Opinion Zardari,the hack

Take for example the Osama bin Laden story this week.

We saw US President Barack Obama announcing the mission to find and kill bin Laden a little before the midnight of Sunday and Monday,Washington time.

Lo and behold! Zardari’s column on the subject was up on the ‘Washington Post’ website barely 24 hours later. In the time space between an event and a column on it,Zardari perhaps has clocked one of the fastest sprints.

One would have thought Zardari would have a lot to chew on last Monday than write a column. After all Barack Obama had just called to inform him that US Navy Seals had violated Pakistan’s territorial sovereignty to attack and kill Osama bin Laden deep inside Pakistan’s territory.

As the ‘commander in chief’ of Pakistan’s armed forces,Zardari should have been posing tough questions to the ISI and the Pak Army on what bin Laden was doing in Abbottabad for so many years and how Washington could get away with raiding and killing him. Instead Zardari the hack was hammering out a column trying to confuse the issues.

Why does Zardari do it? After all his reputation was more playboy than a man of letters. Yet,since the death of his wife and former Prime Minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto,Zardari has been prolific.

Zardari’s detractors will say it is his envoy to Washington,the charming Hussain Haqqani who writes the columns that are so lapped up by America’s top newspapers. Having lived in the US for long,done the think-tank circuit,and worked the op-ed market,Haqqani is the perfect ghost writer that Zardari could have found.

Even then,one might ask why Zardari is wasting his time cranking out misleading op-eds.

After all there are other things to life. Zardari had shown some real skill at monetising political power when his wife was the prime minister of Pakistan. He had also demonstrated great endurance when his opponents targeted and incarcerated him for years.

To his credit,Zardari had articulated the most progressive vision for Indo-Pak relations after he steered the PPP to victory in the 2008 general elections that followed Benazir’s assassination at the end of 2007.

He had called for a mutual agreement on nuclear no first-use,liberalisation of the visa regime,and identified trade as a higher priority than Jammu & Kashmir. But Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani moved quickly to silence him.

Overawed by the Army,Zardari gave Kayani a three year extension as army chief,and two one year extensions to Lt. Gen. Shuja Pasha,the ISI chief.

Zardari’s native genius must point to a huge political opportunity at hand after the execution of bin Laden. The US raid on Abbottabad has diminished the Pakistan Army in the eyes of its own people. It has raised questions about the competence of the Pakistan Army that claims to be the sole defender of the nation. It has also exposed the complicity of the Pakistan military in hiding bin Laden.

If he chooses to,Zardari has the option of publicly demanding answers from Kayani and Pasha and asserting his constitutional authority as an elected president.

Zardari has nothing to lose; if does not act,it will be a matter of time before Kayani decides to rejig Pakistan’s front office. After bin Laden,Kayani might have to hit at some one to restore the primacy of the Army in Pakistan.

As a street fighter Zardari should know that if he is not at the table,he is probably on the menu.