Old Hunters Old Tricks - An Establishment Reunion

This time I am going to raise an alarm. I do not know how it is happening? Or why people are overlooking the obvious? My concerns and more importantly what is at stake are just too much. So I am going to narrate my version of events - not for record but more for retrospection.
In short, I am very disturbed at how conveniently establishment and its faces are trying to pass the buck of Benazir Bhutto's assassination to US and I am disturbed at the thought of how changing faces (i.e. departure of Q-League and possibly Musharraf) is going to make us lose sight of the real culprit - Pakistani Establishment.

- General Kiyani orders Army to stop meeting politicians … link
- Musharraf telling US that they should look for another partner … link
- PMLN being offered participation in National Government through various sources … link
- Khurshid Qasoori saying that Pakistan can live without US Aid … link
- Altaf Hussain calls for MQM’s urgent meeting in London for future plans … AAJ TV
- Army to withdraw from Civil Institutions in Pakistan … link
- AAJ TV airs aggressive program on rigging in last elections by Musharraf … link
- Imran proposing safe exit for Musharraf … link
- US realizing the new wave and focusing on Kiyani as new partner … link
Above mentioned are the news briefs picked up from a pro - PML-N website (http://pkpolitics.com/2008/01/14/major-shift-in-power-center-in-pakistan/#more-1138). And my question to this is why now? Army has decided to take a backseat. Imran Khan is calling for a safe exit for Musharaf. Do remember he termed BB opportunist and traitor when she talked of giving Army a safe exit out of politics. Suddenly there has been awakening in Pakistani establishment that survival is possible without US aid. Shahbaz Sharif meeting advisers of Musharaf and Nawaz Sharif calling for a National Government pre-election (We are not naives to understand that a national govt. is not formed for a mere month).
Just when MQM and Q-league are openly portraying issue of Benazir's killing as an issue of Sindh vs Federation or Sindh vs Punjab, discretely enough Nawaz Sharif and his media organs did the same. I mean, give me a break, the propaganda line was leader from Punjab standing by Sindh on the death of a Sindhi leader? It cannot get crappier than this. Benazir Bhutto got way more votes in Punjab in 2002 elections than Nawaz did. Between 1988-2007, PPP got almost equal if not more votes than Nawaz in Punjab. Take it back to 1970, and you have no match. Even in the coming election, even before the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, independent pollsters were predicting that PPP and Q will finish 1-2 in Punjab, followed by N. Benazir Bhutto was as much a leader of Punjab as anyone else is, in fact the one who had the most passionate following. No fair person should be silent on hijacking of the mantle of Punajb's leader or you are a partner in crime of breaking up of Federation. Remember, our establishment decided to get rid of dhoti-wala Bengalis because they were dirty, black and troubling leftist (and books are full of this narration by bureaucrats, army men etc – one I can remember off the cuff is Shahab Nama). To consolidate the interest, they can go to any length.
To look more closely into what Army, PML-N and other faces of establishment are up to, one needs to look into what establishment of Pakistan really is? It is a nexus comprising civil and military bureaucracy, judiciary (bench only), crony business interests, social and religious conservatives, and political cronies. Establishment is a mindset which thinks the masses should be dissociated from the process of selecting their fate because elite has what it takes to make decision and the only decisions masses should be asked to make must be from the predefined choices given to them. The mindset for whom some middle-ages concepts of power, pride, tradition, woman and value remain more important than even the Divine Scriptures. Historically the head of the armed forces has remained the oligarch of this oligarchy called Pakistani Establishment. More importantly different segments of the establishment are usually bound by loose self-interests and these interests at times even clash with one another and so their remains a continuous infighting within the establishment. We saw shades of this infighting when Nawaz clashed with Sajjad Ali Shah, or when Musharraf deposed Nawaz, or even to a certain extent in the recent judicial crisis. Specially, in the recent judicial crisis, with few exceptions, like Iftikhar Chaudhary, Bhagwan Das, Sabieh ud Din etc, it was a moment for Nawaz Sharif fraction of establishment in judiciary to settle their scores with Musharraf. Another thing to look into the recent judicial crisis is that just when Munir Malik, Aitzaz Ahsan, Tariq Mahmood and Kurd have been in detention, Hamid Khan (of PTI) has been set free all along post emergency and no one in the right-winger media is bothered about it. The plan to me seemed to be hijacking the lawyers’ community (predominantly sympathetic to PPP, in case Aitzaz contests general elections). Now there is little doubt in the fact that they wanted PPP to boycott the polls to give them a clear passage to 2/3^rd.
I guess the internal and international reaction to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto has caught our establishment off guard. Realizing the intensity of the situation their response is to find some escape goats to save them from the backlash. The most obvious escape goats seem Q-League and possibly Mr. Musharraf. The establishment seems adamant to restore to its order of 90s with Nawaz at the fore. In the due process they have decided to clip the wings of PML-Q. To my understanding, the top faces of Q will be ditched and the rest of the Q-League will fall behind Mr. Sharif. The whole idea of formation of national care-taker government is to delay elections till a time when they could feel comfortable of controlling the outcome and at the same time protect the jingoistic interests of establishment and using the national government as a mean to defuse the reaction on killing of Benazir Bhutto. To me what has made the establishment so desperate for a solution at this moment is the demands for a UN led probe into the killing. The fear is that such probe will expose the linkages of establishment to the terror mess that the world is in right now and will discredit the military regimes of Pakistan to the degree that from here on it will be impossible for any world government to work with military regimes in Pakistan.
People are made to believe that demand for UN investigation is compromising Pakistan's national interests. Which interest? The interest that brought Arms and drugs? The interest that cut Pakistan into half? The interest that killed four popular leaders with Federation-wide appeal (only four had it in our national history i.e. Fatima Jinnah, Suharwardi and two Bhuttos)? The interest that has made the name of Pakistan synonym with terrorism? The interest that gave us gifts of sectarianism, ethnicity, violence and provincialism just to make sure their remains no Federation-wide challenge to the hegemony and if, at all, one emerges be hanged in the gallows or killed on the street? Give me a break. This is their self interest, not of Pakistan or people of Pakistan.
Another desperate attempt has been made to paint US as a bully and blame it for the death of Benazir Bhutto. This is an old trick from the bag of establishment. It was Pakistani establishment and not US who first sought close, almost parasitical, relations with US. It is so common of our Military regimes to use US backing as their sign of strength when they are strong and when their grip on affairs loosens they come up with stuff like "Friends not Masters" to portray that they are being victimized for protecting the "national interest". Ayub did it, Yahya did it, Zia did it and now the Czar is uttering the same. They so conveniently pass the buck to US and always get away with it because of our lack of realization of US influence in Pakistan and how policy planning takes place in US.
US influence in Pakistan has always been limited. What little interest US had, has been through the establishment and/or based on the fiscal leverage they had in the form of aid. This fiscal leverage has been used by our military dictators to create the facades of economic progress in their regimes - all of them proved to be myths in their own life times. US policy in the world, like any other foreign policy is based on getting things done and the policy makers here, more often that not, rely on the official version given to them by the establishment. It takes a lot to change their perception and the change of perception usually is not a convenient option for them. This is precisely the reason, even when the entire US press and Democratic Party foreign policy stalwarts are denouncing Bush on killing of Benazir Bhutto and are demanding a UN led investigation into the matter, administration is resisting the demands. Budging, for Bush, will always mean acknowledging his policy was flawed. However, the catch is with pressure mounting from people like Hilary Clinton or Joe Biden or British Labour Party (people who understand global politics) and the obvious connections of the killing to on-going War on Terror, international governments might be forced to move to the United Nations. If this happens, my fear is that establishment in Pakistan, to protect their vested interests and specially the fundamentalist isle of it, will turn to complete defiance and will turn Pakistan into Iraq of Saddam Hussain.
What we need to realize is that the patience of the world is running short. No matter how trivial and smart our establishment thinks of this whole terror business, the world has zero tolerance for it. Passing the buck to Americans and others for policy follies might fool us but it will not divert the dangers that we face. Do not forget, it was not only US or UK who were pinning hopes on Benazir in War on Terror but even China and EU. Do not forget that it was Chinese pressure which ultimately led to Lal Masjid operation. And to me this is why Benazir Bhutto was a threat and was removed - A tested leader who had the international backing and mandate of people with a clear position on issues of terrorism, liberalism and peoples' rule directly in clash with those of establishment.
The, reluctance of Bush administration, probably is giving us the last chance to clean our mess, and not merely hide it under the carpet to take it out later. Passing the blame to US would not help. Making Q-League or Musharaf the escape goats will not help. What is required is a complete change in direction. Not replacing the faces of establishment from the present ones to the old ones. People of Pakistan be watchful for your very existence is at stake. Even to tap the monster named Pakistani Establishment makes UN-led investigation worthy.