Those who wield power in Pakistan can always depend on their counterparts in the desert kingdoms of Arab families, especially seven poodle sized city fiefdoms unitedly called United Arab Emirates and the family-owned-and-run desert kingdom with added benefit of religious aura called Saudi Arabia. An urgent state visit invitation can be requested and had at only a Day's notice.
From Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, to Ziaul Haq, to Benazir Bhutto to Nawaz Sharif, to Musharraf every occupier of Islamabad has called these trusted allies in the times of distress.
Musharraf's visits to UAE and Saudi Arabia showed all the hallmarks of such an urgent distress call. Visits were announced by the Pakistani foreign ministry only on Thursday. Both the UAE president and its vice-president, who also serves as prime minister, were out of the country. But it did not matter. He needed help and the sooner the better.
Smarting from the Supreme Court verdict on the fired chief justice and hurt by exploding suicide bombers everywhere, including Islamabad, Musharraf limped to Abu Dhahbi on his way to Jeddah. Benazir was asked to abruptly interrupt her scheduled meetings to distribute parlamentary tickets to her party candidates in London. They both were brought "secretly" to meet yesterday in Abu Dahbi where the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammad bin Zayed al-Nahayan presided over and signed as witness along with some British and American stake holders.
The tryst was essentially to finalize the prenuptial negotiations for the marriage of convenience. Musharraf wanted his sinking ship brought to safe harbors so he could stay in power and Benazir wanted to come back in out of the long self exile in cold and share the loot all over again. The only way out of their and the west's predicament was thought to be the mutual help and cooperation of 'enlightened moderates'. They will remove constitutional hurdles from each other's ways. The constitution has been amended to prohibit anyone from becoming prime minister more than twice and Musharraf faces constitutional hurdle of his own if he wants to cling onto his position as army chief while staying on as president.
As expected both sides are denying the meeting and the respective spokespersons are scrambling to make official statements giving the impression of just a bunch of heads of states going through the normal state business of discussing bilateral relations, chiefly "cooperation in fighting terrorism and extremism," and other regional issues. Even though he last visited the UAE and Saudi Arabia in January this year to do exactly the same.
Musharraf spokesman, Major General Rashid Qureshi, is vehemently refuting the reports of the meeting as "completely baseless." Even those in the know are leaking to the TV networks that the meeting, if it ever took place, ended in deadlock over the issue of whether Musharraf, who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999, should be allowed to retain his dual role as army chief and president. Pakistani embassy spokesman in the UAE said he did "not know anything" about the reported meeting, while an aide at Bhutto's home in the nearby emirate of Dubai said he did "not have any information" about it.
Shaikh Rashid, Minister for Railways, on the other hand is saying that Musharraf and Benazir "held a successful meeting". Sher Afgan Khan Niazi, another minister said the two were trying to strike a deal to secure another term for the general while paving the way for Bhutto to return as prime minister.
The question on Pakistani minds is whether all this political maneuvering and somersaults will be enough to hold Pakistan's drift to self-immolation?
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