US eyes Pakistan's nuclear
arsenal By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - Benazir Bhutto, just weeks after
returning from years of exile to take part in the
United States-sponsored master plan for her to
share power with President General Pervez
Musharraf, has launched a scathing attack on the
general, demanding that he step down
unconditionally.
"It is time for him to
go. He must quit as president," the former premier
was quoted as saying on Tuesday from behind the
barbed wire that is keeping her under house arrest
at her residence in
Lahore.
The
remarkable falling out between Bhutto and
Musharraf since he declared a state of emergency
nearly two weeks ago on the surface dashes all US
hopes for a stable democratic government in
Pakistan amenable to Washington's dictates in the
"war on terror".
Yet the seemingly
calamitous developments - which have provoked
widespread demonstrations against Musharraf's
government - might in fact still fit into the US's
grand scheme for the embattled country: to gain
control of its nuclear weapons so they do not fall
into the hands of Islamist fanatics.
Contacts close to the power circles in
Pakistan told Asia Times Online that there is a
feeling that the US is prepared to take
"hurricane" measures to ensure the safety of the
country's nuclear arsenal. The thinking goes that
by changing horses and supporting Bhutto, the US
could exploit the current unrest by dictating new
terms to Pakistan in the "war on terror" and
coerce it into allowing the US to safeguard its
nuclear stockpile.
US Deputy Secretary of
State John Negroponte is due to travel to Pakistan
this week to meet with senior officials and call
for free and fair elections, echoing Bhutto's
stance.
Islamabad is acutely aware of US
concerns, and has taken the trouble to reassure
Washington. "There were so many messages from the
West through the media as well as directly that
Pakistani weapons could be seized by Islamic
extremists that our Foreign Office clarified [to
the US] that our nuclear installations are so safe
that they cannot even be monitored by American
satellite, let alone that somebody sitting in a
place like Tora Bora [in Afghanistan] could guess
where they are," a contact told Asia Times Online.
Indeed, the US belief that it could in
some way get its hands on Pakistan's "red" nuclear
buttons, by exploiting unrest for which it is
partly responsible, sends alarm bells ringing in
Islamabad.
Enter, therefore, King Abdullah
of Saudi Arabia, whom Musharraf is expected to
meet "soon" in Riyadh for what the official
Pakistani media describe as "important
discussions".
Musharraf aims to convey to
the West - and to the US in particular - through
King Abdullah that the Americans would never be
allowed to fill any vacuum in Pakistan. Rather,
chaos will play directly into the hands of the
very militants and extremists the West fears so
much and who have ever-growing bases just hours
from the capital in the tribal areas on the border
with Afghanistan.
In a similar manner,
King Abdullah's recent groundbreaking visit to
Pope Benedict XVI in the Vatican was also aimed at
warning the West of the dangers of its policies
towards the Middle East and the Islamic world.
King Abdullah is no fundamentalist, but
culturally he is deeply aware of the Arab tribal
Islamic ethos in terms of which opponents are made
aware of each other's ideas.
The monarch
expressed his view to the pope that the
Judeo-Christian frame of mind over the past 150
years has been a major stumbling block to world
peace - especially in the Middle East - and the
institution of the Catholic Church is supportive
of it.
He elaborated that Muslim ruling
elites are as a result becoming marginalized from
their people and thus the masses could not be
controlled. He clearly warned the pope to advise
Western leaders that their policies would create
an explosive situation in Palestine in the very
near future and nobody, not even he (Abdullah),
would be able to control it.
Musharraf's
meeting with Abdullah is a major milestone as it
provides the opportunity for Washington to be
persuaded against following a policy that pits
Musharraf against Bhutto so that space is created
for the Americans to meddle.
Bhutto
makes a move Following her call on Tuesday
for Musharraf to step down, Bhutto spoke to
cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan and leaders
of the opposition and even to the premier Islamic
party, Jamaat-i-Islami, to sound them out on
building a national opposition alliance with her
Pakistan People's Party to oust Musharraf.
Bhutto has previously called for Musharraf
to step down as chief of the army, but she has
never before insisted that he should not even be
tolerated as a civilian president.
A
senior leader of the Jamaat-i-Islami told Asia
Times Online that Bhutto was not simply making
half-hearted efforts, she was very serious and
committed to forming an opposition alliance to end
the rule that Musharraf began when he staged a
coup in October 1999.
The tiger that the
US is riding is becoming harder to dismount.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia
Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be
reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com
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