ASIF Zardari could have been out of jail four, three or two years ago. If he is out now, without being convicted of anything, he could have been out then. But even though the many cases against him were visibly going nowhere, the Musharraf regime held on to him as a pawn or a likely bargaining chip, in the belief that at some point in the future his release might have to be traded for some advantage to the government.

That’s precisely what’s happened, Zardari released not because Army House has been swept by some new spirit of reconciliation but in pursuit of the government’s one-point agenda of keeping the opposition divided and off-balance on the uniform issue.

One thing we need to keep in mind. Zardari’s release has been ordered not by the government but by the Supreme Court. The present Chief Justice, Nazim Hussain Siddiqui, is a difficult man in the sense that he is completely unapproachable — whether for the government, any opposition party or even big money. He is also a bit of an odd character in the sense that although he is set to retire in July next year, he owns no house anywhere in Pakistan, which is indeed strange in a country where the dominating passion of anyone in a position of influence or authority is endless house or land-grabbing.

The point I make is that even if the government had wanted to, it could not have prevented Zardari’s bail in the BMW case. Of course, as Sindh Chief Minister Arbab Rahim aptly observes, the government could have slapped a charge of goat-lifting on Zardari and still kept him in prison. But that’s a different matter. A politically inaccessible chief justice happened to coincide with the government’s own need to show political flexibility at this juncture. So it’s probably fair to say the government made a virtue of necessity.

Triumph of justice? No. The triumph of expediency is more like it.

But, you might ask, in keeping with ‘the new spirit of reconciliation’, hasn’t Gen Musharraf also telephoned the two Sharifs in Jeddah to condole with them on the death of their father, Mian Muhammad Sharif? He has indeed. But we need to get something straight.

Musharraf is all for reconciliation and indeed has always been so inclined but on his terms. As Plutarch said of conquerors, they are lovers of peace; they would like to make their entry into your cities unopposed. Musharraf too is a man of peace who has always wanted everyone in Pakistan to accept him as the country’s uniformed ruler, that too not for a fixed term but until further orders.

He is holding out an olive branch to both the PPP and the PML-N not because he is willing to give or concede anything but because, as always, he wants to take something. He wants them to acquiesce in his rule and accept him as president. Once the two parties do that, he has no quarrel with them.

And once they become pragmatic or patriotic — make your choice — he will have no further use for the maulanas of the MMA who, in effect, have been his real partners, voting for the 17th Amendment and legitimizing his rule, thereby preventing the opposition from speaking with one voice on important political questions.

Not that the two parties are likely to be as foolish or as easily beguiled as the president’s inner circle, also known as the “core group”, would like them to be. But a distinction between the two parties is in order. For obvious reasons, while the distance between Army House and the Sharifs may be considered unbridgeable, the PPP, from day one, has stood for cooperation with Musharraf. It is Musharraf who spurned Benazir Bhutto, sparing no opportunity to denounce her and her party for everything under the sun.

Now of course completely different vibes emanate from Musharraf’s core group, encouraging seasoned weathermen like my friend Mushahid Hussain to play on the theme of reconciliation. This indicates no change of heart around Musharraf’s round table, only a change of emphasis on how best to preserve and protect the present order. As the president might put it himself, a change in tactics perhaps yes, but no change in strategy.

The central tenet of regime policy remains unchanged: that the president’s uniform is the centre of the solar system. To be fair to the astronomers subscribing to this article of faith, they know what they are talking about because strip the president of his uniform and the tectonic plates shift at once. Forget about the president’s person, the system as at present manufactured immediately collapses, the king’s party, the Q League, dissolving faster than any chemical substance known to man, the Chaudries who look so potent reduced once more to the barony of Gujrat, while the man already labelled in some circles as the Briefcase Prime Minister (someone ready to leave at a moment’s notice) on the next plane to New York.

Spare a thought for the thunderbirds of the MMA, who want to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds, be for all practical purposes a part of the present system yet give the appearance of holding on stoutly to the opposite bank. They don’t want the system’s collapse because that would imperil the gains they made in the last elections: paramountcy in the Frontier, share of half the cake in Balochistan, office of certified opposition leader in Islamabad. But they are also not happy with egg on their face in the form of the widespread belief that they are the regime’s B team.

Musharraf rule may have brought the maulanas vast political benefits but it has also given them a national reputation for political hypocrisy. Their quandary consists in not knowing how to wipe their image clean without imperilling their gains.

Anyway, whether Zardari’s release is a gift of expediency or a real change in the alignment of the stars, it signifies the end of one of the longest apprenticeships in Pakistani politics. Even though he wielded great behind-the-scenes power during his wife’s two stints as prime minister, he was never perceived as a leader or political figure in his own right. His importance was derivative, flowing from his position as First Husband, a galling circumstance for a man of his pride.

Now for the first time, thanks to the strength and resilience with which he bore his eight years as a prisoner, he emerges as a leader in his own right. Once he takes up residence in Lahore, the power-house of Pakistani politics, he becomes undisputed leader of the Punjab PPP, in a position to chart the party’s return to power.

But before he works any miracles, and I hope I inject no jarring note into the PPP’s festive season, he will have to overcome some of the tendencies, to put it no stronger than this, which brought a bad name to the PPP when it was in power. Let the past bury its dead and let us all learn some lessons from our bitter national experience, unless of course we want to remain under military rule forever.

But just to get a feel of how things come full circle, it is perhaps instructive to ask what’s become of Zardari’s original tormentor, witless Farooq Khan Leghari, who as president threw him behind bars in November 1996 when, with Gen Jahangir Karamat’s help, Benazir Bhutto’s second government was dismissed. While Zardari’s star shines, it has been some time since Leghari’s fortunes dwindled to a speck on the political horizon.

The law of unintended consequences: no sharper illustration of this than the fall and rise of Asif Ali Zardari.