'It took US year to persuade Musharraf on Bhutto'

The United States had a problem: favoured ally President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan was losing ground in large chunks; somehow, he needed to be propped up, his regime perpetuated.

And for this, reports the Washington Post, the US found a solution: bring in former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, to provide a 'democratic façade'.

The solution was arrived at over a year ago; it then took a year the US Administration, using all its biggest guns, to talk Musharraf into doing the deal.

The Post details meetings between Bhutto and top State Department and National Security Council officials, UN Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and others.

'The US came to understand that Bhutto was not a threat to stability, but was instead the only possible way that we could guarantee stability and keep the presidency of Musharraf intact,' the Post quotes Mark Siegel, who lobbied for Bhutto in Washington and witnessed much of the behind-the-scenes diplomacy, as saying.

Lines of communication between Musharraf and Bhutto were first opened in mid-2006, with Assistant Secretary of State Richard A Boucher clocking frequent flier miles as he shuttled between Islamabad and Bhutto's homes in London and Dubai.

Bhutto and Musharraf finally met face to face in January, then again in July, in Dubai, the Post reports, adding that Musharraf was through the early phase dead against dealing with a leader who, in his autobiography published in 2006, he had declared corrupt, autocratic, and unfit for a third shot at power.

Former US ambassador Peter W Galbraith says the argument in favour of Bhutto was simple: 'She had been prime minister twice, and had not been able to accomplish very much because she did not have power over the most important institutions in Pakistan -- the ISI [intelligence agency], the military and the nuclear establishment,' he is quoted as saying.

'Without controlling those, she couldn't pursue peace with India, go after extremists or transfer funds from the military to social programs. Cohabitation with Musharraf made sense because he had control over the three institutions that she never did. This was the one way to accomplish something and create a moderate centre.'

Musharraf finally fell in line when, in September of this year, Deputy Secretary of State John D Negroponte visited Islamabad and told him that the US would continue to back him, but only if his government had a democratic facade.

The Pakistan president was faced with a Hobson's choice: it had to be either Bhutto, or former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, the man Musharraf had deposed in the 1999 coup that brought him to power. Musharraf chose Bhutto as the lesser of two evils.

As part of the deal, says the Post, Bhutto agreed not to protest against Musharraf's reelection in September to his third term. In return, Musharraf agreed to lift the corruption charges against Bhutto. But Bhutto sought one particular guarantee -- that Washington would ensure Musharraf followed through on free and fair elections producing a civilian government.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice entered the negotiations in the final phase, called Bhutto in Dubai and pledged that Washington would see the process through, the Post reports. A week later, on October 18, Bhutto returned to Pakistan, setting in place a chain of events that led to her assassination 10 weeks later.

Citing current and former US policymakers, intelligence officials and outside analysts, the Post makes the point that by meddling in Pakistan, the US actually achieved the converse effect -- it made its goals and allies more vulnerable in a country where over 70 percent of the population was inimical to the US.

'US policy is in tatters,' the Post quotes Barnett R Rubin of New York University as saying. 'The administration was relying on Benazir Bhutto's participation in elections to legitimate Musharraf's continued power as president. Now Musharraf is finished.'

The side effect of Bhutto's assassination, says the Post, is that it further underlines the growing power and reach of militant anti-government forces in Pakistan.

Others argue that the US, by orchestrating a Musharraf-Bhutto deal, fundamentally altered Pakistani politics in ways that will be difficult to undo.

Xenia Dormandy, former National Security Council expert on South Asia now at Harvard University's Belfer Center, is quoted as saying US meddling is not to blame for Bhutto's death. 'It is very clear the United States encouraged' an agreement, she said, 'but US policy is in no way responsible for what happened. I don't think we could have played it differently.'

In the immediate aftermath of her assassination, the reading is that US policy will not change -- in the sense that the abiding interest remains in keeping Musharraf in power, with a democratic façade protecting his legitimacy.