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Nawaz Sharif Also Blames Musharraf for Bhutto Killing
It's not just Bhutto adviser Husain Haqqani. Nawaz Sharif, now Pervez Musharraf's chief political enemy in the wake of Bhutto's assassination, also blamed the dictator for his onetime rival's death. The Hindustan Times:
"Pervez Musharraf is responsible and accountable for what happened today," Sharif told a private news channel in an interview."I hold his policies responsible for landing this country into the terrible mess," a shaken Sharif said.
"Nobody has confidence in Musharraf. Everybody wants him to step down and hold the inquiry (into Benazir's death)," he said.
Sharif appears to have wasted little time taking up Bhutto's mantle and consolidating the non-Islamist opposition to Musharraf:
Sharif told Bhutto's supporters that he would fight "your war from now on", and that he shared the grief of "the entire nation".Sharif was speaking outside the hospital where Bhutto died. "I assure you that I will fight your war from now," Sharif said.
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Comments (5)
theswan wrote on December 27, 2007 12:44 PM:W and Mush is a huddle. But who is calling the shots?
danger wrote on December 27, 2007 12:48 PM:Sharif don't like it!
jacqueline wrote on December 27, 2007 1:25 PM:I blame Mesh . Its like letting a visiting dignitary like Bush or Brown or Putin or Olmert or Merkel or Sarkosky get killed on your watch . If countries cant protect politcal people they would never visit. It can be done . Mesh just wanted one less opponent . He should have kept her alive but he didnt want too!!!!! Shameful
FMArouet wrote on December 27, 2007 2:40 PM:Who is to blame? Musharraf or al Qaeda? How can we find out?
Bhutto's assassination serves the interests of either one. Musharraf now has an excuse to declare a renewed State of Emergency and to cancel (i.e., "postpone") the elections currently scheduled for January 8th.
Al Qaeda and its Islamist allies in Pakistan stand to gain from civil chaos, for the assassination could be a spark which leads to a revolutionary crisis, with the Islamists and civil society pitted against the military, and with ruptures appearing within the military between the elitist officer corps (i.e., the aristocracy) and the jawans in the ranks (i.e., the serfs).
Now the blame game will begin. Musharraf will of course blame al Qaeda and the Islamists. Civil society in Pakistan will likely blame Musharraf.
We need to take care to authenticate claims of responsibility in coming days. It seems extremely unlikely that al Qaeda or the Islamists would deem it in their interest to claim credit, even if they conducted the assassination. On the other hand, if Musharraf and the Army staged the attack on Bhutto (and on a rally of Nawaz Sharif's PML faction earlier in the day), they would certainly have arranged in advance to plant disinformation to point suspicion at al Qaeda and Islamists.
If al Qaeda really is responsible, we need to remember that Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri tend to deliver combination moves, as they did when they assassinated Ahmad Massoud, the Tajik "Lion of Panjshir" two days before 9/11, 2001. Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri knew that Massoud would quickly have become a serious threat to al Qaeda and the Taliban after 9/11, so they bought valuable time with that assassination.
Al Qaeda's main focus now appears to be assisting Islamist forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan in an effort to topple Musharraf, so if al Qaeda has begun one of its tactical combinations, we should probably be alert for additional moves in key cities in Pakistan (there is a large and well-armed Pashtun population in the northwestern sectors of Karachi, for example). Lahore, with its many narrow, twisting streets, could be another target. It is also conceivable that the Taliban, which in recent months has increased its capabilities in the vicinity of Kabul in Afghanistan, could now undertake a startling operation against Karzai's government.
(If these sorts of events occur within the next few days, they would provide a revealing glimpse of bin Laden's and al-Zawahiri's current capacity for command-and-control of their movement.)
But if such follow-on attacks do not occur, and Musharraf merely moves deliberately ahead with a State of Emergency, suspicions of his implication in the assassination of Bhutto will naturally increase.
Nawaz Sharif will now likely boycott the elections and insist that Musharraf step down from the Presidency and that the fired judges be reinstated so that genuinely free elections can be held. Sharif still has some loyalty within the Pakistani Army (he was PM when Pakistan surged to become a nuclear power), and one could imagine his cutting a deal with new Chief of Staff Kiyani or with an ambitious Corps Commander to elbow Musharraf aside (normally the X Corps Commander in Rawalpindi is the best bet for implementing such a coup).
Of course, all of this could swiftly disintegrate into civil chaos and civil war, and al Qaeda would then be presented with its best available chance of acquiring components for its own nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile, back at Crawford, the Decider-and-Commander-Guy's vacation and holiday parties continue unabated. Is he strumming a guitar again, this time while South Asia burns?
Would he be so bold as to fly back to Washington in order to monitor the situation with the help of experts at the Pentagon or in the intelligence agencies? The State Department's talent pool on South Asia seems to have been exiled somewhere else. Iraq, perhaps, along with Ambassador Crocker in Baghdad? Secretary of State Rice seems so far to be disengaged and out of the loops in this crisis, as in so many previous ones.
It appears as though Administration policy toward South Asia in coming days will be formulated by the usual neoconderthal nutzis, who will have little understanding of realities on the ground, but who will give at least tacit support to whatever Musharraf decides to do. There will be no Plan B.
Interesting times.
ash wrote on December 29, 2007 7:57 AM:It looks Mussaraf has counted days of his life being corrupt, murderer, lier, greedy, misuse of rules of a disciplined force being most indisciplined for vested and corrupt practise.