Excerpts from Ron Suskind’s book
One should now expect to see serious attempts at regime change in Pakistan now. The charge will no doubt be led by “elites” loaded down by stolen wealth.
Genghis Khan had this one figured out to a “T”.
He might massacre or let go parts of a conquered population, but he invariably put the “elites” to the sword, because their loyalties he found to be suspect!
The Excerpts:
‘In the spring of 2006, (Benazir) Bhutto’s representatives approached the State Department with an idea about Bhutto possibly returning to Pakistan after seven years of self-exile. But it wasn’t until widespread demonstrations the following spring, after Musharraf sacked the country’s chief justice, that the White House began to seriously consider Bhutto’s proposal as a way to shore up an embattled Musharraf (p.205). —–
‘Talk of Pakistan now reminds Bibi of a ribald story she heard about Shaukat Aziz, Musharraf’s current prime minister. Shaukat Aziz tells everyone that “there is no woman I can’t pick up in two weeks.” But when he tried on Condi Rice, oh my. She stared him down, Bhutto exults. She withered him (p.210)’.
‘On one side, Musharraf is busy rounding up judges and political opponents while keeping citizens of his country in the dark. The control of information, he hopes, will allow him to exercise power without any semblance of accountability.
‘The NSA, meanwhile, has harvested a number of portentous conversations of Benazir Bhutto. This should help the United States play its under-the-table, cutthroat games more effectively. The intercept will be cited inside the U.S government as evidence of Bhutto’s unfitness, her corruption. It will be used as part of a wider carrot and stick program begun in spring, in which the United States let Bhutto know they were happy to work with her in setting up a marriage with Musharraf, but they could make life difficult — in terms of her finances and lingering corruption investigations — if she started to improvise and freelance (p.293).
‘The group sits on a rug (in Lashkari Raesani’s house in Quetta). They start in the shadows, talking through the kind of backroom deal Bhutto is comfortable with. The only way Musharraf and his team will give any ground, Bhutto says, is if the United States does something like freeze the accounts of key people around Musharraf. That’s the only path for getting results.
“You have got to hit people where they live, to understand what drives them, and often it’s very simple”. She runs through a disquisition on the backrooms of South Asia, describing the way public officials grab what they can, to gain access for themselves and their families, to the world they see shimmering over the horizon in London and Paris and New York. “In America, elected people run out the door and make tens of millions with Halliburton or dealing with some Saudis for some investment bank,” she says, nibbling on a pine nut. “Here they take a cut of money on its first pass through official hands. That’s the way it is in most of the world”.
“It’s important to be honest about all this, because there is opportunity here, to get results”. Freeze their accounts, she says and the men “can’t buy jewelry for their mistresses”. Khan and Babur begin to laugh. “The wives will say, ‘Are you telling me our son can’t go to Georgetown, and I won’t have money for what I need?” This is the way you get results. The signal to them is, fine, you love the life in America, the things you can buy, the colleges, or in England? If you want a taste of that, you have to play by certain rules”.
She starts to run through leading officials, their names and profiles —- from top ministers to intelligence chiefs. “And the key is no warning”, she adds, “which the Americans do too much of — always threatening this and that. Then people will hide their money. No, freeze it and then say, it will be unfrozen if certain things happen”.
This, after all, is not a far cry from what the United States threatened to do to her the previous summer, to get her to accede to its terms, to support Musharraf, to behave, to do as she was told. Bhutto did not know about the NSA intercepts, but a U.S. official let her understand that the United States could, if need be, “constrain her assets” just as she was suggesting they do to Musharraf and his team.—-
“The vice president needs to make the call — he the only one Musharraf will respect — and say, ‘Here, boy, is how things will work’, Bhutto says, her eyes flashing. ——
‘(Lashkari) Raesani, tonight’s host, is on the payroll of at least three intelligence agencies —- the American, the British and the French’ (PP. 334-36).