China Hand had another very informative post yesterday about the US and Pakistan. S/he was looking specifically about the role that Zal Khalilzad may well have been playing in pushing forward the “Benazir Bhutto” option. As in his previous post on Pakistan, CH has marshalled a good array of serious evidence and uses it well to make a point.
CH writes:
- Khalilzad’s fingerprints are all over the events surrounding Benazir Bhutto’s return to Pakistan and the ongoing political crisis there.
That’s bad news for Musharraf.
… If we interpret our Pakistan policy as pro-Bhutto and structured by Khalilzad, with Musharraf as a devalued asset well on the way to becoming collateral damage, it makes a lot of sense.
At this point in the lame-duck Bush administration, it would seem risible that the U.S. would even consider, let alone implement any grand plan for regime change.
But Khalilzad, the only U.S. player to emerge from the smoking crater of our Middle East policy with his stature and mojo enhanced, a man of undeniable energy and ability, and, as an Afghan, with a visceral stake in the fate of his homeland’s would-be suzerain, Pakistan, is the guy who might try to pull it off.
Oh, and Benazir took the following obligatory step on the road to winning Washington’s endorsement of her candidacy:
- In a move reminiscent of Ahmad Chalabi’s extravagant promises to the neocons of intimate Iraq-Israeli friendship after he took power, in August Bhutto also initiated a meeting with Israel’s ambassador to the U.N., presumably to demonstrate that she would not be intimidated by Islamic fundamentalists inside Pakistan.
CH posits that the Khalilzad/Bushist game-plan may be as follows. First, they shoe-horn Benazir into power. Then they persuade India to make some concessions on Kashmir, strengthening BB politically within Pakistan and allowing her to turn the army more fully to battling the pro-Taliban insurgents in the north…
- Then the United States can open the military and economic aid spigots and win hearts and minds in a big way—a possibility that the Chinese are now presumably considering and planning for.
After all, for Washington the opportunity to wean Pakistan away from the army and from the army’s major supporter and ally, China, is something that might make the whole venture worth risking by itself.
A grandiose plan. If true. But workable?
I don’t know how good a read on the pulse of the army or Pakistan Ms. Bhutto has after almost a decade of exile.
Pakistan’s security establishment has ties to the Taliban dating back to the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan.
Beyond that, the war on the borders is, in a word awful. The Pakistani army doesn’t want to fight it. The army is built to fight India, not chase tribesmen. And no army in the world likes to do counterinsurgency…
CH notes that, along with maintaining her longstanding ties to Khalilzad, BB has also been laying out some big money on “inside Washington” consultants… (Uh-oh. More shades of Chalabi here.) CH cites this piece from the new Washington political tabloid The Politico, which tells us that DC p.r. giant Burston-Marsteller and its lobbying and polling affiliates recently signed a contract with BB’s party, whereby the party pays them $75K upfront and then $28.5K monthly after that. No term mentioned there for the contract.
The names of all these firms are a sort of dizzying and frequently changing melange of names half-remembered from Congressmembers past, second-rate pundits, etc etc. But I think the polling firm is the same as the one Hillary Clinton’s using. (Can someone check that and confirm?)
Politico gives us these details:
- The contract filed with the Justice Department does, however, give some insight into what all of the money buys. Among the promised services: surveys of “100 American political, journalistic, and business elites in Washington, D.C., and New York”; an “internal brainstorming session”; and setting up meetings for Bhutto in Washington “with an eye towards convincing U.S. officials that Prime Minister Bhutto is still relevant to further the democratic process in Pakistan.”
CH’s very realistic-looking conclusion regarding all this:
- If the battle for control of Pakistan is going to be fought over hors d’oeuvres and aperitifs in Washington, Pakistan might be in for a rough time.
Khalilzad has shown himself to be a natural and able ally of the educated, pro-Western elites in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan.
But until now, the regimes he has fostered have been unable to square the circle between the rulers he installed and the impoverished, suspicious, and anti-American masses they’ve tried to lead into the U.S. camp.
Will the third time—with Pakistan’s larger middle class and a society as yet not devastated by war and extremism–be the charm?
Or will Pakistan serve as another example of what happens when the resistible force of democracy promoted by U.S. clients collides with obdurate nationalism fueled by anger and fear of the United States?
Good questions.
Can commenters here please stick to the topic at hand.
Helena,
will Pakistan serve as another example of what happens when the resistible force of democracy promoted by U.S. clients
Ofcourse Helena it was in the past and it is now.
Not just in Pakistan there are more places in ME we should expected to be hot zones near future
America has supported undemocratic regimes in countries such as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt because if elections were held tomorrow, in each country, radical Islamists hostile to the United States would win. As a result, the Islamists in these countries, denied of political access, have gotten both more radical and more powerful. The trend is toward less democratic expression and more control over opposition, political speech, protest, the judiciary, and political parties.
Our gradualist policy is making us more dependent on weaker, corrupt regimes with stronger oppositions who hate us more. Fifty years ago, the fall of the Egyptian, Saudi, or Pakistani regime would have been a surprising problem. Twenty-five years ago, it would have been an unexpected crisis. Today, it would be a disaster, and it is a disaster waiting to happen.
Pakistan: The case for radical foreign policy
Are all the people in ME all Radical Islamists?
What about Saudi Regime and his Wahabisim Ideology folks?
Is it the problem with regimes or with people in the region?
I think its both, but the weights of regimes is a major driving force towards Radical Islamists. If people in the region feel their freedom and enjoying their life with the wealth they had their will be no support for Radical Islamists there were no dangers to the western world.
US occupied Iraq suddenly all those Black Turbans came to control the country, the Iraqis lives by their (Black Turbans ) daily seen misleading of stupid and laughable ideology of their very corrupting and sick religious ideology,.
Now most Iraqi embassy starts to be “Hussianyah” (Black Turbans Mullah Maddrasah).
Iraq was got rid of all this “rubbish” long time ago suddenly we see most the south now return to days as if we living in 1900 with these thugs who promote the Black version of religion builds of fake and misleading or real lighting of Islam theory and way of life as if the Saudi Wahabi ideology started in 1870’s.
Are the Iraqi people now responsible for all what going on?
Did they have power to overcome of these thugs with Black Turbans?
So for years to come then we will see there is no democracy in Iraq and Iraqis living as Iranian’s a like under ugly Mullah regime and same taken then no need for freedom otherwise Iraqi are Radical Islamists
Did Iraqis for the last four years let to have to care of their country? They are in continuous fear for their lives, their security, their jobs and their family or for their country and its resources with oil prices now near to touch $US100.0 per Barrel still no meters on the Iraqi oil?
Let’s clear things here Musharraf’s relations with former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, who recently returned to Pakistan as part of a power-sharing deal with Musharraf following talks mediated by the US
Also in Pakistan “The fact that reforms can be a tricky thing in a country so filled with opposing power-hungry forces that are bent on the destruction of even the modest rights and stability that were previously available in Pakistan.”
In Spanish we have a saying, if you shoot an elephant, make sure you kill him with the first shot. Musharraf’s real mistake was to dismiss Chaudhry in March without “killing him” politically — now Chaudhry is on a rampage, a personal vendetta, and has the standing — and grass-roots prowess — to consider a kind of coup against Musharraf, provided he can gain army backing.
Recently exiled former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif saying “One man is holding the entire nation hostage for his personal interests,”
There is big question here why US promoting Benazir Bhutto for the democracy in Pakistan Given that Bhutto tried to leech her “country” dry of wealth, and US not pressing for the return of Nawaz Sharif ?
Hillary Clinton’s chief political strategist for her presidential bid is Mark Penn, who is the CEO of Burston Marsteller. A subsidiary of the company briefly represented Blackwater to prepare it for congressional testimony. It has also represnted Countrywide Financial, which has been tainted by the subprime mortgage scandal, and Cintas Corp. which has fought unionization. The company has 94 offices around the world and 1,600 employees and “brings world-class public relations to companies around the world.” Before Penn became president it represnetd Phillip Morris and Dow Chemical (for whom it tried to combat criticism after the Bhopal disaster). Under Penn, 57 percent of its contributions went to Republicans in 2005-06. That’s odd.
I recently posted a comment:
http://levantnotes.blogspot.com/2007/11/what-is-american-liberal.html
http://tinyurl.com/2xvtn4
on the top 20 American ‘Liberals’ as seen from England.
Mark Penn came in at No 3 after Slick Willy, but before Hillary.
What kind of a country do you Americanos have if the 3rd most important influence downstream in a lefty group opposed to total nutty fascists is a PR flack?
But, if I was sitting in my advertising company canteen now, discussing the state of the world, I’d be happy that B-M had taken over from Hill & Knowlton as the Free World’s pimp:
see:
http://911review.com/precedent/decade/incubators.html
And that, really, is about all I would do, being, as I am, a very contented American suburbanite, watching and believing Fox News, and going, every morning, to my ‘career opportunity’ – correcting the punctuation of my Account Executive.
regards
Richard
It is possible that the extremist Republicans have nobody with any better flair for making their invasion and occupation policies than Khalílzád Pasha, but come along, he does set any very high mark. No Jeanne Kirkpatrick is their “Zal.”
As regards Pakistan, what’s so subtle that this ideologue is supposed to be up to? Put the top 0.3% of the population that was very expensively educated in the West in power forever and call that clever plan “rule of the middle class”? There may be a perfectly workable scheme of hegemony here, but since it is indistinguishable from the arrangements already in place for a couple of dozen other countries that one might mention, awarding His Excellency a sort of honourary Nobel Aggression Prize seems very unfair to a vast host of other mediocrities.
What might actually merit such an award would be for one of the Big Management Party’s hired intellectuals to find somebody else in a Levantine or Latin American country to make an alliance with apart from either the usual 0.3% “middle class” at the very tip of the iceberg or else the usual patriot colonels and generals. The latter are not necessarily in league with The Supreme Middle, but perhaps one might argue from the Egyptian case and others that they tend to become so if they can cling to power long enough.
“China Hand” exaggerates how bright the militant GOP is, it seems to me, but also exaggerates how bright they need to be: “to square the circle between the rulers installed and the impoverished, suspicious, and anti-American masses they’ve tried to lead into the U.S. camp” is a good deal more than the bare minimum necessary for Big Party purposes. To a very large extent the 99.7% of foreigners not in the middle can simply be ignored, I should think. Who cares whether they’re “squared” or not, as long as there is no clear and present danger of their doing anything destabilizing?
(Afghanistan and the former Iraq are exceptions that try this rule, I suppose, but they do not overthrow it.)
The Hand is an Old Hand. The Hand was not born yesterday. When the Hand writes of “educated, pro-Western elites” it knows very well that its readers, the majority of them being more-or-less racist, will happily read this as confirmation that elite people are educated, and educated people are pro-Western. The Hand is a pander. The Hand’s counterpart stereotype “the impoverished, suspicious, and anti-American masses” is even more blatantly racist. This is simply a re-working of the likes of “Darkest Africa”, “Yellow Peril” and “Wiley Oriental Gentleman”. I wouldn’t give it house-room in an aircraft hanger.
Dominic, I don’t think China Hand is as definitely parti-pris as you claim; and s/he does provide an informed account written from a generally non-Americo-centric perspective, which I found useful.
I guess what I found a little troubling in the account was this: will Pakistan serve as another example of what happens when the resistible force of democracy promoted by U.S. clients collides with obdurate nationalism fueled by anger and fear of the United States?
First, note that s/he is plainspoken in referring to US “clients”. That’s good. But then, we have the contrast between the “democracy” that these clients promote and the “obdurate nationalism” favored by, presumably, the non-client Pakistani masses. With no hint from CH that the kind of “democracy” s/he is referring to there should be referred to, if at all, only with deep and evident irony– since the vast mass of the demos in question apparently continues to hold to only that primitive sentiment of “obdurate nationalism.”
Also, IMHO it’s probably Islamism more than it’s nationalism, though the sentiment doubtless comes with a very sharp anti-western edge.
But it was the way CH used the term “democracy” there that bothered me. It really is a very counter-productive perversion of the true meaning of the term.
Dear Helena, thanks for JWN, still and always the favourate and first port of call. But I beg to differ in the case of China Hand. I can’t see where the divide is between this kind of stuff and the Imperialist adventure-books-for-boys of my British Empire youth. (e.g. G.A. Henty, Boys Own Paper, Kipling’s “Kim” et cetera). China Hand seems to be trying to affect the tone of Josef Conrad’s character Marlow in, for example, “Heart of Darkness”, but without any of Conrad’s satirical intent.
In terms of the political schema, it is equally infantile. China Hand ignores, or is ignorant of, the actual dialogue that animates what he regards as uneducated non-elite masses. Let me offer the example of South Africa, not only because I live here, but also because it has historically been so strongly influenced by and resembles in many ways the politics of the sub-continent that contains Pakistan as well as India and indeed Nepal.
We (en masse) regard ourselves as being in the middle of a National Democratic Revolution. The point at issue is the coincidence (not separation) of the national struggle against imperialism, and the bourgeois democracy that it has brought us. At this stage of our history the nationalists are the democrats; the revolutionaries want to take things further, towards socialism; and the Imperialists want us back in their fold as a neo-colony, for which purpose our democracy must be reduced to a sham or abolished.
If CH is ignorant of this characteristic post-colonial problematique, it is unforgivable in somebody adopting such a pose as CH does. Because Chinese history cannot be comprehended without it. It’s right in your face with China. The peculiar Chinese solution to this set of contradictions is the reason why they are called a “People’s Republic”, and the reason for the characteristic Chinese relationship with capitalism.
If CH is not in fact so ignorant, but is actually and deliberately fabricating the infantile adventure-story racist “ripping yarn”, then it is more than unforgivable. It is despicable.
I happen to have travelled to Pakistan a few times over the past 15 years. That is, since the end of the anti-Soviet “jihad” in their Northern neighbour. One consistent sentiment that I heard from Pakistani intellectuals (and I am not talking about Dominic’s 0.3% client elite, but about the educated upper middle class: lawyers, doctors, university professors, …) was this: “Damn Americans treat us as a wiping rag: the Russians, the Taliban, now this new mess, …”. Basically, there is a very strong sense of resentment for being used to deal with whatever problem the Empire has had between the Iranian and Chinese borders over the past 30 years. Obviously, Zia was a pitbull of a client, ripping to shreds (or at least trying to) whoever the master disliked, and Bhutto is an absolute idiot to think she will not dangle like her puppet daddy when her utility is over and she too reaches her expiration date. The Americans are playing a very dangerous game now. They are weakening their slavish client, in the hopes of getting a better one, and more “stability”. They may lose the game. The Chinese are playing hardball, and especially after the India deal, they don’t seem ready to give in on this one. It would be interesting to see how the game plays out in the next few weeks. It seems certain that Bhutto will not be sitting where she is too much longer.
“Iran war, after two years of huffing and puffing by the Bush government is definitely off the table. Furthermore, with France, Russia, Japan and China investing heavily in Iran, the world has drawn a line in the sand and the U.S. will be told at the conference not to cross it. There is blood in the water, and blood in the water usually leads to a good fight.”
“That notwithstanding, the United States needs to control the region, not only for its oil reserves but, most importantly to help it sustain world economic hegemony. Under this strategic design, regional states will be turned to weak domains of sectarian sheikhs with little or no sovereignty and, by implications, a pathetic agenda of their economic development. Regional chaos favours the spread of Islamic fundamentalism, which in turn reinforces the process of political and social disintegration supported by the Bilderbergers.”
The True Story of the Bilderberg Group
The Paki’s are going down the tubes and all hell will break loose. Best Case: Another military coup. Worst case: Iran part II.