PAK POLITICS AND LIFE

2010-02-08T02:47:00.001-08:00

Pakistan's military sets Afghan terms
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

ISLAMABAD - With the United States striving hard to establish dialogue with the Taliban, Asia Times Online sources privy to the Pakistan military establishment reveal that the army has clearly spelled out that Washington must make sure any Indian involvement does not go beyond development work in Afghanistan and that Delhi plays no part in any overall strategy concerning Afghanistan.

The United States has said that it wants to reach out to second- and third-tier Taliban and, in doing so, exert pressure on the top Taliban leaders to seek reconciliation. Instead, Pakistan has emphasized that it is necessary to talk to Taliban leader Mullah Omar and his appointed representatives.

At the same time, Pakistan has rejected US proposals for the

balkanization of Afghanistan, by which it was proposed to appoint an autonomous controlling authority for southeastern and southwestern Afghanistan - the Pashtun-majority areas.

The Pakistani military has also given assurances that US officials will be granted visas, but, unlike previously, they will not be allowed visas on arrival. Further, for the first time, Pakistan has clearly refused to mount operations against the Sirajuddin Haqqani network, as well as that of his ally, Hafiz Gul Bahadur, as they are not hostile towards Pakistan.

At this important juncture of the American-led war in Afghanistan, Washington desperately needs Pakistan's support, as it did after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US to stage the invasion of Afghanistan.

Pakistan's demands were relayed in recent encounters with US officials by, among others, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff committee, General Tariq Majid; the chief of army staff, General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani; and the director general of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Lieutenant General Ahmad Shuja Pasha. The US officials included visiting Defense Secretary Robert Gates and General Stanley McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan. Majid also set out Pakistan's position at a recent North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) meeting in Brussels.

A straight-forward encounter
In the years following the invasion on Afghanistan in October 2001, Pakistan was frequently accused of duplicity in the US-led "war on terror", even though it provided extensive logistical support. This included bases for the US Air Force to carry out strikes in landlocked Afghanistan, transit routes for NATO supplies (now flowing freely again), collaboration with US intelligence agencies to arrest top al-Qaeda members, and military operations in the Pakistani tribal areas against pro-Taliban militants.

Yet the Americans still believed that Pakistan's support was half-hearted and that it tacitly supported the Taliban. One reason for this belief was Pakistan's opposition in principle from the beginning to the war on the Taliban. Former president Pervez Musharraf consistently urged the Americans to engage the Taliban in a political process.

In the early days of the conflict, the Americans were not interested in any form of reconciliation with the Taliban as the regime had been toppled in a matter of months and its leaders were holed up in the mountains straddling Pakistan and Afghanistan: Washington had no reason to talk to such losers.

Nine years on, the situation has changed dramatically. The American war machine is under siege and huge swathes of Afghanistan are either under direct Taliban control or heavily influenced by the militants.

The US and its allies are still game for a fight, though. In a matter of days, thousands of coalition and Afghan troops are expected to try to take back Marjah in Helmand province in one of the biggest offensives of the war. It will be the first major operation since US President Barack Obama announced last year that 30,000 additional troops would be sent to Afghanistan. (Pakistan has made its opposition to this surge clear to the US.)

However, it is widely acknowledged that the big push is aimed primarily at softening up the Taliban, rather than defeating them in the field, and that talks remain the only viable path to peace.

Just as the US has over the years changed its thinking on Afghanistan, given the realities on the ground, it has revised its opinion on Pakistan.

About two years ago, the administration of George W Bush became convinced that a coalition government comprising secular and liberal political parties would handle the "war on terror" more effectively than Pakistan's security apparatus, such as that ruled over by Musharraf, a general.

However, although such a secular government emerged after Musharraf stepped down in August 2008, it has not lived up to expectations. It has not won credibility among the masses due to economic mismanagement, the mishandling of a judicial crisis and the failure to adopt a straightforward policy against militancy.

By the end of 2009, the coalition government of President Asif Ali Zardari was riven with political in-fighting and there were large ethnic riots in the port city of Karachi, mainly between two pro-American political parties.

It was evident that political players were in no position to handle the sensitive issues relating to fighting the "war on terror", and in a short time all decision-making concerning security issues passed on to the military. Although militants have not been conclusively defeated in Pakistan, the military has waged several big operations in the tribal areas.

From the US perspective, more important is the rapport that has been established between US and Pakistan military leaders; even US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton indicated on a visit to Pakistan that the White House favored dealing directly with the military establishment on issues concerning the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Kiani has explained to the US that while the Pakistani army - and Kiani himself - are essentially strategically India-centric, they will work in partnership with the Americans to help the US win the war in Afghanistan. Pakistan sees the next phase of this as the eradication of terrorism and militancy from the region and the incorporation of the majority Pashtun population of Afghanistan, which supports Taliban, fully into the political process.

A friendship of two armies
Kiani is scheduled to retire in November, while ISI chief Pasha is due to leave office in March. Zardari's government is preparing to promote officers with whom it could work, that is, who would listen the government.

The president of the National Defense University, Lieutenant General Muhammad Yousuf, and the Corps Commander Gujranwala, Lieutenant General Nadeem Taj, are the most-discussed candidates in President House for the position of chief of army staff.

Zardari has also indicated his intention to revive the position of national security advisor to be filled by a retired four-star general to control the ISI.

The government is making all efforts to take Washington into its trust, but according to insiders it is having little success. On the other hand, the military establishment is heavily engaged in day-to-day business with the Americans to tackle the military and political issues involved in finding a solution to the Afghan insurgency. If Pakistan's political government tries to bypass the military, it might face serious embarrassment.

Washington apparently supports the idea of extending Pasha's term for another year - Kiani would take that decision, whether or not Zardari approved. As for Kiani, he has been heard to say that his position "is not an issue at the moment".

Pakistan has once again emerged as vitally important to the US in dealing with Afghanistan, from securing NATO's supply lines to cutting off the supplies of the Taliban and getting them to the negotiating table. Washington is apparently ready to sacrifice its political allies in Pakistan and work directly with the military to achieve these goals.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com

US fires off new warning in Pakistan

2010-02-07T06:41:00.000-08:00

By Syed Saleem Shahzad

ISLAMABAD - With its biggest drone attack to date in Pakistan, the United States has sent a clear message of its renewed determination to destroy Taliban and al-Qaeda sanctuaries in the Pakistan and Afghanistan border areas.

Pakistan government officials say that nine unmanned US drones on Tuesday evening fired 19 missiles on Dattakhel village in the Degan area of North Waziristan, across from the Afghan province of Khost, killing at least 31 people and injuring many more.

Security officials who spoke to Asia Times Online say the prime target is believed to have been Afghan Taliban leader Sirajuddin Haqqani.

"The extraordinary high-profile attack through a barrage of drone
strikes was the result of a recent surge in intelligence all along the border regions," one official told ATol on the condition of anonymity.

"The Americans have been heavily bribing [Afghan] tribal people to inform on the militants and their hideouts across the border in the Pakistani tribal areas. In the coming days, similar [drone attacks] is likely to be meted out in Orakzai Agency, Khyber Agency, Bajaur and Mohmand," said the official.

According to reports that Asia Times Online has not been able to officially confirm, the US has distributed about US$12 million among Shinwari tribesmen in the six districts of the Afghan province of Nangarhar. Their brief is to provide detailed information on the Taliban's Tora Bora Brigade, whose bases stretch from the Khogyani district of Nangarhar to the Tora Bora mountains and across the border into the Tera Valley in Khyber Agency, Parachinar in Kurram Agency and Orakzai Agency. Shinwari tribesmen live on both sides of the Durand line that separates the two countries and engage in extensive trading.

A similar approach is being adopted with other Afghan tribes along the border areas specifically to target anti-Western militants.

Over the past few years, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the US Central Intelligence Agency have tried to set up a network of informers in the Pakistani tribal areas, but informants have systematically been exposed and executed by militants. Hence the use now of Afghans with ties on both sides of the border.

The drone attacks and the intelligence-gathering are a part of the US's "track two" approach that also includes an increasing military presence inside Pakistan.

On Wednesday, three American soldiers were killed and two others injured in a bomb attack in Lower Dir, bordering Bajaur Agency. The attack, in which a Pakistani soldier and three schoolgirls were also killed and hundreds injured, marks the first fatal Taliban operation against the US military inside Pakistan. The bomb went off as a security convoy traveled to a school that was celebrating its reopening after being damaged in an earlier militant attack.

The Pakistan army is heavily engaged against militants in Bajaur, which is one of the major supply lines for the Afghan Taliban in the provinces of Kunar and Nuristan. Last November, the Taliban seized virtual control of Nuristan and forced American forces to vacate their three main bases in the province.

The US Embassy in Islamabad stated that the three US soldiers killed had been deployed as trainers to the Pakistani Frontier Corps (FC). Training courses in counter-insurgency are meant to take place in Peshawar, capital of North-West Frontier Province, and in Buner in the same province.

By implication, with the soldiers being some way from their designated training centers, they could have been overseeing FC operations in Lower Dir or Bajaur Agency, where a tough battle against Taliban and al-Qaeda militants is underway - both sides have sustained heavy casualties in the past few days.

The US is operating its track two approach in conjunction with the ongoing initiative to seek dialogue with elements of the Taliban. This process has a long way to go, and the touted breakthrough of the United Nations removing five former Afghan Taliban officials from its sanctions blacklist is of no real significance as the five defected immediately after the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

The UN said the five would no longer be subject to international travel bans and a freeze on their assets. All five men were members of the Taliban government and were blacklisted in 2001. They are Abdul Wakil Mutawakil, a former foreign minister; Faiz Mohammad Faizan, a former deputy commerce minister; Shams-us-Safa, a former Foreign Ministry official; Mohammad Musa, a deputy planning minister; Abdul Hakim, a former deputy frontier affairs minister.

Of these, one of the most interesting is Abdul Hakim, who after fleeing Afghanistan held a press conference in Pakistan along with former Taliban provincial ministers at which they announced the formation of the Jamiat Khuddamul Koran. This group, with the backing of the ISI, condemned Taliban leader Mullah Omar for providing sanctuary to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Within a few months, Jamiat Khuddamul Koran disappeared off the scene and Abdul Hakim turned up in Kabul, the Afghan capital, where he became loyal to President Hamid Karzai. Most of the other members of the group joined the Taliban in the fight against foreign troops in Afghanistan.

‘Elite US troops ready to combat Pak nukes hijack’

2010-01-18T09:38:00.000-08:00

This post is just to aware people to analyse what's being published in western media.		Admin



A report of Christina Lamb in the Sunday Times LONDON: The US Army is training a crack unit to seal off and snatch back Pakistani nuclear weapons in the event that militants, possibly from inside the country’s security apparatus, get their hands on a nuclear device or materials that could make one. However, a Foreign Office spokesman rejected the report saying Pakistan’s strategic assets are as safe as that of any other nuclear weapon state and these assets are fully safeguarded and secure under the protection of a well-established command and control system. According to a report appearing in the Sunday Times, the specialised unit would be charged with recovering the nuclear materials and securing them. “What you have in Pakistan is nuclear weapons mixed with the highest density of extremists in the world, so we have a right to be concerned,” said Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, a former CIA officer, who used to run the US Energy Department’s intelligence unit. “There have been attacks on army bases which stored nuclear weapons and there have been breaches and infiltrations by terrorists into military facilities.” In a counterterrorism journal, published by America’s West Point military academy, he documented three incidents. The first was an attack in November 2007 at Sargodha in Punjab, where nuclear capable F-16 jet aircraft are thought to be stationed. The following month a suicide bomber struck at Pakistan’s nuclear airbase at Kamra in Attock district. In August 2008, a group of suicide bombers blew up the gates to a weapons complex at the Wah Cantonment in Punjab, believed to be one of Pakistan’s nuclear warhead assembly plants. The attack left 63 people dead. A further attack followed at Kamra last October. Pakistan denies that the base still has a nuclear role, but Gregory believes it does. A six-man suicide team was arrested in Sargodha last August. Fears that militants could penetrate a nuclear facility intensified after a brazen attack on army headquarters in Rawalpindi in October when 10 gunmen wearing army uniforms got inside and laid siege for 22 hours. Last month there was an attack on the naval command centre in Islamabad. Al-Qaeda leadership has made no secret of its desire to get its hands on weapons for a “nuclear 9/11”. “I have no doubt they are hell-bent on acquiring this,” said Mowatt-Larssen. “These guys are thinking of nuclear at the highest level and are approaching it in increasingly professional ways.” Nuclear experts and US officials say the biggest fear is of an inside job amid growing anti-American feeling in Pakistan. Last year 3,021 Pakistanis were killed in terrorist attacks, more than in Afghanistan, yet polls suggest Pakistanis consider the United States to be a greater threat than the Taliban. “You have 8,000-12,000 [people] in Pakistan with some type of role in nuclear missiles — whether as part of an assembly team or security,” said Gregory. “It’s a very large number and there is a real possibility that among those people are sympathisers of terrorist or Jihadist groups who may facilitate some kind of attack.” Pakistan is thought to possess about 80 nuclear warheads. Although, the weapons are well guarded, the fear is that materials or processes to enrich uranium could fall into the wrong hands. “All it needs is someone in Pakistan within the nuclear establishment and in a position of key access to become radicalised,” said Mowatt-Larssen. “This is not just theoretical. It did happen — Pakistan has had inside problems before.” Bashir Mahmood, the former head of Pakistan’s plutonium reactor, formed the Islamic charity Ummah Tameer-e-Nau in March 2000 after resigning from the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission. He was arrested in Islamabad on October 23, 2001, with his associate Abdul Majeed for alleged links to Osama bin Laden. Pakistan’s military leadership, which controls the nuclear programme, has always bristled at the suggestion that its nuclear facilities are at risk. The generals insist that storing components in different sites keeps them secure. US officials refused to speak on the record about American safety plans, well aware of how this would be seen in Islamabad. However, one official admitted that the United States does not know where all of Pakistan’s storage sites are located. “Don’t assume the US knows everything,” he said. Concerns about hostility towards America within elements of the Pakistani armed forces first surfaced in 2007. At a meeting of military commanders staged at Kurram, on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, a Pakistani major drew his pistol and shot an American. The incident was hushed up as a gunfight.

The top brass and the untenable political logjam

2010-01-17T01:57:00.000-08:00

January 17, 2010

JCSC press release says much between the lines; meetings involving civilians, khakis and Americans discuss unsustainable uncertainty; will Zardari be allowed to appoint his own ISI chief in March and to announce new Army chief in June?

By Shaheen Sehbai

WASHINGTON: A series of back-to-back meetings of the military high command, major players of the civil and khaki establishment topped up with an exclusive session of the Army high-ups with the Americans, have all highlighted the almost unsustainable uncertainty created by the current political milieu in Pakistan.

Some of the military meetings have even publicly admitted that the domestic situation was discussed in detail and, almost like the GHQ response to the Kerry-Lugar Bill, the press release issued after the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee meeting carried comments which were of immense importance and possible implications.

The JCSC release said: “The committee deliberated in detail complex internal security situation... It expressed satisfaction on the state of preparedness of the armed forces of Pakistan and had a deliberate discussion on various measures for effectively dealing with the assessed security challenges confronting the country.” (Italics added)

Whatever the official press releases say, no one can deny that the main underlying subject of concern in all these meetings was the political situation and the state of confrontation between institutions which a beleaguered president has created by refusing to present himself before the law, by politicising his personal corruption and by trying to divide the country on ethnic and regional lines, all to save himself from accountability. This is now being treated as a major security challenge to the country.

The situation is getting unbearable because the petty politics of personal preservation, using the highest and the lowest offices of the state, has thrown the country’s security and military establishment into confusion which can create havoc given the massive internal threats and external challenges.

The greatest concern is that our fighters on the diplomatic and military battle fronts are not getting the internal political cohesion and strength which is desperately needed to face domestic terrorists and external pressures to do more, although this terminology may not be in use but whatever language is used carries the same message.

The long sessions of military generals, some with their own boys and some with civilians present, have probably chalked out their strategy if this political fog does not clear soon. When the JCSC officially states that a “deliberate discussion on various measures” was held, it says between the lines that various scenarios have been discussed and what to do has been decided.

Probably the broad outlines of the decisions have also been conveyed to the American decision makers as they too are more than worried about the non-serious attitude of top elected leaders when the country needed mature thinking, concerted efforts and coordination, instead of irresponsible jockeying for power and playing to the galleries.

The prolonging situation is causing hysteria in some circles because critical deadlines are approaching for major decisions yet the message being sent by the ruling PPP is that they will keep playing games, to gain as much time as they can, until either they are forced out of power or they consolidate their grip on key institutions.

The complex situation, not mentioned in the military press releases but obviously referred to between the lines, can be summarised as:

- What will happen if the Supreme Court’s judgments are not implemented by the Executive branch.

- What will happen if the government continues to defy the Supreme Court on appointment of new judges and other matters.

- What will the GHQ do if the Supreme Court asks for Army help under Article 190 of the Constitution.

- Will the mobilisation of Sindhi forces by the PPP, or the so-called Sindh card, be a serious threat to the federation, if Zardari forces it upon the nation.

- What will the PML-N and other political forces do as the PPP is not serious in removing the 17th Amendment and is playing for time.

- Should this non-serious and corruption-tainted leadership of the PPP be allowed to insult the intelligence of the nation by appointing and promoting leaders accused of taking bribes.

- Should this leadership be permitted to appoint its own ISI chief in March when the current incumbent is to retire, may be a personal corrupt crony of the president.

- Should the situation be allowed to drag on, until say June, when the politically shrewd Zardari makes a premature announcement to replace the current Army chief, retiring in November, in an effort to turn him into a lame-duck and create a rift within the Army.

- What happens in Karachi if the PPP leadership tries to play games with the MQM and takes over the main power base of the party by appointing its own administrators and then delaying the local bodies elections or rigging them.

- Who looks after the security situation when top leadership has no credibility and is involved in court cases, seeking bails and providing sureties.

- Who would mobilise the nation to take a tough and independent stand against the US policy in Afghanistan, now that a surge is imminent and drone attacks have, and will, increase in ferocity and numbers.

- Is Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani ready to go down with his president, should the courts and justice system catches up with him. What then?

- Is Mian Nawaz Sharif or the PML-N ready to let the country go down just to protect some corrupt politicians who have been elected by sheer stroke of luck, chance, and trickery, in the name of saving the democratic set up.

- Is there a serious threat to democracy if a political leader is caught stealing and courts convict him or try to get the looted money back.

These, and many more related issues, have been discussed at all the forums and broad policy decisions appear to have been taken. How will these decisions be seen and felt by the nation will depend on the pace of the various processes which are continuing and will go on.

The most awaited detailed judgment in the NRO case will probably trigger the series of events that will unfold. The PPP has so far refused to implement the judgment and it is set to continue the defiance. If the Supreme Court fails to get its judgments implemented, then the entire people’s movement for an independent judiciary will come to a naught. That no one will want, so the next logical step is for the SC to ask for help, which will have to come, as required under the Constitution.

Even then if the PPP defiance continues, the coalition partners in parliament will have to decide whether they want a Zardari dictatorship or rule of law and the establishment will again get the chance to play the decisive role in influencing their judgments.

If after all the turmoil and turbulence it appears that the present parliament is unable to give a stable majority government, the only option will be to go back to the people for mid-term polls.

The tragedy is that in all these crucial matters, the attitude of the elected PPP leadership is despicable and pathetic. The PPP claims to be a federal party but is behaving like a petty opposition group, unable to make up its mind whether it should play a sobering and mature national political role or confine itself to a small nationalist group in Sindh.

The bottom-line is that everyone who is concerned knows what is going on and no one will allow the present policy of Zardari to succeed. He thinks he will take everybody down, if he goes down himself, but no body is going with him as he as to clear himself of corruption charges before claiming to be a moral or national leader of a province or the country. His election as president has not washed away the charges against him. In fact he has, by his actions, reinforced his image of a non-serious, happy-go-lucky, not too worried about moral issues guy, who has nothing to lose. This image of the president of Pakistan is untenable.

Pakistan's military makes a stand By Syed Sy Saleem Shehzad

2010-01-17T01:37:00.000-08:00

Pakistan's military makes a stand
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

ISLAMABAD - After several months of backroom wheeling and dealing between the United States and the top brass in the Pakistani garrison city of Rawalpindi, Washington has expressed its full trust in Pakistan's military leadership and its apparatus, including the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which in turn is preparing to fight the next phase in the South Asia war theater.

This will focus on the hunt for high-profile al-Qaeda targets in the Shawal and Datta Khel areas of Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal area, where it is believed Osama bin Laden's deputy, Dr Ayman

Al-Zawahiri, and the shura (council) of al-Qaeda are hiding. Over the past few weeks, the US has stepped up drone attacks in the region.

United States Senator Joe Lieberman, who recently visited Pakistan, confirmed on Sunday that the Pakistani army "is on the move" and that there is the "possibility the US will see activity in that volatile northern region [North Waziristan]". Lieberman met with Pakistan's military chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani.

In the latest drone attack early on Thursday morning, two missile strikes were reported to have killed 10 suspected militants in a compound in the Pasalkot area of North Waziristan. Several days ago, the US said it had killed 12 people at a suspected Taliban training center about 30 kilometers west of Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan.

In the latter stages of last year, the Pakistan military waged a months-long offensive in South Waziristan against the Pakistani Taliban, with some success. The operation in North Waziristan, however, will concentrate solely on al-Qaeda and its affiliates.

This understanding was reached after some tricky negotiations. The US initially wanted a broader Pakistani campaign, even suggesting that if Pakistan did not cooperate, it would send in its own special forces for ground assaults and mount daily drone strikes inside North Waziristan.

Pakistan argued that its military was stretched as its forces were already committed in Swat, South Waziristan and the agencies of Mohmand, Bajaur and Khyber.

A senior Pakistani security official told Asia Times Online on the condition of anonymity that Pakistan was also reluctant to undertake a full operation in North Waziristan because that region was not a main sanctuary for the Taliban, as is South Waziristan. The official said that the Americans were therefore told that Pakistan's participation would be limited to the elimination of al-Qaeda and its affiliate groups. At the same time, he hinted at a possible role for Pakistan in facilitating negotiations with the Afghan Taliban.

The recent deadly suicide attack on a US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) base in Khost province in Afghanistan was plotted by al-Qaeda in North Waziristan. (See US spies walked into al-Qaeda's trap Asia Times Online, January 5, 2009.)

The dispute over the level of Pakistan's involvement caused bad blood on both sides. At one point, the Pakistani military establishment clamped down on the many American defense contractors in the country, and even American diplomats were forced to tangle with red tape, so much so that the US ambassador, Anne W Patterson, made a public protest.

Nonetheless, this proved to be just another episode in the love-hate relationship between the two allies who both desperately need one another. As a result, communication began at new levels. Sources privy to the military establishment say that a major turnaround was the visit late last year of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Islamabad.

Washington conceded that the government of President Asif Ali Zardari had a "credibility deficit" and the only option was to rely on the Pakistan army. The visit of Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, in the second week of December was also a milestone. He returned to Washington and lobbied in favor of the US dealing directly with Kiani.

There followed a string of visits by American military officials and senators, including that of Lieberman, who confirmed that the Pakistan army was the only hope in tackling the troubles in South Asia.

One of the consequences of this is that Washington has informed Islamabad that the term of the director general of the ISI, Lieutenant General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, should be extended. He is due to retire in March. A few months later, Kiani is due to step down, and if Pasha is not reappointed, Pasha will be the next chief of army staff by virtue of his seniority.

Understandably, Zardari's government initially reacted badly to being snubbed - and dictated to - by the US. A senior member of the ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP), barrister Kamal Azfar, said in a statement that both the CIA and the Pakistani military headquarters aimed to derail democracy in the country. Then throughout the month of December, Zardari and cabinet members spoke out against the military establishment.

The military hit back, and under its pressure Zardari surprised everybody by giving up the chairmanship of the National Command Authority, which controls the country's nuclear weapons. It is now firmly under the military's wing.

On December 29, on the second anniversary of the assassination of his wife, Benazir Bhutto, Zardari delivered an inflammatory speech against the military, taking aback even members of his PPP.

Frantic meetings followed between Zardari and go-betweens for the military, resulting eventually in an understanding that the president would take briefs from the army chief on all issues and then speak accordingly.

The military has effectively put Zardari in his place, just as it has got its way with the US over North Waziristan: Washington and the Pakistani civilian government have no option but to follow the game accordingly.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com