By: DR FAROOQ HASSAN

In today’s analysis, I examine some fundamental perspectives of far reaching significance for the US towards the outcome of the truly historic Pakistani elections of February 18. In a recent column on March 25, I had articulated the grim realisation that the Bush administration, by visibly still supporting Musharraf, was deeply offending the majority of the Pakistani people. Widespread criticism of the previous regime and, of course, also of the US administration, accompanied by local wanton acts of terrorism and sabotage had wrecked havoc in the maintenance of law and order. Since the advent of the New Year, there had been 17 massive suicide blasts in a 14 week period throughout Pakistan, compared to 11 in Iraq and 4 in Afghanistan during the same period. I feared that a situation similar to that in 1980’s in Iran was conceivably in the making.

If any startling endorsement of my hypothesis was needed, it arose with such abrupt, pointed and qualitative directness as to stun the even the most diehard realist. On April 2 Islamabad, in an unprecedented meeting, the new military chief, accompanied by the country’s top intelligence officers, briefed the new civilian government about the strategic implications of the current security threats to Pakistan in the context of the US emphasis and pressures on Islamabad with respect to its war on terror.

Doctrinally, in the context of the prevalent ‘realpolitik’, this occurrence is utterly reverberating. Let me therefore advert to some salient features of this conference.

Read the whole essay here.

Posted by : Jock Gill

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