Word: bhutto
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...first she will face a wall of skepticism from those who have been at the front lines of the uprising while she has hogged headlines in the rear. In recent weeks, critics have laughed off Bhutto's halfhearted opposition to Musharraf, pointing out that while other leaders and lawyers languished behind bars, she was able to roam free, host diplomatic receptions and broadcast her press conferences on state-run TV. But when Bhutto called for protest rallies and a march from Lahore to the capital, Islamabad, she too was placed under house arrest. The final straw, she says, was when...
...general has shown through his eight years in power that he is nothing if not tenacious. If the deal is off, so too are his gloves. Bhutto can no longer expect any special treatment from Musharraf and could find herself in the same position as other opposition politicians--in jail or in exile again. The crackdown on her Pakistan People's Party will probably intensify. Musharraf "is capable of doing anything now," says Iftikhar Gilani, a former law minister under Bhutto who also has been a member of the general's party. "He has already confronted the press, the judiciary...
That's a disturbing scenario for the Bush Administration, which was counting on the Musharraf-Bhutto deal to keep Pakistan stable. Many in Washington worry that the general is getting progressively heavy-handed and dictatorial. "Musharraf is digging in," says Stephen Cohen, a South Asia expert and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. "He is either suicidal or totally ignorant of the situation." Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have both telephoned Musharraf and urged him to ease up. Rice is sending her deputy, John D. Negroponte, to Islamabad to try to hold the general to his promise...
...Bhutto won't deal, then the U.S. may turn to the Pakistani military, which receives $150 million a month in American aid. "The best way to get Musharraf out," says an Administration official close to the current discussions on Pakistan, "is to prevail on his other colleagues in the military to remove him." The most obvious successor, Vice Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Kyani, is deeply loyal to Musharraf--but the Western diplomat is quick to point out that Kyani once worked with Bhutto as her military secretary and that he was involved in the early stages of negotiating...
...involving multiple meetings between Bush and his top advisors and numerous discussions between staffers at State, the White House, the Pentagon and the CIA. So far, Negroponte's first goal on the mission this weekend is to try and salvage the prospect of power sharing between Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto. But aides are quietly acknowledging that the U.S. needs to think beyond both those flawed figures...