Benazir, Maleeha beseech Clinton to visit Islamabad

Benazir, Maleeha beseech Clinton to visit Islamabad
CHIDANAND RAJGHATTA

WASHINGTON, FEB 4: Maleeha Lodhi beseeched him to come to Islamabad; Margaret Alva urged him to come to Bangalore during his India visit; Benazir Bhutto implored him to ensure the return of democracy in Pakistan. It was a day Bill Clinton heard plenty from women of the subcontinent.

But his most significant response was reserved for Bhutto when she too requested him to visit Pakistan during his March 20 South Asia trip despite her reservations about the military regime. "Well, I probably will," Clinton was quoted as saying, giving an indication about his own personal inclination. Bhutto and Alva met Clinton separately during a National Prayer Breakfast meeting, but the day's most substantial (but unspoken) exchange was when Lodhi, the saucy Pakistani envoy to Washington and a former Bhutto acolyte the two have since fallen out presented her credentials to the President at a formal White House ceremony.

Typically, the ceremony to present credentials is brief with several envoys herded in together (Lodhihas been waiting nearly three months till the State Department gathered a quorum). At the event, newly appointed ambassadors present a short speech (which is not read) and the President too offers a few words. But given the currently high-strung ties between Washington and Islamabad, the text of both speeches was much sought after by South Asia mavens.

In a 2300-word address that spoke to the wonderful friendship Washington and Islamabad once had before the latter fell afoul, Lodhi implored the President to visit Pakistan, and urged the US needed to use its "increasing leverage" with India to convince its leadership to enter into a substantive and meaningful dialogue with Islamabad. "United States' relations with India and Pakistan should not be a zero-sum game. But the US needs to maintain a balance in its relations with those two South Asian states specially in the strategic, security and non-proliferation areas where the mutual and reciprocal contributions of India and Pakistan are essential forsuccess," Lodhi argued.

If Clinton read her speech (since they are not spoken), there was indication of it in his brief remarks that were at best cordial. While acknowledging "the relationship between the United States and Pakistan is important to both our countries" he hoped the two sides would continue to develop close ties, "while candidly addressing those issues on which we differ."

Lodhi, who in her presentation defended the military regime by ruthlessly trashing the previous Nawaz Sharif government (she called it a `kleptocracy') found no sympathy from Clinton on the score. "In that vein (of addressing US-Pak differences), and as a friend, the United States was very disappointed by the setback to Pakistan's democracy that last year's military takeover represents. We hope that Pakistan will move quickly to return to civilian rule with a democracy that is participatory, accountable and respectful of citizen's rights, including those of the minority religious communities in Pakistan," Clintonsaid.

Without referring to any specific issue, Clinton said the United States is prepared to work intensively to see dialogue between Pakistan and India on all issues resume and intensify. "However, to make progress in this area, the cycle of mistrust and violence must be broken. I am personally committed to do what I can toward this objective," he added.

While Lodhi was busy defending the military junta in Pakistan, her former benefactor Benazir Bhutto (during whose Prime Ministership Lodhi first came her as the Pakistani envoy in 1993) was canvassing in Washington for US support to the return of democracy. Although the US has successively ditched democratically elected governments in Pakistan, Bhutto has frequently descended on Washington to urge her former friends to restore democracy in Pakistan. In one meeting with the influential Senator Sam Brownback, Bhutto railed against the US policy of coddling to a dictator who was steadily dismantling democracy in Pakistan.

But her tirade is having littleeffect on the administration that now appears to be veering around to the view that however unpalatable it might be to sup with the military junta, Pakistan needs to be engaged in order to temper its tantrums. In interviews with Western interlocutors and discussion with foreign visitors, Pakistan's military leader Pervez Musharraf on Thursday made the bizarre assertion that if Clinton did not visit Islamabad, it would embolden India to attack Pakistan thinking the US had "ditched" it.

Musharraf also made a series of what appeared to be conciliatory noises, including offering to help with the problem of the Saudi fugitive Osama bin Laden. He also downscaled repeated Pakistan threats to use its nuclear option in any face-off with India, saying, "Only if Pakistan is vanquished from the globe will it happen. It will never happen."