The problem with a love triangle is that someone always winds up with a broken heart. As Pakistanis rejoice at the restoration of the deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, I can’t help but wonder who will come away broken-hearted from the sordid entanglement that brought Chaudhry, President Asif Zardari, and Pakistan Muslim League leader Nawaz Sharif together in an ill-fated ménage a trois. Flags are waving in the streets of Islamabad and Lahore, music is blaring, congratulatory text messages are being forwarded, and bloggers are beginning to tire of the words “historic day.”

So, is President Zardari the triangle’s victim? He tried to win the coveted Punjab province for the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), by having the Sharif brothers disqualified from power, only to find that his closest allies could not muster the support needed to see the plan through. What he learnt instead is that his onetime coalition partner and sometime rival Nawaz Sharif’s hold over the Punjab is unflagging — the show of popular support for the Sharif brothers, despite looming security threats, was impressive by any measure.

Moreover, the ever-smiling Zardari has had to back down from a fight before his nation and the international community. No one doubts that he was dictated to by the US and arm-twisted by his supposedly puppet prime minister into appeasing Pakistan’s lawyers and reconciling with Sharif.

But perhaps Zardari finds consolation in the fact that the powers that be were vested in ensuring that he was not driven from the President House by a swelling street movement. The US does not want to see Sharif in the driving seat. His not-so-hidden sympathies with Islamic extremists and his allegiances to Saudi Arabia make him a dangerous commodity at a time when Barack Obama is determined to win the war in Afghanistan (and, by extension, Pakistan’s northern and tribal areas). For that reason, Zardari has unprecedented job security, despite the public shaming over the weekend.

... contd.