He may have himself prepared the ground that gave him the excuse to pitch a sales line at a very unlikely place when he told an American TV channel, ahead of his meeting with President George W. Bush, that just after the 9/11 attack on America, the then US deputy secretary of state, Richard Armitage, had warned him that his country would be bombed to ‘stone age’ if he did not fall in line.

Musharraf surely has a sense of timing, if the comment attributed to the barrel-chested Armitage, is true. Musharraf kept mum about the alleged threat for five years. He opened his mouth after a long gap at a time and at a place where he thought his commercial-cum political interests would be best served. It is a different matter that his calculations might go wrong.

Armitage has denied the comment attributed to him by Musharraf, who actually claims that he was told about the ‘stone age’ threat by his intelligence chief, Lt Gen Mahmoud Ahmed. The credibility and the mindset of this Pakistani general need to be questioned. That he was in Washington on September 11, 2001 may be incidental. But he was also the person Musharraf had sent to Kabul, just after 9/11, allegedly with the intention of talking the Taliban regime into doing a U-turn on terrorism. Mahmoud Ahmed did the opposite, assuring the Taliban rulers in Kabul of his support. When the Americans learnt about it they were furious. Musharraf had to remove this general and, indeed, a few more of the ‘Mullah Generals’ in his army.

At the time Armitage spoke to Mahmoud Ahmed. Pak ambassador to the US, Maleeha Lodhi, was also present. (A former journalist, she is a favourite of the establishment. Right now she is envoy to the UK. She may come to Delhi to succeed career diplomat Aziz Ahmed Khan who soon completes his term as High Commissioner). She has refused to comment on the ‘stone age’ threat leak. She might have chosen to remain silent because she knew Armitage had not spoken the words that Musharraf says Mahmoud Ahmed conveyed to him.

The White House sales talk of Musharraf would contribute to an improvement in his battered image within his country. The Mullahs who were his allies till the other day refuse to join him as they pursue a more vicious anti-American line. Many in Pakistan are saying they knew it all along that Pakistan had joined the so-called war on terror under duress, though Musharraf has always maintained that he did his famous U-turn in renouncing terrorism in ‘national interest’. And both Bush and Musharraf want the world to know that the ‘war on terror’ is being fought by a ‘coalition of the willing.’

Even the sales pitch about the book, In Line of Fire, drew a lot of flack from a wide section of Americans who were aghast by the insolence of the Pakistani general in turning his joint press conference with the world’s most powerful leader into a ‘book promo’ occasion. When Musharraf dodged a question on the ‘stone age’ threat saying that he was ‘honour bound’ not to speak about his book before its release (on September 25), Bush became a joint promoter of Musharraf’s ghost-written book with the comment ‘he is saying, buy the book.’ Bush thought it was all very funny.

Not so, said the New York Times columnist, Maureen Dowd. Her reaction to the Musharraf antic was that the Pakistani president was ‘a smooth operator, a military dictator cruising around the capital….. (and) talking about how much he likes democracy, which he won’t yet allow (in his country)’. She also noted that on the subject of arresting Osama bin Laden ‘he is so slippery you want to lock him in a room with the muscle-bound Armitage.’ Her concluding remarks were even more biting when she reminded Americans that Iraq was invaded because it was being run by a dictator who harboured terrorists to stay in power, Musharraf, a great American ally in the ‘war on terror’, is a dictator who harbours terrorists, ‘including the one we want most’.

George Bush would certainly disagree with Maureen Dowd because he continues to renew his good conduct certificate to Musharraf. The latest testimonial from the White House says that Musharraf is helping ‘to defend the civilised world.’ But many Americans, ordinary persons as well as analysts, tend to agree with Mauren. No surprise therefore that Bush ratings are falling.

How an average American or people of other countries view Musharraf is illustrated by bloggers on the Internet. Here is a sample. Wrote an American, “Musharraf heads a state that admitted to running a nuclear weapons black market, and then denied the world access to the main accused. In the last couple of years every big terrorist attack anywhere has had a Pakistani connection”.

A Canadian said that as a large number of Pakistanis sympathise with Al Qaeda, the Islamabad’s hot pursuit of global terrorist No. 1 is ‘half-hearted’ and ‘Pakistan is a hot bed of implacable Islamic extremism and ambition. Some day this will bring matters to a head’.

One Japanese recalled that Bush invaded Iraq because he said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction; Pakistan has nuclear bombs. So how are America and Pakistan talking as ‘friends’?

At least some Pakistanis refuse to be impressed by their uniformed president. One of them has informed the fellow bloggers that his countrymen think that Musharraf is ‘a liar’. They have noted that Bush has ‘always eulogised his efforts’, but the people in Pakistan are used to the ‘whimsical ways’ of Musharraf.

As for the memoir, a British blogger may have got it right when he wrote that it should not come as a surprise if one day it was ‘suddenly’ found that Musharraf was ‘misinformed’ and some ‘peon’ in Pakistan will be sacked and Musharraf would be in the clear.


Courtesy : Syndicate Features

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