Category Archives: Pakistan

December 24 – news and opinion roundup

Notes on the post-Bush Mideast
By Tony Karon, Rootless Cosmopolitan, December 24, 2007

A year from now, the Bush Administration will be emptying its desks into cardboard boxes and preparing to hand over to its successor. And, it’s a relatively safe bet that the menu of foreign policy crises and challenges it will leave in the in-trays of its successors will be largely unchanged from that facing the Bush Administration today. A combination of the traditional lame-duck effect of the final year of a presidency, and the decline in relative U.S. influence on the global stage — a product both of the calamitous strategic and tactical mistakes by the Bush Administration and of structural shifts in the global political economy that will limit the options available to his successor — suggest that even as he goes scurrying about the Middle East in search of a “legacy,” very little is going to change in the coming year. Indeed, the recurring theme in many of the crises Washington professes to be managing is the extent to which it is being ignored by both friend and foe. [complete article]

The rise of a fierce yet fragile superpower
By Fareed Zacharia, Newsweek, December 31, 2007

For Americans, 2008 is an important election year. But for much of the world, it is likely to be seen as the year that China moved to center stage, with the Olympics serving as the country’s long-awaited coming-out party. The much-heralded advent of China as a global power is no longer a forecast but a reality. On issue after issue, China has become the second most important country on the planet. Consider what’s happened already this past year. In 2007 China contributed more to global growth than the United States, the first time another country had done so since at least the 1930s. It also became the world’s largest consumer, eclipsing the United States in four of the five basic food, energy and industrial commodities. And a few months ago China surpassed the United States to become the world’s leading emitter of CO2. Whether it’s trade, global warming, Darfur or North Korea, China has become the new x factor, without which no durable solution is possible.

And yet the Chinese do not quite see themselves this way. Susan Shirk, the author of a recent book about the country, “The Fragile Superpower,” tells a revealing tale. Whenever she mentions her title in America, people say to her, “Fragile? China doesn’t seem fragile.” But in China people say, “Superpower? China isn’t a superpower.”

In fact it’s both, and China’s fragility is directly related to its extraordinary rise. Lawrence Summers has recently pointed out that during the Industrial Revolution the average European’s living standards rose about 50 percent over the course of his lifetime (then about 40 years). In Asia, principally China, he calculates, the average person’s living standards are set to rise by 10,000 percent in one lifetime! The scale and pace of growth in China has been staggering, utterly unprecedented in history—and it has produced equally staggering change. In two decades China has experienced the same degree of industrialization, urbanization and social transformation as Europe did in two centuries. [complete article]

Poll victory for Hindu firebrand is blow to government election plans
By Jeremy Page, The Times, December 24, 2007

To fans he is the “Lion of Gujarat”, saviour of Hindus and the brains behind one of India’s richest states. To critics he is a “merchant of death” with the blood of thousands of Muslims on his hands.

But love or hate Narendra Modi, the Hindu nationalist and Chief Minister of the western state of Gujarat has now staked his claim to leadership of his party – and perhaps his country.

His Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 117 out of 182 seats in a local assembly election yesterday that became a barometer for the looming national elections. Congress won just 59 seats in the state poll that was spread over two weeks and which revived claims that Mr Modi had encouraged the slaughter of at least 2,000 Muslims in rioting in Gujarat in 2002. [complete article]

Pakistan’s tyranny continues
By Aitzaz Ahsan, New York Times, December , 2007

The chief justice of Pakistan’s Supreme Court, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, and his family have been detained in their house, barricaded in with barbed wire and surrounded by police officers in riot gear since Nov. 3. Phone lines have been cut and jammers have been installed all around the house to disable cellphones. And the United States doesn’t seem to care about any of that.

The chief justice is not the only person who has been detained. All of his colleagues who, having sworn to protect, uphold and defend the Constitution, refused to take a new oath prescribed by President Pervez Musharraf as chief of the army remain confined to their homes with their family members. The chief justice’s lawyers are also in detention, initially in such medieval conditions that two of them were hospitalized, one with renal failure.

As the chief justice’s lead counsel, I, too, was held without charge — first in solitary confinement for three weeks and subsequently under house arrest. Last Thursday morning, I was released to celebrate the Id holidays. But that evening, driving to Islamabad to say prayers at Faisal Mosque, my family and I were surrounded at a rest stop by policemen with guns cocked and I was dragged off and thrown into the back of a police van. After a long and harrowing drive along back roads, I was returned home and to house arrest. [complete article]

Uranium traces found on N. Korean tubes
By Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, December 21, 2007

U.S. scientists have discovered traces of enriched uranium on smelted aluminum tubing provided by North Korea, apparently contradicting Pyongyang’s denial that it had a clandestine nuclear program, according to U.S. and diplomatic sources.

The United States has long pointed to North Korea’s acquisition of thousands of aluminum tubes as evidence of such a program, saying the tubes could be used as the outer casing for centrifuges needed to spin hot uranium gas into the fuel for nuclear weapons. North Korea has denied that contention and, as part of a declaration on its nuclear programs due by the end of the year, recently provided the United States with a small sample to demonstrate that the tubes were used for conventional purposes.

The discovery of the uranium traces has been closely held by senior U.S. officials concerned that disclosure would expose intelligence methods and complicate the diplomatic process. North Korea has steadfastly refused to open up about its past practices, simply asserting that it is not engaged in inappropriate activities. However, the uranium finding will force U.S. negotiators to demand a detailed explanation from Pyongyang. [complete article]

CIA chief to drag White House into torture cover-up storm
By Sarah Baxter, The Sunday Times, December 23, 2007

The CIA chief who ordered the destruction of secret videotapes recording the harsh interrogation of two top Al-Qaeda suspects has indicated he may seek immunity from prosecution in exchange for testifying before the House intelligence committee.

Jose Rodriguez, former head of the CIA’s clandestine service, is determined not to become the fall guy in the controversy over the CIA’s use of torture, according to intelligence sources.

It has emerged that at least four White House staff were approached for advice about the tapes, including David Addington, a senior aide to Dick Cheney, the vice-president, but none has admitted to recommending their destruction.

Vincent Cannistraro, former head of counterterrorism at the CIA, said it was impossible for Rodriguez to have acted on his own: “If everybody was against the decision, why in the world would Jose Rodriguez – one of the most cautious men I have ever met – have gone ahead and destroyed them?” [complete article]

Wagons circled at CIA over tapes’ demise
By Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times, December 24, 2007

Shortly after he arrived as CIA director in 2004, Porter J. Goss met with the agency’s top spies and general counsel to discuss a range of issues, including what to do with videotapes showing harsh interrogations of Al Qaeda detainees, according to current and former officials familiar with the matter.

“Getting rid of tapes in Washington,” Goss said, according to an official involved in the discussions, “is an extremely bad idea.”

But at the agency’s operational levels — especially within the branch that ran the network of secret prisons — the idea of holding on to the tapes and hoping their existence would never be leaked to the public seemed even worse.

Citing what CIA veterans regard as a long record of being stranded by politicians in times of scandal, current and former U.S. intelligence officials said the decision to destroy the tapes was driven by a determination among senior spies to guard against a repeat of that outcome. [complete article]

CIA needs more taping, experts say
By Josh Meyer, Los Angeles Times, December 23, 2007

The controversy over destroyed CIA videotapes has highlighted weaknesses in American intelligence agencies’ methods of interrogation of Al Qaeda suspects, according to current and former officials and experts, who say those methods are compromising the ability to extract critically important information about the threat from Islamic extremism.

Congress, the Justice Department and the CIA inspector general are investigating why the CIA destroyed tapes of its 2002 interrogations of two alleged senior Al Qaeda leaders, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al Rahim al Nashiri. Investigators think Zubaydah was recorded being waterboarded — a controversial tactic that mimics the experience of drowning. The tapes were destroyed in 2005.

By their own accounting, the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies have not videotaped the interrogations of potentially hundreds of other terrorism suspects. That indicates an outmoded level of secrecy and unprofessionalism, the interrogation experts contend.

They say that the U.S. is behind the curve of current best practices, and that videotaping is an essential tool in improving the methods — and results — of terrorism interrogations. And the accountability provided by recording is needed to address international concerns about the United States’ use of harsh, potentially illegal techniques, these experts add. [complete article]

5 myths about torture and truth
By Darius Rejali, Washington Post, December 16, 2007

So the CIA did indeed torture Abu Zubaida, the first al-Qaeda terrorist suspect to have been waterboarded. So says John Kiriakou, the first former CIA employee directly involved in the questioning of “high-value” al-Qaeda detainees to speak out publicly. He minced no words last week in calling the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation techniques” what they are.

But did they work? Torture’s defenders, including the wannabe tough guys who write Fox’s “24,” insist that the rough stuff gets results. “It was like flipping a switch,” said Kiriakou about Abu Zubaida’s response to being waterboarded. But the al-Qaeda operative’s confessions — descriptions of fantastic plots from a man who intelligence analysts were convinced was mentally ill — probably didn’t give the CIA any actionable intelligence. Of course, we may never know the whole truth, since the CIA destroyed the videotapes of Abu Zubaida’s interrogation. But here are some other myths that are bound to come up as the debate over torture rages on. [complete article]

Iran cited in Iraq’s decline in violence
By Karen DeYoung, Washington Post, December 23, 2007

The Iranian government has decided “at the most senior levels” to rein in the violent Shiite militias it supports in Iraq, a move reflected in a sharp decrease in sophisticated roadside bomb attacks over the past several months, according to the State Department’s top official on Iraq.

Tehran’s decision does not necessarily mean the flow of those weapons from Iran has stopped, but the decline in their use and in overall attacks “has to be attributed to an Iranian policy decision,” David M. Satterfield, Iraq coordinator and senior adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said in an interview.

U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan C. Crocker said that the decision, “should [Tehran] choose to corroborate it in a direct fashion,” would be “a good beginning” for a fourth round of talks between Crocker and his Iranian counterpart in Baghdad. Although the mid-December date scheduled for the talks was postponed, Crocker said he expects that the parties will convene “in the next couple of weeks.” [complete article]

In a force for Iraqi calm, seeds of conflict
By Alissa J. Rubin and Damien Cave, New York Times, December 23, 2007

The thin teenage boy rushed up to the patrol of American soldiers walking through Dora, a shrapnel-scarred neighborhood of the capital, and lifted his shirt to show them a mass of red welts across his back.

He said he was a member of a local Sunni “Awakening” group, paid by the American military to patrol the district, but he said it was another Awakening group that beat him. “They took me while I was working,” he said, “and broke my badge and said, ‘You are from Al Qaeda.’”

The soldiers were unsure of what to do. The Awakening groups in just their area of southern Baghdad could not seem to get along: they fought over turf and, it turned out in this case, one group had warned the other that its members should not pay rent to Shiite “dogs.”

The Awakening movement, a predominantly Sunni Arab force recruited to fight Sunni Islamic extremists like Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, has become a great success story after its spread from Sunni tribes in Anbar Province to become an ad-hoc armed force of 65,000 to 80,000 across the country in less than a year. A linchpin of the American strategy to pacify Iraq, the movement has been widely credited with turning around the violence-scarred areas where the Sunni insurgency has been based.

But the beating that day was a stark example of how rivalries and sectarianism are still undermining the Americans’ plans. And in particular, the Awakening’s rapid expansion — the Americans say the force could reach 100,000 — is creating new concerns. [complete article]

U.S. officials see waste in Pakistan aid
By David Rohde, Carlotta Gall, Eric Schmitt and David E. Sanger, New York Times, December 24, 2007

After the United States has spent more than $5 billion in a largely failed effort to bolster the Pakistani military effort against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, some American officials now acknowledge that there were too few controls over the money. The strategy to improve the Pakistani military, they said, needs to be completely revamped.

In interviews in Islamabad and Washington, Bush administration and military officials said they believed that much of the American money was not making its way to frontline Pakistani units. Money has been diverted to help finance weapons systems designed to counter India, not Al Qaeda or the Taliban, the officials said, adding that the United States has paid tens of millions of dollars in inflated Pakistani reimbursement claims for fuel, ammunition and other costs.

“I personally believe there is exaggeration and inflation,” said a senior American military official who has reviewed the program, referring to Pakistani requests for reimbursement. “Then, I point back to the United States and say we didn’t have to give them money this way.”

Pakistani officials say they are incensed at what they see as American ingratitude for Pakistani counterterrorism efforts that have left about 1,000 Pakistani soldiers and police officers dead. They deny that any overcharging has occurred. [complete article]

Israel rejects truce with Hamas
By Mark Lavie, AP, December 24, 2007

Israel’s prime minister pledged Sunday to continue attacking Gaza militants, ruling out truce negotiations with Hamas amid widespread skepticism about the Islamic group’s ability to halt rocket attacks.

An Israeli cabinet minister, meanwhile, angered moderate Palestinians with another plan for new Jewish housing in a disputed part of Jerusalem, complicating renewed peace talks.

There have been almost daily reports of truce feelers from the embattled Islamic Hamas regime in Gaza, and Israeli defense officials have said they are examining the proposals.

But at the weekly cabinet meeting Sunday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert rejected negotiations with Hamas because it has rebuffed international demands that it recognize Israel, renounce violence and endorse past peace accords. [complete article]

Rice: US has ‘no permanent enemies’
By Matthew Lee, AP, December 21, 2007

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Friday held out the prospect of improved relations with the remaining two members of President Bush’s “axis of evil,” Iran and North Korea, as long as they meet international demands over their nuclear programs.

Rice said the Bush administration in its remaining year would welcome fundamental changes in its dealings with the two countries, as well as with Syria, and as an example pointed to warming ties with Libya, which renounced weapons of mass destruction in 2003. [complete article]

NEWS & OPINION: Pakistan bombing; Qaeda shift; nuclear vulnerabilities

Pakistan bombing toll rises above 50
By Laura King and Julian E. Barnes, Los Angeles Times, December 22, 2007

As U.S. officials warned of a renewed focus by Islamic miliants on attacks in Pakistan, the death toll climbed above 50 on Friday in a suicide bombing that could herald a perilous election campaign and a harsh new confrontation between extremists and government forces.

Even at the close of a year that has seen dozens of suicide attacks across the country, Pakistanis were horrified by the circumstances of this one in Charsadda, in North-West Frontier Province. The attacker blew himself up in a mosque, killing and maiming worshipers as they gathered to mark one of the holiest days of the Muslim calendar. [complete article]

Gates warns of Al Qaeda shift
By Julian E. Barnes, Los Angeles Times, December 21, 2007

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said today that Al Qaeda insurgents who were launching attacks in Afghanistan have now shifted their emphasis to Pakistan, increasing the threat in that nation.

Gates said the number of Al Qaeda insurgents and other fighters coming into Afghanistan from Pakistan was down about 40% in Regional Command East, the volatile section of the country controlled by U.S. forces.

Al Qaeda, Gates said, maintains its base in the loosely governed tribal areas on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan. But the Al Qaeda fighters, he said, were not focused on attacking Afghanistan from Pakistan. [complete article]

A nuclear site is breached
By Micah Zenko, Washington Post, December 20, 2007

An underreported attack on a South African nuclear facility last month demonstrates the high risk of theft of nuclear materials by terrorists or criminals. Such a crime could have grave national security implications for the United States or any of the dozens of countries where nuclear materials are held in various states of security.

Shortly after midnight on Nov. 8, four armed men broke into the Pelindaba nuclear facility 18 miles west of Pretoria, a site where hundreds of kilograms of weapons-grade uranium are stored. According to the South African Nuclear Energy Corp., the state-owned entity that runs the Pelindaba facility, these four “technically sophisticated criminals” deactivated several layers of security, including a 10,000-volt electrical fence, suggesting insider knowledge of the system. Though their images were captured on closed-circuit television, they were not detected by security officers because nobody was monitoring the cameras at the time.

So, undetected, the four men spent 45 minutes inside one of South Africa’s most heavily guarded “national key points” — defined by the government as “any place or area that is so important that its loss, damage, disruption or immobilization may prejudice the Republic.” [complete article]

NEWS: Syria turned away A.Q. Khan

Syria spurned atom smuggler approach in 2001: Assad
Reuters, December 19, 2007

Syria rebuffed a possible approach in 2001 from Pakistani-led traffickers in nuclear arms technology, President Bashar al-Assad said.

In an interview with Austrian daily Die Presse, Assad said an unnamed person delivered to Syria a letter purportedly from A.Q. Khan, the now-disgraced father of Pakistan’s atom bomb who supplied Iran, Libya and North Korea with nuclear parts and know-how.

“At the beginning of 2001 someone brought us a letter from a certain Khan. We did not know if the letter was genuine or a forgery by Israel to lure us into a trap,” Assad was quoted by Die Presse on Wednesday as saying. [complete article]

NEWS & OPINION: The administration of torture

Picture of secret detentions emerges in Pakistan
By Carlotta Gall, New York Times, December 19, 2007

The director of the human rights commission, I. A. Rehman, said the government had set up a nearly invisible detention system. “There are safe houses in Islamabad where people are kept,” he said, citing accounts from the police and freed detainees. “Police have admitted this. Flats are taken on rent; property is seized; people are tortured there.”

In some cases, detainees recounted that they had been interrogated in the presence of English-speaking foreigners, who human rights officials and lawyers suspect are Americans.

A United States Embassy spokeswoman said she could not comment on the allegations and referred all questions to Washington. A spokesman for the Central Intelligence Agency, Mark Mansfield, declined to comment on Mr. Rehman’s accusations, or on any specific detainees.

One detainee, a Jordanian named Marwan Ibrahim, who was arrested in a raid in the city of Lahore, where he had been living for 10 years, said he was sent to a detention center in Afghanistan run by Americans, then to Jordan and Israel, and was finally released in Gaza, according to an account Mr. Ibrahim gave to Human Rights Watch, another independent group.

Another detainee, Majid Khan, 27, a Pakistani computer engineer who disappeared from Karachi four years ago, surfaced April 15 this year before a military tribunal in Guantánamo Bay. His American lawyers say he was subjected to torture in C.I.A. detention in a secret location. Mr. Mansfield, the C.I.A. spokesman, declined to comment, except to say that the “C.I.A.’s terrorist interrogation effort has always been small, carefully run, lawful, and highly productive.” [complete article]

FBI, CIA debate significance of terror suspect
By Dan Eggen and Walter Pincus, Washington Post, December 18, 2007

According to Kiriakou’s account, which he said is based on detailed descriptions by fellow team members, Abu Zubaida broke after just 35 seconds of waterboarding, which involved stretching cellophane over his mouth and nose and pouring water on his face to create the sensation of drowning.

But other former and current officials disagreed that Abu Zubaida’s cooperation came quickly under harsh interrogation or that it was the result of a single waterboarding session. Instead, these officials said, harsh tactics used on him at a secret detention facility in Thailand went on for weeks or, depending on the account, even months.

The videotaping of Abu Zubaida in 2002 went on day and night throughout his interrogation, including waterboarding, and while he was sleeping in his cell, intelligence officials said. “Several hundred hours” of videotapes were destroyed in November 2005, a senior intelligence officer said. The CIA has said it ceased waterboarding in 2003. [complete article]

Former U.S. interrogator recounts torture cases in Afghanistan and Iraq
El Mundo (via Informed Comment), December 10, 2007

But Bagram has an underworld in which the CIA tortures the leaders of Al-Qa’idah. “One day I went to an interrogation session and as soon as I arrived I knew that it was not a normal case. There were civilians, among them a doctor and a psychiatrist. The prisoner was called Omar al-Faruq, an Al-Qa’idah leader in Asia who had been brought to the prison by one of those agencies”, recalls Corsetti. “I don’t want to go into details because it could be very negative for my country, but he was brutally beaten – daily. And tortured by other methods. He was a bad man, but he didn’t deserve that”. Al-Faruq escaped from Bagram in action which, according to some, was tolerated by the USA and was killed in April 2006 by the British in the Iraqi city of Basra.

Corsetti says that he never took part in the torture. “My sole job was to sit there and make sure the prisoner didn’t die. But there were several times when I thought they were about to die, when they were interrogated by those people who have no name and who work for no-one in particular. It’s incredible what a human being can take”. A resistance similar to that of the memory of those torture sessions. Because Corsetti, a veteran of two wars, says: “I have seen people die in combat. I shot at people. That is not as bad as seeing someone tortured. Al-Faruq looked at me while they tortured him and I have that look in my head. And the cries, the smells, the sounds, they are with me all the time. It is something I can’t take in. The cries of the prisoners calling for their relatives, their mother. I remember one who called for God, for Allah, all the time. I have those cries here, inside my head”.

“In Abu-Ghurayb and Bagram they were tortured to make them suffer, not to get information out of them”. And the fact is that at times the torture had no other goal that “to punish them for being terrorists. They tortured them and didn’t ask them anything”. That is the case of the practice known as “the submarine”: to simulate the drowning of the prisoner. “They have them hooded and they pour water on them. That makes it very difficult to breath. I think you can’t die with the submarine. I certainly never saw anyone die. However, they do cough like crazy because they are totally submerged in water and that gets on their lungs. Perhaps what it can give you is serious pneumonia”. The civilians who took part in the interrogations used the submarine whenever they wanted. They gave it to them for five or 10 minutes and didn’t ask anything”. [complete article]

The president’s coming-out party
By Scott Horton, Harper’s, December 15, 2007

The Justice Department has announced an “initial probe” into the destruction of the CIA torture tapes. There is no credible basis upon which this can be viewed as anything other than a conscious crime. The tapes were destroyed, even according to sources within the CIA, because of imminent fear that they would constitute evidence in a criminal prosecution of persons involved in the acts of torture. And even beyond this more general concern, they were destroyed so they would not be turned over to a federal judge who was demanding them. They were destroyed to protect a series of false official statements about the way individual prisoners, whose statements would be used in evidence, were in fact being treated.

Remember, in these trials, a defendant can seek to exclude evidence if it was secured through torture. But the defendant has an obligation to prove this contention. The tapes would have provided such proof. Destroying them would therefore help make the evidence admissible.

Note also, no one has ever even raised the possibility that the destruction was inadvertent or accidental.

All that being said, we should ask: why do we need an “initial assessment”? Things couldn’t possibly be more clear. It is as if Julius Caesar was stabbed to death on the floor of the senate with a hundred onlookers, and now the Justice Department wants to weigh carefully whether there is evidence sufficient to justify a homicide investigation. [complete article]

Congress defies Bush on CIA tape probe
By John Cochran, ABC News, December 17, 2007

House Intelligence Committee chairman Silvestre Reyes told ABC News today that he will ignore the Bush administration’s request to drop its investigation of why CIA interrogation tapes were destroyed.

“This is an administration that frankly does not have a good track record of policing itself,” Reyes said. “We intend to go forward and issue subpoenas next week because we are a whole equal branch of government.”

After telling Congress to get out of the way, the Justice Department took the highly unusual step of telling the same thing to a federal judge.

In 2005, Judge Henry Kennedy ordered the government not to destroy any evidence of mistreatment or torture at the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Administration says that because the destroyed tapes were interrogations of two suspects in secret CIA prisons, not at Guantanamo, the judge should not interfere.

“This is becoming increasingly bizarre,” said Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University Law School. “The Justice Department insists it will essentially investigate itself and then tells the court that because it is investigating itself it won’t turn over evidence of its possible criminal misconduct. It’s so circular, it’s maddening.” [complete article]

NEWS: Sharif excluded from upcoming election

Pakistan rejects Sharif’s election bid appeal
Reuters, December 18, 2007

Pakistan’s Election Commission has upheld an election ban on former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, his lawyer said on Tuesday, barring a main rival of President Pervez Musharraf from the January polls.

Sharif, who Musharraf ousted in 1999, was allowed back from seven years of exile last month and has been campaigning for the January 8 general election despite the ban, imposed this month for past criminal convictions he says were politically motivated.

Sharif had challenged the ban, but the Election Commission rejected his appeal, saying it should be filed with an election tribunal made up of judges who swore allegiance to Musharraf after he imposed emergency rule on November 3. [complete article]

NEWS: Pakistan is quietly gagged

Pakistan’s news media no longer silent, but Musharraf has muted his critics
By Salman Masood and David Rhode, New York Times, December 11, 2007

Nearly all private television channels blacked out last month by President Pervez Musharraf’s emergency decree are back on the air. But the country’s once-thriving television news media remain largely muzzled by sweeping new restrictions that journalists and Western diplomats say stifle criticism of the government.

After the blackout cost leading channels tens of millions of dollars in lost advertising revenues, owners of all but one channel agreed to stop broadcasting the country’s highest-rated political talk shows and signed the government-ordered “code of conduct.”

And under a new ordinance, unilaterally enacted by Mr. Musharraf, television journalists face up to three years in jail for broadcasting “anything which defames or brings into ridicule the head of state” and other restrictions. The law will remain in place after Mr. Musharraf ends the state of emergency, which he has promised to do on Saturday.

“He’s getting away with it, really, because the Western support is there again,” said Talat Hussain, a popular talk show host whose program is no longer aired on two stations, “Aaj TV” or “Today TV.” “There isn’t enough pressure.” [complete article]

FEATURE: The proliferation game

How the world helped Pakistan build its bomb
By Catherine Collins and Douglas Frantz, TomDispatch, November 27, 2007

Globalization, what a concept. You can get a burger prepared your way practically anywhere in the world. The Nike Swoosh appears at elite athletic venues across the United States and on the skinny frames of t-shirted children playing in the streets of Calcutta. For those interested in buying an American automobile — a word of warning — it is not so unusual to find more “American content” in a Japanese car than one built by Detroit’s Big Three.

So don’t kid yourself about the Pakistani bomb. From burgers to bombs, globalization has had an impact. Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal — as many as 120 weapons — is no more Pakistani than your television set is Japanese. Or is that American? It was a concept developed in one country and, for the most part, built in another. Its creation was an example of globalization before the term was even coined.

So where to begin? Some argue that Pakistan started down the nuclear road under President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 1953 Atoms for Peace program, billed as a humanitarian gesture aimed at sharing the peaceful potential of atomic energy with the world. But Atoms for Peace was a misnomer — a plan to divert growing domestic and international concern over radioactive fallout from America’s nuclear tests. It would prove to be a White House public relations campaign to dwarf all others.

In fact, Atoms for Peace educated thousands of scientists from around the world in nuclear science and then dispatched them home, where many later pursued secret weapons programs. [complete article]

NEWS & ANALYSIS: Sharif returns to Pakistan

The autumn of the patriarch
By Simon Tisdall, The Guardian, November 26, 2007

The Bhutto-Musharraf relationship has deteriorated sharply since her return to Karachi last month. Yet despite everything, the pre-crisis mutual understanding brokered by the US is still salvageable. “Musharraf and Bhutto detest each other. They both think of themselves as saviours. Neither is good at sharing power,” a senior official said.

“But this marriage was not made in heaven. It was made in Washington. Benazir does whatever the Americans tell her.” Both leaders were pro-American and relatively secular and liberal in outlook, unlike the conservative Sharif with his strong ties to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan’s religious parties. And again unlike Bhutto, Sharif is adamant he will not work with Musharraf, who he has never forgiven for deposing him in the 1999 coup.

The most likely, immediate outcome was a coalition government led by Bhutto as prime minister, the official said, even though the chances of her working successfully with him as civilian president were poor in the longer term. “Benazir will make a bid for greater power as PM. The dynamic will be with her. So there’s going to be a big struggle.”

In prospect now is a return to Pakistan’s so-called “troika politics” of the 1990s, when president, prime minister and military fought for the political upper hand, usually in alliances of two-against-one. This ongoing institutionalised power struggle, guaranteeing instability and strife, was also cast as a battle between the “three A’s” – “America, the army, and Allah,” not necessarily in that order. [complete article]

Second time lucky
The Economist, November 26, 2007

“The lion is back.” Thus read a banner held aloft at Lahore airport on Sunday November 25th to welcome home Nawaz Sharif, a rotund former Pakistani prime minister, returned from exile in Saudi Arabia and Britain. Outside the airport, Mr Sharif clambered atop a Saudi-given bullet-proof vehicle and roared his response: “We have to save the country. We have to unite and get rid of dictatorship.”

Mr Sharif’s homecoming does seem to be a blow to General Pervez Musharraf, the dictator in question. The event attracted a crowd of several thousand supporters of his Pakistan Muslim League (N) party—far fewer than the 200,000 who welcomed home another former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, last month. Yet unlike Miss Bhutto, Mr Sharif returns as a sworn enemy of the general. And unlike Miss Bhutto’s supporters, who had been carefully corralled by her Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Mr Sharif’s fans turned up in defiance of martial law, including a ban on political gatherings, imposed by General Musharraf on November 3rd.

In another ominous comparison for General Musharraf, who toppled Mr Sharif in a previous coup in 1999, this was his rival’s second homecoming this year. In September Mr Sharif spent only four hours in Pakistan before he was deported to Saudi Arabia. That he has now been permitted to return home was at the insistence of the Saudis, allies of both men. [complete article]

NEWS: Sharif returns; suicide bombers target ISI

Bitterest rival of Musharraf returns home
By Carlotta Gall, New York Times, November 25, 2007

Nawaz Sharif, the Pakistani opposition leader and former prime minister, arrived home from exile to a tumultuous welcome at Lahore airport on Sunday evening. Hundreds of supporters whistled and cheered, hoisting him and his brother, Shahbaz Sharif on their shoulders through ranks of wary riot police.

“I have come to save this country,” he said standing on top of a radio cab desk in the arrivals hall. “I have come to fulfill the responsibility that is given me,” he told the crowd. But few could hear him, so loud was the chanting and cheering from supporters. “Long live! Long live! Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif!” they shouted.

The bitterest rival of Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Mr. Sharif, 57, was returning eight years after his government was overthrown by the general, and he was thrown in prison and later sent into exile. [complete article]

Blasts kill 35 near Pakistani capital
By Laura King, Los Angeles Times, November 24, 2007

A pair of suicide bombers, in apparently synchronized attacks, killed at least 35 people today in early-morning blasts near major military installations, Pakistani officials said.

The powerful blasts in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, next to Islamabad, the capital, targeted a bus carrying employees of Pakistan’s spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, and a checkpoint outside army headquarters.

The attacks came a day after the Supreme Court, now made up of handpicked loyalists of President Pervez Musharraf, declared that his 3-week-old emergency decree is legal. The latest violence could give him a reason to extend the decree, which amounts to de facto martial law. [complete article]

NEWS: Musharraf becoming more isolated

Failure to meet deadline brings fresh Commonwealth suspension
By Patrick Wintour, The Guardian, November 23, 2007

Pakistan was suspended from the Commonwealth yesterday, for the second time in eight years, after President Pervez Musharraf failed to meet a deadline for lifting emergency rule.

Gordon Brown welcomed the decision late last night in Kampala, Uganda saying the move was necessary and justified. He said Britain would work with the Commonwealth to see that the terms on which Pakistan could be readmitted were met.

The decision came after four hours of talks in Kampala at foreign minister level, with Britain and Canada leading the call for suspension with terms for readmittance. Some of Pakistan’s fellow Asian countries, such as Malaysia, opposed. Smaller countries, including African ones, backed outright suspension. [complete article]

Sharif to end exile and return to Pakistan on Sunday
By Simon Cameron-Moore, Reuters, November 23, 2007

Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister deposed by President Pervez Musharraf in a coup eight years ago, will return to Pakistan from Saudi Arabia on Sunday, his brother Shahbaz Sharif told a Pakistani news channel.

General Musharraf, under intense criticism at home and abroad for imposing emergency rule three weeks ago, agreed to Sharif’s return in discussions with Saudi King Abdullah in Riyadh this week, according to a leader of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML).

Sharif met King Abdullah in Riyadh for a “farewell meeting” on Friday. [complete article]

Court dismisses legal challenge against Musharraf
By Pamela Constable, Washington Post, November 22, 2007

President Pervez Musharraf’s script for a tightly controlled political transition moved ahead on cue Thursday, as his hand-picked Supreme Court dismissed the final legal challenge to Musharraf becoming president for another five-year term and officials said he would resign as army chief within days.

Aides and supporters of Musharraf said they hoped that once he is sworn in as a civilian president, probably by this weekend, the barrage of domestic and foreign criticism against his imposition of emergency rule will recede and the nation’s attention will turn to parliamentary and provincial legislative elections now scheduled for Jan. 8. [complete article]

NEWS & ANALYSIS: The problem in Pakistan

The problem in Pakistan
By Tony Karon, Rootless Cosmpolitan, November 21, 2007

The bottom line in Pakistan, where all opinion polls find Osama bin Laden an overwhelmingly more popular figure than President Bush, is that even the urban middle class opposes Pakistan’s frontline role in fighting the Taliban and al-Qaeda. It is a war that most Pakistanis see as benefiting a hostile U.S. agenda — even those Pakistanis who want no truck with Shariah law themselves. Indeed, savvy middle class Pakistanis know all too well that the whole jihadist infrastructure of madrassas and paramilitary organizations was first created in the northwest as part of a U.S.-Saudi program to create the infrastructure for an insurgency against the Soviets in Afghanistan. They’ll know, also, that the Pakistani military nurtured this element as a proxy force against India in Kashmir, just as it nurtured the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Ultimately, Pakistani politics has been horribly disfigured, not only by the venal ineptitude of the Benazir-Nawaz brand of politician, but also by the role Pakistan has been expected to play, for a half century, in U.S. geopolitical plans. [complete article]

Bush more emphatic in backing Musharraf
By Michael Abramowitz and Robin Wright, Washington Post, November 21, 2007

President Bush yesterday offered his strongest support of embattled Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, saying the general “hasn’t crossed the line” and “truly is somebody who believes in democracy.”

Bush spoke nearly three weeks after Musharraf declared emergency rule, sacked members of the Supreme Court and began a roundup of journalists, lawyers and human rights activists. Musharraf’s government yesterday released about 3,000 political prisoners, although 2,000 remain in custody, according to the Interior Ministry. [complete article]

An unlikely visitor gives Musharraf support
By Marc Perelman, The Forward, November 21, 2007

A few days before Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte traveled to Islamabad last week to impress upon General Pervez Musharraf the need to restore democratic rule in Pakistan, another American envoy quietly landed in the capital to chat with the Pakistani president and army chief.

With the blessing of Washington, Jack Rosen, chairman of the American Jewish Congress’s Council for World Jewry, traveled halfway across the globe for a face-to-face meeting with Musharraf, who he had hailed two years ago as a courageous leader and driving force in Jewish-Muslim dialogue. [complete article]

Imran Khan released from prison
BBC News, November 21, 2007

The Pakistan opposition politician, Imran Khan, has been released from prison in southern Punjab where he has been held under anti-terrorism laws.

The former cricketer was arrested by police last week after attending a protest at Punjab University in Lahore. [complete article]

Pentagon: Double funds for Pakistani force
AP, November 20, 2007

The Pentagon wants to nearly double the funding to train and equip a Pakistani paramilitary force, saying the locally-based fighters are more effective in the difficult region bordering Afghanistan.

The U.S. military has asked to spend $97 million in 2008, compared with $52.6 million this year, on training and equipping the Frontier Corps, which has personnel of the same ethnicity as the recalcitrant tribes along the border. [complete article]

NEWS & OPINION: Who is indispensable?

Watch your back
By V R Raghavan, Times of India, November 21, 2007

In 1999, after mounting a coup, General Pervez Musharraf spoke to the nation late at night. One of the reasons he attributed for the necessity of the coup was Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif disturbing the integrity of the Pakistan army by summarily replacing Musharraf with another general. That telling observation indicated the army’s perception of its role in Pakistan.

The integrity of the army was more important than the integrity of the country, and for that an elected government had to be removed. This perception has guided the Pakistan army through the country’s independent history. The past and future of Musharraf is better understood through the conviction of the Pakistan army’s image of itself.

The question being asked now is if, when and in what manner Musharraf would leave office. But the real question is: How would the Pakistan army respond to the possibility of Musharraf either continuing in or leaving the political scene? [complete article]

Setback for Musharraf from an old opponent
By Zahid Hussain, The Times, November 20, 2007

President Pervez Musharraf released more than 3,000 political detainees and named a day for elections today, but his attempt to quell the turmoil in Pakistan received a double setback.

His attempts – officially denied – to hold a private meeting today with the former Pakistan prime minister and political leader Nawaz Sharif, during a flying visit to Saudi Arabia, were rebuffed when Mr Sharif announced publicly that he had no intention of meeting General Musharraf.

Such a snub would represent a significant shift in the fortunes of the men, just two months after Mr Sharif was humiliatingly arrested and deported from Pakistan. [complete article]

EDITORIAL: Pakistan and the road to nuclear redemption

Pakistan and the road to nuclear redemption
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, November 19, 2007

If Frederick Kagan and Michael O’Hanlon were bloggers their ruminations on how to safeguard Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal would be contemptuously dismissed. But when an architect of the “Surge” and his Brookings Institute sidekick turn their attention to Pakistan, there’s good reason to be concerned. This back-of-an-envelope military planning from nominal experts is likely to garner some unwarranted attention. For one thing, since the White House regards the Surge as a stunning success, it’s natural that Kagan (and Surge cheerleader O’Hanlon) will receive a sympathetic ear. And though their counsel is singularly lacking in substance, a president with little interest in detail is unlikely to notice its absence.

Consider this statement from Kagan and O’Hanlon’s op-ed in which the dream of American military salvation ( “send in the Marines”, “here comes the cavalry”) is once again invoked:

One possible plan would be a Special Forces operation with the limited goal of preventing Pakistan’s nuclear materials and warheads from getting into the wrong hands. Given the degree to which Pakistani nationalists cherish these assets, it is unlikely the United States would get permission to destroy them. Somehow, American forces would have to team with Pakistanis to secure critical sites and possibly to move the material to a safer place.

But this is not a plan; it’s a brain fart. Any plan, however brief, however elemental, however broad its brush strokes, cannot include the adverb somehow. Somehow is how in search of a plan. But there’s good reason Kagan and O’Hanlon wistfully say “somehow”: the Pakistanis thus far have had no interest in revealing to their overbearing American friends the locations of these critical sites. The idea that the Pakistani military or any faction within it would in effect hand over the prize jewels of Pakistan’s national defense for American safekeeping — even if that was in “a remote redoubt within Pakistan” — is laughable. There can be little doubt that American officials have already been provided with multiple assurances that the components of this arsenal are already secure in a number of remote redoubts. Clear evidence (from the point of view of Pakistan’s military) that these sites are secure is that the Americans don’t know their whereabouts.

As the New York Times noted this weekend, a U.S. sponsored, post-9/11 plan to safeguard Pakistan’s nuclear weapons,

…has been hindered by a deep suspicion among Pakistan’s military that the secret goal of the United States was to gather intelligence about how to locate and, if necessary, disable Pakistan’s arsenal, which is the pride of the country.

So, it would seem that while Washington indulges in hair brain schemes for safeguarding Pakistani nukes, Pakistan’s military is less concerned about these weapons falling into the hands of militants than it fears America using Pakistan’s instability as a ruse for implementing a unilateral disarmament scheme.

Kagan and O’Hanlon, sensing that pro-American Pakistanis might be in short supply, have nevertheless devised a Plan B — sort of. This one requires, “a sizable combat force — not only from the United States, but ideally also other Western powers and moderate Muslim nations.” Our theoreticians are confident that the “longstanding effectiveness of Pakistan’s security forces,” will provide sufficient time for a U.S.-led coalition to be deployed. The American troops won’t come from Iraq or Afghanistan — South Korea? This is one of the many details still to be worked out.

Now we get to the really interesting passage, indicating that our Iraq war supporters have made great strides during post-invasion therapy. From here on, annotation rather than commentary is required:

…if we got a large number of troops into the country, what would they do? [Excellent question. This indicates that K&H understand that it’s vital to have a plan when sending thousands of American troops into unfamiliar territory.] The most likely directive would be to help Pakistan’s military and security forces hold the country’s center — primarily the region around the capital, Islamabad, and the populous areas like Punjab Province to its south. [Again, top marks to our theoreticians for assuming that it would be a good idea to steer clear of the hornets’ nest of Karachi.]

We would also have to be wary of internecine warfare within the Pakistani security forces. Pro-American moderates could well win a fight against extremist sympathizers on their own. [Let’s hear it for the Anbar Awakening.] But they might need help if splinter forces or radical Islamists took control of parts of the country containing crucial nuclear materials. The task of retaking any such regions and reclaiming custody of any nuclear weapons would be a priority for our troops. [We can go after the WMD and find them this time. We know they’re there…. We just have to find them.]

If a holding operation in the nation’s center was successful, we would probably then seek to establish order in the parts of Pakistan where extremists operate. Beyond propping up the state, this would benefit American efforts in Afghanistan by depriving terrorists of the sanctuaries they have long enjoyed in Pakistan’s tribal and frontier regions.

Brilliant! Kagan and O’Hanlon have really hit on the masterstroke — a U.S. invasion of Pakistan’s tribal territories. Now all those Democrats who said Iraq was a distraction from the war on terrorism will be forced on board. Who would have anticipated that the fall of Musharraf might provide such a golden opportunity?

And just in case Vice President Cheney doesn’t have time to study the Kagan-O’Hanlon plan in detail, here’s the summary: We’re going to find the WMD, defeat al Qaeda, and when the dust settles, Pakistan will be back on the path to democracy. After such a glorious success, by November 2008 everyone will have forgotten about Iraq.

NEWS: U.S. considers military solution for Pakistan’s political crisis

U.S. considers enlisting tribes in Pakistan to fight al Qaeda
By Eric Schmitt, Mark Mazzetti and Carlotta Gall, New York Times, November 19, 2007

A new and classified American military proposal outlines an intensified effort to enlist tribal leaders in the frontier areas of Pakistan in the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, as part of a broader effort to bolster Pakistani forces against an expanding militancy, American military officials said.

If adopted, the proposal would join elements of a shift in strategy that would also be likely to expand the presence of American military trainers in Pakistan, directly finance a separate tribal paramilitary force that until now has proved largely ineffective and pay militias that agree to fight Al Qaeda and foreign extremists, officials said. The United States now has only about 50 troops in Pakistan, a Pentagon spokesman said, a force that could grow by dozens under the new approach.

The new proposal is modeled in part on a similar effort by American forces in Anbar Province in Iraq that has been hailed as a great success in fighting foreign insurgents there. But it raises the question of whether such partnerships can be forged without a significant American military presence on the ground in Pakistan. And it is unclear whether enough support can be found among the tribes. [complete article]

Musharraf rejects U.S. pressure to lift emergency rule
By Emily Wax and Imtiaz Ali, Washington Post, November 18, 2007

President Pervez Musharraf on Saturday rebuffed pressure from a senior U.S. envoy to revoke emergency rule under the country’s current security situation, envoys said.

In a tense two-hour meeting, Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte delivered a “very strong message” urging Musharraf to end the state of emergency, step down as head of the military and release of thousands of political prisoners.

“Emergency rule is not compatible with free, fair and credible elections,” Negroponte said at a news conference Sunday morning, referring to parliamentary elections set for early January. “The people of Pakistan deserve an opportunity to choose their leaders free from the restrictions that exist under a state of emergency.”

A diplomat characterized the meeting as “short of tough love, but still tough.” [complete article]

Musharraf widens his sphere of punishment
By Peter Beaumont, The Observer, November 18, 2007

Two weeks into the crisis that began when Musharraf purged the judiciary, muzzled the media and clamped down on politicians who opposed his re-election, the full details of what the ‘state of emergency’ entails are emerging as human rights groups in Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore collect testimonies.

Retribution is being meted out on a massive scale and Pakistan’s powerful gossip mill has attributed a particular motive to Musharraf’s thinking – his aim is to ‘teach a lesson’ to those who have dared object to his belief that only he can save his country. The aim of the state of emergency has been largely to humiliate the opposition. [complete article]

FEATURE: Is the return of the Taliban inevitable?

A mullah dies, and war comes knocking
By Sarah Chayes, Washington Post, November 18, 2007

The only reason Pakistan’s invasion-by-proxy has morphed into something even vaguely resembling an insurgency is that the Afghan people are at the limit of their endurance with a government that pillages and brutalizes them and lies to them barefaced. Judges demand fortunes for positive verdicts. Customs agents expect kickbacks for every transaction. Police officers shake people down or kidnap them for ransom. Six years of depredations by the government have led to its rejection — and to resentment of the international community that installed it and then refused to supervise it. From those feelings of anger have spread pools of collaboration with the Taliban.

Meanwhile, have the Taliban changed their approach to the exercise of power? Not in the least. They still seek to gain control via terror — by hanging bodies upside-down from trees, by placing pieces of men in gunny sacks like quarters of meat to horrify their neighbors.

So what has changed in six years, except the West’s failure to provide a palatable alternative? Is this to be the world’s response to that failure? “Oh, we weren’t able to do any better for the Afghans than the Taliban, so we may as well bring them back in and get the place off our hands.” [complete article]

NEWS: Nuclear insecurity

U.S. secretly aids Pakistan in guarding nuclear arms
By David E. Sanger and William J. Broad, New York Times, November 18, 2007

Over the past six years, the Bush administration has spent almost $100 million on a highly classified program to help Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s president, secure his country’s nuclear weapons, according to current and former senior administration officials.

But with the future of that country’s leadership in doubt, debate is intensifying about whether Washington has done enough to help protect the warheads and laboratories, and whether Pakistan’s reluctance to reveal critical details about its arsenal has undercut the effectiveness of the continuing security effort.

The aid, buried in secret portions of the federal budget, paid for the training of Pakistani personnel in the United States and the construction of a nuclear security training center in Pakistan, a facility that American officials say is nowhere near completion, even though it was supposed to be in operation this year.

A raft of equipment — from helicopters to night-vision goggles to nuclear detection equipment — was given to Pakistan to help secure its nuclear material, its warheads, and the laboratories that were the site of the worst known case of nuclear proliferation in the atomic age.

While American officials say that they believe the arsenal is safe at the moment, and that they take at face value Pakistani assurances that security is vastly improved, in many cases the Pakistani government has been reluctant to show American officials how or where the gear is actually used. [complete article]

NEWS & ANALYSIS: Busharraf

Pakistanis growing frustrated with U.S.
By Emily Wax and Imtiaz Ali, Washington Post, November 16, 2007

Inside call centers and in high school social studies classes, at vegetable markets and in book bazaars, Pakistanis from different walks of life here say that ever since President Pervez Musharraf imposed emergency rule two weeks ago, he’s been the most unpopular figure in the country. But running a close second, many say, is his ally: President Bush.

“We used to love America. Give me Tom Cruise and a vacation in Florida any day,” said Parveen Aslam, 30, who like many Pakistanis has relatives in the United States. “But why isn’t the U.S. standing up for Pakistan when we need it most? Is America even listening to us? We are calling them Busharraf now. They are the same man.”

While many Pakistanis lament that the Bush administration is involved in their country’s politics, they also see the United States as the only force strong enough to do what they say is necessary to temper the crisis: pressure the military-led government to restore the constitution, release thousands of political prisoners and lift restrictions on the news media. [complete article]

Militants gain despite decree by Musharraf
By Jane Perlez and Ismail Khan, New York Times, November 16, 2007

Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani president, says he instituted emergency rule for the extra powers it would give him to push back the militants who have carved out a mini-state in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

But in the last several days, the militants have extended their reach, capturing more territory in Pakistan’s settled areas and chasing away frightened policemen, local government officials said.

As inconspicuous as it might be in a nation of 160 million people, the takeover of the small Alpuri district headquarters this week was considered a particular embarrassment for General Musharraf. It showed how the militants could still thumb their noses at the Pakistani Army.

In fact, local officials and Western diplomats said, there is little evidence that the 12-day-old emergency decree has increased the government’s leverage in fighting the militants, or that General Musharraf has used the decree to take any extraordinary steps to combat them. [complete article]

Benazir vs. Musharraf is Punch vs. Judy
By Tony Karon, Rootless Cosmopolitan, November 13, 2007

Musharraf didn’t declare emergency rule because he feared Bhutto’s challenge; he declared emergency rule because the Supreme Court was about to rule that he was not, in fact, legitimately the president of Pakistan, because he violated the constitution by standing for the presidency while in command of the military. And the reason Bhutto appeared to hesitate when it happened was obvious: She has as much to fear from the independent judiciary in Pakistan as Musharraf does. The same judges threatening to strip Musharraf of the presidency had also warned that the amnesty extended by him to Bhutto — absolving her of numerous corruption charges — was also illegal. (And, for good measure, the same judges had also ruled that Nawaz Sharif’s expulsion was illegal.) The last thing Bhutto needs is the rule of law and an independent judiciary in Pakistan, for that would pull the rug out from her deal with Musharraf, put her back in court, and bring her fiercest political rival back into the picture at a moment when she is increasingly vulnerable, politically, by virtue of her alliance with the U.S.

House arrest, if anything, gives Benazir political cover for avoiding the streets. Better for Bhutto to sit out whatever turmoil will come in the weeks ahead, cultivating an image of martyrdom ahead of the elections that Musharraf promises for January (although a Musharraf promise and a dollar will buy you a cup of chai at Pak Punjab on Houston Street). Remember, Bhutto’s party may be the largest single party in Pakistan, but its ceiling is about 30% of the vote. If the Washington-brokered deal is to work, Musharraf, too, needs Bhutto’s popularity to be boosted.

Proxies always have independent agendas; if they didn’t, well, they wouldn’t be proxies. So, the U.S. struggles to get Musharraf to do its bidding — because he has a far keener sense of the requirements of his own survival in a dangerous part of the world, and also of Pakistan’s strategic interests, than do his U.S. interlocutors. And Musharraf struggles to control the Taliban in the same way. The Taliban, remember, was literally created by Pakistan’s Inter Service Intelligence in the early 1990s, as a proxy force to take charge in Afghanistan and end the chaos there by establishing a monopoly of force in the hands of a Pakistan ally. This was a continuation of the U.S.-Saudi-Pakistan policy in the 1980s of using Pakistan as a sanctuary from which to train and recruit jihadis to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, and also of Pakistan’s pursuit of its own interest to counter the power in Afghanistan of warlords allied with its key regional rivals, India and Iran — i.e. the forces grouped in the Northern Alliance. [complete article]

Students hand Khan to police
By Saeed Shah, The Scotsman, November 15, 2007

Iran Khan, one of the last remaining independent political voices at liberty in Pakistan, was attacked by hardline Islamic students yesterday and handed over to police.

With the former prime minister Benazir Bhutto under house arrest and thousands of activists and lawyers in prison, the only political force left free in the country is the religious Right. General Pervez Musharraf’s regime has not moved concertedly against the mullahs, who have always been close to the army.

Mr Khan made his first public appearance yesterday since going into hiding when the emergency was declared on 3 November. Police had sealed off all entrances to Punjab University in Lahore, where he had announced that he would address students.

Somehow he made it through the cordon, appearing suddenly just after midday, where hundreds of students had gathered, chanting slogans against the regime. He was immediately hoisted on to people’s shoulders, raising his fist in the air, amid scenes of jubilation.

But events turned nasty very quickly as the “beards” – students belonging to the feared Islami Jamiat Talba – moved in. The crowd was pushed towards a nearby building. Mr Khan was bundled inside and the gates were locked. Some claimed that he was punched repeatedly. The entrance was guarded by Jamiat students. [complete article]

NEWS, ANALYSIS & OPINION: The road from Washington to Karachi to nuclear anarchy

Are you with us… or against us?
By Jonathan Schell, TomDispatch, November 14, 2007

The journey to the martial law just imposed on Pakistan by its self-appointed president, the dictator Pervez Musharraf, began in Washington on September 11, 2001. On that day, it so happened, Pakistan’s intelligence chief, Lt. General Mahmood Ahmed, was in town. He was summoned forthwith to meet with Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who gave him perhaps the earliest preview of the global Bush doctrine then in its formative stages, telling him, “You are either one hundred percent with us or one hundred percent against us.”

The next day, the administration, dictating to the dictator, presented seven demands that a Pakistan that wished to be “with us” must meet. These concentrated on gaining its cooperation in assailing Afghanistan’s Taliban regime, which had long been nurtured by the Pakistani intelligence services in Afghanistan and had, of course, harbored Osama Bin Laden and his al-Qaeda training camps. Conspicuously missing was any requirement to rein in the activities of Mr. A.Q. Khan, the “father” of Pakistan’s nuclear arms, who, with the knowledge of Washington, had been clandestinely hawking the country’s nuclear-bomb technology around the Middle East and North Asia for some years. [complete article]

U.S. is looking past Musharraf in case he falls
By Helene Cooper, Mark Mazzetti and David Rohde, New York Times, November 15, 2007

Almost two weeks into Pakistan’s political crisis, Bush administration officials are losing faith that the Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, can survive in office and have begun discussing what might come next, according to senior administration officials.

In meetings on Wednesday, officials at the White House, State Department and the Pentagon huddled to decide what message Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte would deliver to General Musharraf — and perhaps more important, to Pakistan’s generals — when he arrives in Islamabad on Friday.

Administration officials say they still hope that Mr. Negroponte can salvage the fractured arranged marriage between General Musharraf and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. But in Pakistan, foreign diplomats and aides to both leaders said the chances of a deal between the leaders were evaporating 11 days after General Musharraf declared de facto martial law. [complete article]

Musharraf foe is detained in Pakistan
By Salman Masood and Carlotta Gall, New York Times, November 14, 2007

The opposition politician Imran Khan emerged from hiding today to the cheers of hundreds of students at a protest demonstration against Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, at a university here and was quickly seized by hard-line students and turned over to the police, witnesses said.

In another development, Benazir Bhutto has started to rally opposition parties into a coordinated movement against General Musharraf, her party spokeswoman, Sherry Rehman, said in an interview today.

Ms. Bhutto, a former prime minister who has been placed under house arrest in Lahore, has contacted the main opposition parties and has received a favorable response, Ms. Rehman said. ”She wants a one-point agenda — the restoration of democracy,” Ms. Rehman said. [complete article]

For Musharraf, quitting army may end support
By Laura King, Los Angeles Times, November 15, 2007

On any given day during the last eight years, President Pervez Musharraf was most likely to be found not at the ornate presidential compound in the capital, but here in this garrison city: at his desk at army headquarters, clad in familiar camouflage fatigues, greeted everywhere with the crisp salutes and studied deference accorded a four-star general.

Now, a farewell to arms appears inevitable, if not imminent.

Under a timetable he pledged to before he put his country under de facto martial law, the general was supposed to have stepped down as military chief today, before being sworn in for a new presidential term. Despite enormous domestic and international pressure, Musharraf will almost certainly not do so. [complete article]