the inconstancy of American friendship and, more recently, the perceived US tilt toward India as its preferred strategic partner in the region. At some point, Washington might well be compelled to review its refusal to enter into nuclear cooperation with Pakistan on the pattern of its proposed deal with India.

India on guard
Any diminution of Washington's ability to influence Pakistan's Kashmir policy or its covert trans-border activities aimed at bleeding India would cause uneasiness in Delhi. In recent years, Delhi drew comfort imagining Washington effectively kept the Musharraf regime in check from raising tensions with India. There is even a body of opinion among security analysts in Delhi that continued, open-ended American military presence in Afghanistan is a good thing as it makes Musharraf more forthcoming in dealing with India. To them, the "war on terror" in Afghanistan is of importance as the Americans shackle the Pakistani military.

Delhi would also take note that for the first time, a former chief of the ISI, the agency that calibrates tensions with India, has risen to the top of the military. Kiani has had extensive experience in dealing with India in various capacities - as director general of military operations during the standoff with its neighbor following the December 2001 terrorist attack on the Parliament in New Delhi, as general officer commanding the Pakistani army's 12 divisions based in Muzaffarabad, which is the staging ground for the insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir, and as ISI chief.

The Taliban will gain
To be sure, the hardening of the power structure in Islamabad is taking place at a time when some sort of a power-sharing arrangement with the Taliban is on the cards in Afghanistan.

One could disregard the international policy think-tank Senlis Council's latest assessment that the Taliban have a permanent presence in 54% of Afghanistan, controlling "vast swaths of unchallenged territory, including rural ones, some district centers, and important road arteries"; or its assertion that the insurgency is exercising "a significant amount of psychological control, gaining more and more political legitimacy in the minds of the Afghan people". Even then, it is difficult to quarrel with the assertion by the reputed London-based group that "the question now appears to be not if the Taliban will return to Kabul, but when ... and in what form. The oft-stated aim of reaching the city in 2008 appears more viable than ever."

Therefore, if a democratically elected IJI-type representative government assumes power in Islamabad at the present juncture, that would work greatly in the Taliban's favor. Such a government would include political leaders who have had extensive dealings with the Taliban in the 1990s. Equally, such a government might not see eye-to-eye with the US's way of conducting the "war on terror" in Afghanistan or with the overall American approach that "there is almost no problem across the region that can't be resolved by bombing" (to quote a British commentator).

The shift in Islamabad may prove particularly crucial at a time when there are signs that President Hamid Karzai himself might be beginning to wonder in his own way if there could be an Afghan solution to the war. Karzai must surely begin to weigh the high probability that the next government in Islamabad would be rooted in Islamic nationalism. The US (or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) would lack the capacity to block any political accommodation that such a representative civilian government in Islamabad might seek with the Taliban, be it at the local or at the national level. In sum, the political developments in Islamabad in the coming weeks could well accelerate the return of the Taliban to Kabul. Karzai would be sensing that already.

Saudi motivation
Conceivably, Saudi Arabia's insistence on Sharif's return was at least partly motivated by its skepticism over the efficacy of the democracy project choreographed by the George W Bush administration for Pakistan. The Saudis, with their prodigious memory, would recollect what another democracy project by the Jimmy Carter administration led to in neighboring Iran - the Islamic revolution of 1979.

Besides, Saudi Arabia feels disillusioned by the bloody mess that the Bush administration's "war on terror" has created in the region. The criticality of the Afghan situation is worrisome as Saudi national-security concerns are directly affected. Riyadh estimates that the time may have come to seek an Islamic solution to the crisis. (Turkey's Islamist President Abdullah Gul will be arriving in Islamabad on Tuesday within a few weeks of Saudi King Abdullah's visit to Ankara.)

Saudi influence will be predominant on any IJI-type government in Islamabad. The Saudi calculation would be to work toward a political accommodation of the Taliban as a step in the direction of isolating the radical elements, which have gained ascendancy in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border regions.

US must rethink strategy
In sum, the Bush administration's ill-conceived scheme to bring about a transitional partnership between the Pakistani military and the "political center" has floundered. The US pursued its partnership project even when it became apparent that the military wouldn't cohabit with Bhutto. The result was a near impasse.

The Saudis stepped in at that point and a new transition strategy attuned to Pakistani realities has begun to unfold. Much as the Pakistani military understands the strategic imperative of keeping a working relationship with the US and realizes that anything else would be catastrophic for Pakistan's interests, it is also incumbent on Washington to reconcile that there are limits beyond which it cannot push the general headquarters in Rawalpindi.

Equally, Washington must accept that Islamic nationalism is a permanent feature of Pakistani national life. The West cannot impose its clones on Pakistan's democratic life. There is a high probability that Nawaz Sharif may turn out to be the future of Pakistan.

Indeed, there were past occasions when Washington was much less than fair in its attitude toward Sharif. Washington's weakness for Bhutto is legion. Alright, Sharif's entire university education might have been restricted to Lahore and he might not be networking with highflying think-tankers in Washington; he might not have shared his toothbrush with Peter Galbraith or wasn't on first-name terms with Zalmay Khalilzad, the high-profile US ambassador.

Sharif might not have thought it important enough to hire talented public relations firms to burnish his "image" in the US media. But, even then, the Bush administration should not remain sulking that Sharif wasn't its choice for leading Pakistan's democratic transition. Life must move on. Besides, it is the Pakistani people's choice that should matter.

Robert Oakley, who served in the Ronald Reagan administration as the National Security Council's Pakistan hand during the Afghan jihad in the 1980s and subsequently served as ambassador in Islamabad, wrote that Washington must prepare to come to terms with Sharif's leadership of Pakistan. "He [Sharif] commands a strong following and, most important, has traditionally been strongly supported by the Pakistani military and intelligence services," Oakley concluded.

Oakley suggested that Washington should facilitate discussions between the military and civilian leaders on appointing a senior civilian to serve as interim president, replacing Musharraf. "An interim president could then prepare for truly free and fair elections and a return to the rule of law." In essence, he advocates an alibi for Washington to reconcile with Sharif. But unfortunately, that would also be an alibi for continued American intervention in Pakistan's internal affairs.

M K Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for over 29 years, with postings including India's ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001).
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