Pakistan’s new leaders let the Americans know: there’s a new sheriff in town

On the day the new prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gillani, was sworn in, Deputy Secretary of State John D Negroponte and Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs, Richard A Boucher, also met President Pervez Musharraf, whom they had embraced as their partner in the campaign against terrorism but whose power is ebbing.

The leader of the second biggest party in the new Parliament, Nawaz Sharif, said after meeting the two American diplomats that it was unacceptable that Pakistan had become a “killing field.” “If America wants to see itself clean of terrorists, we also want that our villages and towns should not be bombed,” he said. Sharif, a former prime minister, added he was unable to give Negroponte “a commitment” on fighting terrorism.

That fight, which has recently included American airstrikes in the lawless tribal areas where the Taliban and Al Qaeda have made sanctuaries, has become widely unpopular, particularly in the last few months as a surge in suicide bombings here has been viewed as retaliation for the American attacks.

Asif Ali Zardari, the leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party, also met with the Americans but did not speak to reporters afterward. Husain Haqqani, an adviser who attended the meeting with him, said, though, that the American officials had been given notice that the old ways were over.

“If I can use an American expression, there is a new sheriff in town,” Haqqani said. “Americans have realised that they have perhaps talked with one man for too long.”

Neither Negroponte nor Boucher spoke publicly about the meetings, but the Pakistanis said the Americans expressed willingness to work with the new government.

Distancing himself from Musharraf, Gillani, moments after taking the oath of office, said, “We have to give supremacy to the Parliament so that we can jointly take the country out of these crises.”

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