Agent ruler Zardari attempting to fend off maneuvers by military, intelligence..
Pakistan’s civilian and military leaders are tangling in a series of political confrontations that could lead to a constitutional crisis or worse after the New Year, officials in both Islamabad and Washington tell NBC News.
With the tenor and volume of debate rising over America’s commitment to Afghanistan, that struggle is complicating U.S. strategy to stabilize the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
It's not only that dozens are dying every week in suicide bombings or that there are concerns that the Pakistani military will not be able to hold the territory it has won in hard-fought battles in South Waziristan. The more profound issue, say Pakistani and U.S. officials, is the fate of American puppet President Asif Ali Zardari, who is engaged in a seemingly never-ending battles with the country’s powerful military and intelligence establishments.
In recent weeks, say officials, opponents of Zardari have begun raising the stakes, setting up what some are calling a “soft coup … a legislative coup” – an attempt to force Zardari out.
End to amnesty
On Nov. 2, legislators opposed to Zardari, along with the military and intelligence community, thwarted an attempt by his Pakistani People’s Party to hammer through an extension of the National Reconciliation Ordinance.
The innocuously named law, pushed through at the behest of the U.S. in 2007, froze criminal prosecutions against Zardari, his late wife, Benazir Bhutto, and their allies. Without the NRO, Bhutto would not have returned to run for president. Not long after she did return, she was assassinated, and her husband succeeded her as head of the PPP, winning the presidential election last year. Parliament has until Nov. 28 to renew the NRO. But on Nov. 2, other parties in the PPP-led coalition, along with the parliamentary opposition and the military, thwarted Zardari. Analysts in Pakistan and the U.S. say there is no chance the NRO will be renewed by the deadline, and in fact, Prime Minister Yusef Reza Gilani said this week it’s dead.
As a result, say Pakistani officials, several cases involving Zardari cronies — some of them high-ranking officials — are likely to move forward. One Pakistani official familiar with all the parties said that while he can’t see the president stepping down, he expects a constitutional crisis early in the year, as the prosecutors close in first on his aides, then him. “Nothing before (next year), but almost certainly by then,” said the official.
One potential issue is whether Zardari has presidential immunity for any crimes committed before he was elected. He may have it for his time in office, but it’s uncertain that he does for any crimes alleged before he assumed office.
Deep rift in power structure
U.S. officials are said to be alarmed by the development. It cannot have come as a surprise, however.
The top of the Pakistani power structure is riven by deep, personal and professional animosity between military and civilian leaders. As one senior Pakistani official reports, Zardari and Army Chief of Staff Ashfaq Parvez Kayani “hate each other” — and each is trying to ensure that other can’t threaten him, often against U.S. interests.
The stalemate over the NRO extension is just the latest move by the military. What Zardari will do to counter that is uncertain, but he is certainly trying to get help from his allies in the U.S. government.
Two recent stories being passed around Islamabad are indicative of the sentiment. Both are associated with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit with Kayani on Oct. 29, one of several she was required to have, given Pakistan’s deeply divided government.
In one story, Kayani presented Clinton with “evidence” of a conspiracy involving the CIA, Israel’s Mossad and India’s intelligence agency, RAW. According to the story, the three agencies had been responsible for some of the terrorist attacks that have killed hundreds in Pakistani cities.
In the other, Kayani supposedly told Clinton that Pakistan was aware the U.S. has been talking to the Taliban through the good offices of Saudi King Abdullah and didn’t appreciate it. Indeed, Kayani did dispatch his ISI chief, Lt. Gen. Shuja Pasha, to Riyadh to meet the king.
The U.S. denies both stories.
There is also something else at work here. At their core, Pakistanis are angry, not just about the upheaval and violence that threatens civil society, or the inability of their government and their army to deal with it. They are angry because their rival, India, is now seen by the U.S. public as a land of opportunity, where even a “slumdog” can make his fortune, while their homeland is viewed as a basket case of political intrigue and intractable Islamic militancy.
Bottom line: The next few months are likely to produce even more grist for that belief, as winter closes in on the mountainous border regions of South Waziristan, bogging down the Pakistani military, amid increasing terrorist attacks and collapsing leadership.
“Until and unless Pakistan views security and stability as internal and not related to India or the United States, chaos and confusion will threaten it,” said a western security official. “Right now, the prognosis is not very good.”
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