Friends, Pakistan is nuclear armed and an important Allie in the war being fought in Afghanistan. Zardari is the new president and an old hand in Pakistani politics. He was also one of the most corrupt politicians in the world. Can he save Pakistan from itself?
Peace, Love and Hope
Rev O
ASIF ALI ZARDARI
The Most Difficult Job in the World
Pakistan's president on terrorism, India and his late wife.
Wall Street Journal
"Asif Ali Zardari used to sport a full moustache, jet black and rakish in the style of the avid polo player he once was. But sometime in the past year he trimmed it short and let its salt-and-pepper colors show. It befits the sober role he has now assumed, at 53, as the president of Pakistan, probably the world's most difficult -- and dangerous -- political job."
"But Mr. Zardari is also known as "Mr. Ten Percent," a moniker he acquired thanks to his legendary reputation for graft. At one time or another, he and his late wife were suspected of profiting (or seeking to profit) from corrupt schemes involving everything from the purchase of Polish tractors and French jets to the import of gold bullion. In 2006, he even produced a diagnosis of dementia from two New York psychiatrists as part of an effort to defend himself in a corruption case in Britain."
Put simply, the economic crisis Mr. Zardari faces today is, at least in part, a crisis of confidence in him. He alludes to this problem only once in the interview, noting that before he can hope to get foreign help he will "have to make my credibility, my case." Still, he has a simple and powerful argument to make that the world cannot allow his government to fail -- not when it's becoming increasingly plausible that Pakistan itself, with its stockpile of as many as 200 nuclear warheads, could be toppled by al Qaeda and its allies.
"I need your help," he says more than once. "If we fall, if we can't do it, you can't do it."
In asking for the help -- and $100 billion is no small request......."
"Not only does Mr. Zardari want better ties with Delhi, he notes that "there is no other economic survival for nations like us. We have to trade with our neighbors first." He imagines Pakistani cement factories being constructed to provide for India's huge infrastructure needs, Pakistani textile mills meeting Indian demand for blue jeans, Pakistani ports being used to relieve the congestion at Indian ones. For a country that spent most of its existence trying to show that it's the military equal of its neighbor, the agenda amounts to a remarkable recognition of the strides India has made in becoming a true world power.
But before Pakistan can hope to save itself by completely reshaping the situation on its eastern frontier, it has the more pressing problem of resolving the crisis to its west, in its tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan. On the day of our meeting, there had been reports that Pakistani army forces had fired on U.S. aircraft operating along the border with Afghanistan, while Pakistani officials were taking an ever-tougher line against NATO commando raids against the Taliban on Pakistani soil."
"Mr. Zardari seems to hope that, with the intelligence problem out of the way, a new era of cooperation can open up with the U.S. "We want to be able to share [U.S.] intelligence," he says. "We need helicopters, we need night goggles, we need equipment of that sort." He stresses the need for precision and finesse in fighting Islamic militants, rather than large-scale military force. "My eventual concept is that we should be taking them on as they are, as criminals." Of Osama bin Laden he says, "the minute I make anybody my enemy, he becomes as big as I am."
"It's a fair point. And it leads Mr. Zardari to a kind of peroration, the case he has to make that he is, after all, the right man for Pakistan in its hour of peril -- however improbable that may seem given everything that is known or suspected about his past."
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