Word: musharraf
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...wake of the 9/11 attacks, then President Pervez Musharraf had little choice but to support the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan - despite his misgivings over Washington's strategy there. Indeed, Pakistan had helped install the Taliban in Kabul in 1996, to ensure that the nation's western flank was controlled by a friendly regime. Even a month after the U.S. air campaign in Afghanistan began in October 2001, President Musharraf declared publicly that his government had no intention of breaking diplomatic ties with the Taliban, saying the ties provided a "useful diplomatic window" and claiming that the relationship was "fruitful...
...None of this necessarily puts the U.S. and Pakistan on a collision course. The Obama Administration has begun to talk of reconciliation with moderate Taliban elements, and some in the Pakistani leadership may be hoping to move Washington closer to the approach urged by Musharraf at the very beginning of the war: separating the Taliban from al-Qaeda...
...Those in Pakistan's security establishment who maintain ties with the Taliban may, as Musharraf did in 2001, see Pakistan serving as a useful interlocutor with a movement that remains central to Afghanistan's fate. When the New York Times reported last week on the ongoing links between the ISI and the Taliban, it also reported that the British government "has sent several dispatches to Islamabad in recent months asking that the ISI use its strategy meetings with the Taliban to persuade its commanders to scale back violence in Afghanistan before the August presidential election there...
...comparisons with Musharraf's authoritarian tactics sharpened when, on Friday evening, two of Pakistan's lively TV news channels went off the air across vast swath of the country. Aaj TV's broadcasts were limited by cable operators, as Geo News, the most popular news channel, disappeared altogether in major cities. The channel's management accused Zardari of directly ordering the shutdown - charges that the President's spokesmen strenuously deny. "At around 7 p.m., we began receiving reports that people were not able to receive Geo on their television sets," says Azhar Abbas, director of Geo News. "After inquiries...
...Critics of Zardari charge that he is unwilling to reinstate Chaudhry out of a fear that the independent-minded judge, who harried Musharraf's military rule in its last year, would revive corruption cases against the President. The government counters that Chaudhry has become "too politicized" and could paralyze their administration with his enthusiasm for judicial activism. But given the momentum generated by lawyers, Sharif supporters and other segments of the opposition and media, it is difficult to see how Zardari can forge a path out of this crisis without restoring Chaudhry to his old office...