ASIF Ali Zardari was propelled into the highest office in the land as the direct consequence of one of the more traumatic tragedies to hit this hapless country.

This accidental president couldn’t have had it any better. The People’s Party which he is “looking after” while Benazir’s son and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s grandson comes of age, rules in the centre and Sindh and Balochistan, and is in a coalition in the Frontier and the Mother of All Provinces, Punjab.

The army seems in no mood to take over, considering the hash it has made of things in its last tenure as the Commando’s handmaiden, and seeing the dismal state the country is in. Add to this the fact that Obama who has already declared in words to the effect that he will simply not tolerate any more men on horseback is now the president instead of the brilliant ‘Dubya’ who just did not have the intellect to see that military rule was no good from any point of view.

The main party in Punjab, once a sworn enemy of the People’s Party (and vice-versa), has extended the hand of friendship and support to Zardari and has publicly promised him a free ride for a five-year term in government provided he restores the judiciary sacked by the Commando and implements the Charter of Democracy signed by Benazir Bhutto. He is so reverent about her that he actually took Benazir’s photograph to the United Nations General Assembly and placed it on the lectern, facing the audience, as he spoke as Pakistan’s president.

This is not all. He himself promised, on live TV, and put his signatures on at least two documents pledging that he would restore the judges in line with Benazir’s own public promises.

Why then, you would ask, does he not restore the judges and implement the CoD? Some say that he will not because he is petrified that My Lord Iftikhar Chaudhry will make trouble for him re: the NRO. But hang on: there was news some time ago that the NRO was a done deal; that much water had passed under the Ravi bridge since then; and that therefore the PML-N would help validate the NRO through the National Assembly were Zardari to fulfill these long-standing promises.

Why then does he not? Your guess is as good as mine but gup has it that the American administration, well the Bushies, could simply not abide My Lord Chaudhry for the only reason that he dared ask the whereabouts of the many hundred disappeared Pakistanis. These inquiries would have led to more questions being asked about other people sold by the Pakistani state to the CIA for bounty money.

Which reminds me: there was the Commando, being economical with the truth, this time at Stanford (who ought to be ashamed of itself for inviting a military dictator), that the people “handed over” for bounty to the Americans were “foreigners”. Really, general? Then who is Masood Janjua please?

Here is an excerpt from an Amnesty International press release of Nov 13 headlined ‘Hopes dashed for Pakistan’s disappeared’: “On Tuesday 13 November, 2007, Pakistan’s Supreme Court was due to hear the cases of 485 individuals — all victims of enforced disappearance over the past six years. Some had been labelled terrorists or threats to national security.” Please note, reader, that My Lord Chaudhry had been dismissed under the emergency on Nov 3. So who were these individuals, Commando Sahib?

Incidentally, these 485 were just the tip of the iceberg: there are reportedly several thousand disappeared Pakistanis being tortured, as I write this, in some gulag somewhere in this world run by some sinister ‘agency’ or the other, some surely in the Land of the Pure, the Citadel of Islam, too.

Whatever the reason(s) that Asif Zardari is not carrying out his party’s/his own promises, the fact surely is that the People’s Party’s popularity is plummeting and that of the PML-N said to be rising with every passing day. Surely he is being told by the cabal that surrounds him — Khosa, Naek, Babar, Taseer And Company — that once the PPP inveigles itself into the majority in the Senate, they will be able to steamroll everything in their way. That all that needs to be done is to remove the Punjab government of Shahbaz Sharif by hook or by crook and all will be smooth sailing?

Is there no one in the party to disabuse Asif of this notion? Is there no one to tell him that others in the political field are no fools either, that they too are politicians of long standing who now have a very great advantage over him — that they stand by what is right, and that he stands on the wrong side? That, most of all, the PPP will be doing to the PML-N what the Commando did to the PPP in Sindh in 2002 when he cobbled together a government at the expense of the majority party?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch we go on making fools of ourselves, as per usual. First, the FO “welcomes” the appointment of Richard Holbrooke as the new special American envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan! Welcome? Why? Then we have the prime minister actually inviting him to visit Pakistan! I ask you.

Do we not know what special envoys do? Do we not know that American special envoys are only appointed to trouble spots that cannot be handled by the line officials of the State Department? Do we not know that special envoys carry a big stick and use it often? So how is the appointment of Holbrooke an occasion for such joy that we must officially welcome his appointment?As for Gilani’s invitation to him to visit the Fatherland, do we not know that American envoys go where they please when they please? More than that, should the prime minister be inviting a bureaucrat who will answer to the secretary of state? Shouldn’t his invitations be limited to the president and the vice president of the United States? Or was this invitation a means to get into Holbrooke’s affections?

Seriously though, despite the fact that Holbrooke has quite a chequered past and no expertise in this region, he is an effective and forceful man who is experienced enough to know when he is being taken for a ride. Last week, I had cautioned the powers-that-still-be (thanks to Zardari!!) to beware the coming administration. There isn’t going to be any free lunch any longer I had wanted to suggest.

Is that why there has been such a flurry of movement in Fata and Swat with some people suddenly getting arrested/killed and educational institutions getting army protection? Reminds one of the Musharrafian era when an American burra sahib’s pending arrival would see exact same activity.

A word of advice for Mr Holbrooke: Ambassador, do not call on any Pakistani military commander. Just talk to the civilian government. If it deems it necessary for a military officer to be present in the meeting it will ask him to present himself.

There you go, sirs.

kshafi1@yahoo.com