Bhutto Return Engineered in Washington ?

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Eric MargolisSun, October 21, 2007

Bombings greet Bhutto

Deadly attack mars historic return from exile
By ERIC MARGOLIS

On Thursday morning, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto arrived in Karachi, as she told me she would two weeks ago in London.

Huge crowds in the Bhutto family's traditional power base received her with rapture and adulation.

Her enemies greeted her with two horrific bombs that killed more than 130 and wounded hundreds more, underlining the growing violence now consuming Pakistan.

While Washington and even the First Lady Laura Bush have been blasting Burma's military junta for brutal repression, Pakistan's U.S.-backed military junta, which receives $1 billion monthly in covert U.S. payments, is waging war against its own restive people, thousands of whom have been killed by the armed forces.

Shooting and beating rebellious Buddhist monks is evil; shooting and beating rebellious Muslim religious leaders is "anti-terrorism."



I wished Benazir bon voyage just before she left Dubai for her historic return home, and cautioned her that my extensive reader mail from Pakistan was running very much against her because of the deal she had made with military ruler Gen. Pervez Musharraf to allow her return.

The widespread view among Pakistanis is that Benazir's return and impending political power-sharing with Musharraf was engineered by Washington to add a veneer of legitimacy of democracy to his discredited military regime.

Unless Bhutto can quickly and decisively distance herself from Musharraf and his Bush administration sponsors, and show she is really in charge as prime minister, she and her cause may be gravely tarnished.

As reported in my recent columns, the U.S. has filled all senior positions in Pakistan's powerful military and intelligence service, ISI, with pro-American generals approved by the Pentagon and CIA. Even if Musharraf is ousted or blown up, the U.S. believes it can retain firm control over Pakistan and use its armed forces to wage war there and in Afghanistan against nationalist and Islamist forces battling western influence.

The military rules Pakistan. Musharraf and his American patrons run Pakistan's military.

So what is left for future prime minister Bhutto? If Pakistanis conclude she is being cynically used, her political career could founder. If she can somehow push Musharraf and his generals back to their barracks, she will emerge triumphant.

Confusion

Given the dizzying current political confusion between Musharraf, Bhutto, the Supreme Court, and exiled former PM Nawaz Sharif, it's impossible to predict what will happen next.

But one thing is certain: recent polls show a majority of Pakistanis believe America under President George W. Bush has launched a war against Islam, and that Musharraf is America's agent.

These disturbing beliefs could easily lead to increasing violence, even full-scale civil war.

Even if Musharraf and Bhutto eventually agree on some form of power-sharing, they will find themselves riding a tiger.

America's 2001 invasion and subsequent occupation of Afghanistan, and Washington's ongoing efforts to control Pakistan's government, have ignited a spreading regional insurrection against western influence.

If the simmering civil war in nuclear-armed Pakistan blows into a wider conflict, the result will be an exceptionally dangerous world crisis in which nuclear-armed India could quickly become involved.

Iran factor

The growing threat of a U.S. attack on Iran will only deepen and spread the danger. An explosion in Pakistan would also isolate U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Pakistan's most important national institution, the armed forces, has failed its duty to the nation.

Instead of allowing itself to be rented like the sepoys in the mercenary armies of Britain's 19th century Imperial Indian Raj, Pakistan's military should be assuring its commanders serve the interest of the nation, rather than foreign powers.

It's true $1 billion a month rents a lot of co-operation. But Pakistan's once proud soldiers have sold their honour cheap.

eric.margolis@sunmedia.ca