Tag Archive for 'Mushahid Hussain'

Obama’s quest for a Pakistan policy

Published
by
asianwindow
on November 6, 2009
in Afghanistan and Pakistan
. 0 Comments

Mushahid Hussain in the News, Pakistan:

Hillary Clinton’s visit with a difference was probably the most significant event in Pakistan-American relations since the advent of President Barack Hussein Obama. She came, she saw, but while she did not quite conquer the “hearts and minds” of Pakistanis, Hillary at least earned their grudging admiration. She showed more guts than the bunkered-up Pakistan rulers, who refuse to leave the comfort and safety of their “5-star prisons” in Islamabad.

Unlike the aloof and abrasive Holbrooke, Hillary reached out to the “real” Pakistan. She got a peep into the emerging Pakistani society — dynamic, vibrant, outspoken and self-confident. She seemed taken aback, used as visiting high-level Americans are to a sanitised Islamabad, where the officially-certified truth of the fawning ruling elite links sycophancy and servility to their self-perpetuation.

A profile of this “new” Pakistan is instructive, with three key ingredients. First, while the “old” Pakistan was politically a “one-window operation” — monolithic and centrally-guided — today’s multiple power centres go beyond the military-security Establishment or the traditional political elite, and these now include the fiercely-independent media, an assertive civil society, confident young men and women with faith in their country’s future, and a free judiciary that for the first time is truly an autonomous player. More:

Musharraf’s three pluses

Published
by
asianwindow
on August 30, 2008
in Pakistan
. 0 Comments

Pervez Musharraf was the victim of the success of his own liberal policies, writes Mushahid Hussain, secretary general, Pakistan Muslim League (Q), in Tehelka:

Mushahid Hussain

Mushahid Hussain

IT WAS September 2004. General Pervez Musharraf had made a public commitment in December 2003 that he would take off his uniform by December 2004. I was woken by my son well past midnight: “Baba, the President wants to speak to you”. General Musharraf came on the line, and quickly came to the point. I could hear a popular Lata number from the 1960s. He said, “Mushahid, tell me, what is the worst case scenario if I decide not to take off my uniform?” I said I would discuss it over lunch the next day. My meeting with him took place in the presence of Tariq Aziz, his most trusted confidant and his main back-channel negotiator with India. My thrust was two-fold: a lesson from the past and what could happen in the future. While strongly advocating that he take off his uniform – a view endorsed by Tariq Aziz as well – I told him, “Please remember what happened to your three military predecessors – Field Marshal Ayub Khan, General Yahya Khan, and General Zia ul-Haq. In the end, all three were ditched by their own colleagues in the military after the ground realities changed. The institution of the army is bigger then any individual. I do not want this to happen to you – that you outlive your welcome.”

I also told him, if you choose to renege on your commitment, then you will end up making the mother of all deals with Benazir Bhutto to stay on in power. He listened carefully and then gave a list of reasons why his uniform was necessary in the “supreme national interest”, including the peace process with India and the quest for Kashmir.

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End of a Beginning

Mohsin Hamid, author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, in Time magazine:

Pervez Musharraf

Pervez Musharraf

As a Pakistani, pleased though I am by Pervez Musharraf’s resignation as President, I cannot but fear that this week’s celebrations could prove to be short-lived. Yes, his departure will make Pakistan more democratic and was long overdue. But it will not in itself cure the myriad ills facing the country.

Musharraf’s legacy is a mixed one. Like many Pakistanis, I was appalled when he seized control of Pakistan in 1999. Pakistan had stagnated in the 1990s under the bickering and incompetent elected governments of Benazir Bhutto and her rival Nawaz Sharif. But I recalled the damage done by the oppressive dictatorship of General Zia ul-Haq in the 1980s and had no desire to see Pakistan revert to military rule.

[via 3quarksdaily]

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