Ding dong the witch is dead—Musharraf stepped down when the parliamentary majority initiated impeachment proceedings against him. Having followed Pakistani politics from a distance ever since I could read newspapers, I suspected that this would trigger more instability and chaos. While recent developments indicate that I might be correct, being right in this case is, unfortunately, no cause for celebration.
Almost immediately after Musharraf’s exit, the ruling coalition government came unglued. The opposition was held together by a focused, singular, objective of getting rid of Musharraf. It no longer has that unifying force and, as a result, it is now a bitter struggle for power.
Leading one faction is Nawaz Sharif whose elected government was ousted by Musharraf in a military coup in 1999. The other faction is led by Asif Ali Zardari, who inherited the leadership mantle after his wife, the late Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated.
These two leaders and their parties formed the majority in the parliament. But, when Zardari became his party’s nominee for the presidency, Sharif pulled his party out of the coalition.
More bizarre developments threaten Pakistan’s extremely shaky democracy. Britain’s Financial Times reported a few days ago that Zardari is not well—he apparently "was diagnosed with a range of serious illnesses including dementia, major depressive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder in a series of medical reports spanning more than two years." Would anybody want this person to be in-charge of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal?
As of these alone are not enough, it turns out that our ambassador to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, had taken it upon himself to advise Zardari. Apparently he was working with Bhutto even back in 2006. The personnel at the State Department, from Condoleezza Rice to the spokesperson, are furious with Khalilzad for bypassing diplomatic protocols, particularly during such sensitive situations. Naturally. Even under normal circumstances, locals do not appreciate any perception of foreign interference in their politics.
An ultimate complication in this tangled web: there have always been speculations that Khalilzad has plans to contend for Afghanistan's presidency—the current president, Hamid Karzai, has been so ineffective that a strong challenger might be able to unseat him at the elections in 2009. In case you are wondering how our ambassador can think of becoming the president of Afghanistan, well, Khalilzad is a naturalized American who was born in that country.
Meanwhile, Al Qaeda sympathizers and other militant fundamentalists have seized this political confusion as a wonderful opportunity to remind everybody of the havoc they can unleash. Suicide attacks and other forms of violence have increased, according to published reports. To complicate matters, neighboring Afghanistan and Kashmir have experienced a new round of violence and death.
The world has not gained anything from Musharraf’s exit. In fact, the biggest losses dwarf the few developments I have highlighted here. For one, Musharraf is now completely off the hook and does not even have pretend not to know the answer to the question that Jon Stewart posed so wonderfully when he was a guest on The Daily Show: “where’s Osama bin Laden?”
Second, with his exit, Musharraf does not have to clarify to anybody how much he was involved in nuclear proliferation. Musharraf placed the “father” of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb, A.Q. Khan, under house arrest soon as the world found out that he was actively involved in spreading nuclear know-how to countries, including Libya and North Korea. Recently, in the German publication Der Spiegel, Khan’s wife accused Musharraf of lying about her husband’s involvement in nuclear proliferation—that Khan was merely carrying out orders from the government. But, we will never find out what Musharraf knew, and when he knew it.
The irony of it all, or perhaps an insult to us Americans, is that Pakistan’s Daily Times reports that one of the two places that Musharraf may go into exile is New Mexico!
“It’s Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad world.”
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