1115.org

Americans often react to world events with ludicrously unrealistic perspectives. And I’m talking about experienced lawmakers, not ordinary folks (who, to be frank, usually don’t react to world events at all). And that includes lawmakers experienced enough to have run for President solely on the basis of their experience of world affairs.

A case in point is the remarks offered by three U.S. senators — Joe Biden, Kay Bailey Hutchison and Chuck Hagel — on the subject of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s grip on power, and the contemptuous dismissal of those remarks by Musharraf.

You may recall that Pervez had himself re-elected President in October 2007, in advance of national parliamentary elections that were originally scheduled for January 2008, and then re-scheduled after Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in December. You are probably aware that Musharraf suffered a rather stunning defeat in these parliamentary elections. Asif Ali Zadari’s Pakistan People’s Party (Mr. Benazir Bhutto, if you will) and Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N — who have since entered into a political alliance — together won 154 of 268 seats in the National Assembly. Musharraf’s ruling party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, won 40. (I guess elections in Pakistan just aren’t what they used to be. When a sitting dictator musters up only 15% of the seats that are up for grabs, that’s surely a sad, sad comment on the state of what we are pleased to call democracy in Pakistan.)

The administration response to the electoral rout suffered by Bush’s BFF was predictable; Bush always stands by those he regards as his buddies:

The Bush administration was scrambling Tuesday to pick up the pieces of its shattered Pakistan policy after the trouncing that the party of President Bush’s ally, President Pervez Musharraf, received in parliamentary elections.

The United States would still like to see Pakistan’s opposition leaders find a way to work with Mr. Musharraf in some kind of power-sharing deal, administration officials said…
[…]
The administration first tried to promote a power-sharing deal last summer, between Mr. Musharraf and Ms. Bhutto, but neither side proved amenable enough, and the deal collapsed after Mr. Musharraf imposed emergency rule, suspended the Constitution and dismissed the Supreme Court.

Despite those actions, and despite Ms. Bhutto’s assassination in December, the Bush administration still has not given up on the idea that a democratically elected Parliament would share power with Mr. Musharraf.

Nor has (sic) administration officials given up hope that there would be some way to construct a coalition that will keep Mr. Musharraf in power as president.

But back to our three Senate musketeers:

Joe Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Sunday that he would advise Musharraf to seek a dignified way to leave office.

“I firmly believe if (political parties) do not focus on old grudges — and there’s plenty in Pakistan — and give him a graceful way to move,” then it could happen, Biden, a Democrat, said on ABC television.

Republican Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and Chuck Hagel also endorsed a negotiated retreat rather than a push from power for Musharraf.

She advised the incoming government not to be “heavy-handed or ham-handed. I think that Musharraf knows what the election results were. I think that he and they agree that a secular vote was won, that the extremists were repudiated everywhere, even in their so-called strongholds. So there is a way that they could come together,” Hutchison said.

“If there could be a graceful exit or a way that the parliament and the majority could work its will,” that would be a proper transition. “If we can just help them see through this new election, the new majority, and avoid a constitutional crisis, which is what, I think, all of them, on their own, are deciding is in the best interests of the people of Pakistan.”

Since they were in his house dissing him like this, Musharraf felt obliged to respond to their comments:

President Pervez Musharraf’s spokesman on Monday dismissed a suggestion from three U.S. senators that the embattled leader make a “graceful exit” from power following his opponents’ victory in Pakistan’s elections.

Musharraf was elected to a new five-year presidential term last year by Pakistani lawmakers, “not by any senator from the United States,” his spokesman Rashid Qureshi told Dawn News television.

“So I don’t think he needs to respond to anything that is said by these people,” he said.

Corrected for cultural differences, I believe that translates as “Nanny nanny boo-boo!”

I could be just speaking out of turn (see below) — and not just here, but in the opening paragraphs too — but I seem to recall that the whole point of Musharraf coronating himself President for another 5-year term using the old National Assembly (just before these new elections were held) was that he knew perfectly well he couldn’t expect to have a majority in the new assembly.

So now when people tell this unmitigated, unrepentant dictator that he has to give up power just because his party happens to have next to no seats in parliament, that strikes me as determinedly Pollyanna-ish. If we believe all the garbage that’s been spouted by Condoleezza Rice and George Bush on the subject of democracy in Pakistan and how Musharraf has firmly put Pakistan on the path to it, that’s our problem. Musharraf certainly has never had any intention of sacrificing himself to our rose-colored visions. And he has never failed to make that perfectly clear.

Also, the political set-up in Pakistan is that the President can dissolve parliament any time he wants:

Opposition leaders fear that Musharraf, who as president has the authority to dissolve parliament, might do that and call new elections if Pakistani lawmakers take actions he opposes.

That’s why I have trouble believing that Musharraf can be persuaded to go quietly. Especially when the Bush regime has already telegraphed its intention of standing by its man:

The White House on Monday said it continues to support Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, as he resists pressures to step down after his allies were defeated in legislative elections a week ago.

US President George W. Bush “does support President Musharraf for all of the work that he’s done to help us in counterterrorism,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters.

“And if you look at what we asked President Musharraf to do, which is to take off the uniform, to set free and fair elections, and to lift the emergency order, he did all of those things,” she added.

“And so now it will be up to the people of Pakistan to see what their new government will look like. But (Bush) does certainly support him and has continued to,” Perino said.

So I really don’t think Musharraf is going anywhere. But, here with a very different take, is a major Indian newspaper. And since they take Pakistan pretty seriously in India, and follow it very closely, they may well be right.

Having apparently run out of options, Pakistan’s beleaguered President Pervez Musharraf “is considering stepping down in days” to avoid a showdown with the newly elected Parliament in that country.

“He (Musharraf) has already started discussing the exit strategy for himself. I think it is now just a matter of days and not months because he would like to make a graceful exit on a high,” ‘The Sunday Telegraph‘ quoted one of the President’s close confidantes as saying.

According to senior aides, Musharraf would prefer to resign rather than waiting to be impeached and forced out of office by the victorious opposition parties who triumphed in last week’s general election in that country and announced they would form a coalition government.

“He may have made many mistakes, but he genuinely tried to build the country and he doesn’t want to destroy it just for the sake of his personal office,” an unnamed official close to the President told the British newspaper.

Musharraf had last week said that he would not resign despite his allies suffering a crushing defeat in the election and had also asserted that he intends to stay in office to guide the democratic transition in Pakistan.

But the official said that he had considered resigning immediately after the election results were known, but was persuaded by party loyalists that his sudden departure could precipitate a crisis.

Time, as they say, will tell.