DAWN
Saturday, 26 Dec, 2009

Lawyers shout slogans in support of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry outside the Supreme Court in Islamabad on December 16, 2009 after the decision on NRO. — AFP Pakistan
The Supreme Court’s verdict on the NRO and the way it has been decided to enforce it leaves no doubt in my mind that the establishment is once again out to get the PPP and bring back its favourite civilians to power.
Familiar forces are once again trying to seize the initiative they lost after a decade-long military rule which gave us the ‘war on terror’ and has brought us to a state where Pakistan is bracketed with Afghanistan and is considered one of the hottest spots in the world that can explode anytime.
Never mind the blunders of the masters of ‘strategic lack of depth’ and architects of the policies that have turned Pakistan into a client state of America with few friends; they seem to have decided to strike back again.
Now faced with the question of how to justify this attempt to take back power, they seem to have decided to divert the public’s attention to an easy target and a handy dog to whip; the government of Asif Zardari. It is even speculated that the very reason why the establishment facilitated the entry of Zardari into the corridors of power was because he was considered so vulnerable that getting rid of him would be a piece of cake.
When I wrote about this almost 14 months ago, some PPP stalwarts and senior media pundits dismissed the idea saying the United States was firmly behind him forgetting a basic tenet of Washington’s policy: the US is always with the Pakistan military.
The humiliation of Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar may have come as a shock to some but it was hardly a surprise as it was a demonstration of who really runs the country, a warning to Mr Zardari and an ominous sign of things to come. Read more »