So MQM finally quits the PPP-lead Coalition Government. It’s not a surprise and neither would be the role of the military establishment in nudging one of its favorite offspring to do so. As sure as night brings darkness,, the security establishment in Pakistan will continue to undermine the mandate of the masses. The coming days will tell us how much further the establishment wants to take this and if Pir Pagara and the FATA and other MNA jump on this bandwagon, the results of the current game being played by the establishment will become more clearer.

For now, let us, the spectators, try and make sense of the games and its players midway through:

The Establishment:

Today, the Pakistan military establishment can no longer tolerate an anti-Taliban PPP government which is asking uncomfortable questions regarding the BB murder case where even senior army officer’s role is being questioned in the ongoing investigations.

They never trusted the PPP and after having disposed of the charismatic ZAB and BB, they thought it would be smooth sailing from there on. Having jailed Zardari for nearly a decade on trumped up and politically motivated charges, they thought the latter would fold. Unfortunately for them, nothing of the sort happened.

Zardari got the PPP to pursue the 2008 (therby thwarting the ambitions of the establishment’s own Aitzaz Ahsan) elections, form a coalition government and start working on BB’s agenda of provincial autonomy, long-term economic health and an expanding social welfare net with the BISP. He also sought to undo the devestation that was wrought on the Constitution by the collusion of military dictators and a pliant and deeply chauvinist, Islamist and compromised Judiciary.

Nonetheless, the establishment did not sit quietly by. When Zardari’s friendship overtures and prospects of mutually beneficial economic ties with India were publically made, the Mumbai attacks were allowed to be launched within days. For supporting the Kerry Lugar Bill, the NRO which sought to bury the politically motivated charges against Zardari were overturned by the Establishment’s Judicial Proxies and his case along with a couple of others were the only ones that were revived out of total of over 8000 other cases! Finally, when Zardari once again disobeyed the Establishment and visited the UK during the floods of 2010, all hell broke loose and the media minions of the Establishment went into overdrive. The protests by an Islamofascist UK-based group, the Hizbul Tahrir were treated as the Decembrist Revolt and no mention was made of the fact that at that time, the UK was the largest donor of aid to Pakistan for the floods and Zardari’s trip was necessary to calm the strained ties between the UK and Pakistan after the establishment’s continual support to Islamofascist terrorist groups.

Today, the establishment thinks that it continue to double cross US by taking their money and supporting the Taliban which it can conveniently tag as “Good” when it suits them.

United States:

The view here is divided into two. Gen. Petreaus thinks that the Taliban must be militarily defeated before any talks are conducted with them. The White House has been infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood in the form of Dalia Mogahed; a fervent defender of Saudi-funded Wahabi groups like ISNA and CAIR. And to the Saudis, Zardari is unacceptable. Its not just their virulent and historic hatred of Sufi and Shiite muslims but their man is Nawaz Sharif.

For their project of turning Pakistan into various “Islamic” Emirates, Zardari and the PPP (After BB took over the PPP leadership, she was very clear in her vision unlike her father and was fully cognizant of the Islamist threat to civilization.) are a big impediment. As a result of this and the infiltration of the State Department by the Saudi lobby, the Obama White House is no different from the Dubya White House in dealing with Pakistani Generals. Unlike the previous White House who made no pretense of discomfort in dealing with military dictators, President Obama likes to portray that he supports the democracy whilst continuing to bolster the security establishment.

While this US establishment continues to fund the establishment more than the people of Pakistan, the irony that US tax dollars are being used to kill NATO troops in Afghanistan is lost on the politically correct and apparently clueless President Obama. They are either too weak or too blind to see the games being played by China and Saudi Arabia via their proxies, the Pakistani Generals. The only thing that has been delivered to them from the latter is the Haqqani network that is slowly being delivered from North Waziristan to Kurrum Agency.

So clueless and inept is the current Adminstration that they have not even made a good case for the drone attacks that have taken out such luminary Pakistani “citizens” such as Baitullah Meshud! Gen. Petreaus like his predecessor Gen. McChrystal is the only one talking sense. Lets hope that he does not give any Rolling Stones interviews as the White House is tending towards “talking” with the Taliban in much the same way that the Pakistani Generals have.

Afghanistan:

It is painfull to see how much of the Western media has accepted the viewpoint of the Pakistani security establishment. Today, the current US administration is bending over backwards to accommodate what it feels are the Pakistan Army’s concerns over India’s role in Afghanistan. India has invested heavily in Afghanistan’s infrastructure. Nonetheless, good sense dictates that such developments are good for Pakistan the country even if they are bad news for Pakistan the State that is the security establishment.

Furthermore, geography dictates that a stable Afghanistan will be an economic bonanza for Pakistan; as a transit port for Indian goods to CIS states, Pakistan as a country can earn billions just from trade routes. However, this is unacceptable to the establishment in Pakistan that wants to promote a drug trade and encourage a volatile and lawless Afghanistan. This is good for the Saudis who can continue to engage in their Wahabi social experiments in the region and for the Chinese who know that they have reliable employees in the Pakistan army to maintain their imperial designs in Balochistan and Afghanistan.

Without the financial and material help from the Pakistan army, Saudi Arabia and very discreetly via China, the so-called insurgency in Afghanistan would end within days. However, for that to happen, the US media would have to engage in facts. However, after coming across such embeds such as Decclan Walsh (of the Guardian) one can safely say that these journalists and academics amongst others, are simply parroting the viewpoint of the ISI!

MQM:

A fascist party whose leadership was carved out of the Islami Jamiat Tuleba (the student wing of the Jamaat Islami), the MQM is a wily operator that knows when to spout words like “secular” and “Talibanization” and when to join the Jamaat Islami in protesting the innocence of Al Qaeeda Mata Hari, Dr. Aafia Siddiqui.

It knows when to talk of “democracy” and when to welcome “revolutions” by “generals”. For a brief period, even respectable political analysts were lulled into accepting the MQM as an evolved political party that had mended its violent and criminal ways of the 1980s and 1990s. With a pliant and intimidated media, the MQM ensured that it got a disproportional share of the credit for improving Karachi’s (Pakistan’s metropolis) basic infrastructure (as well as a disproportional share of the billions of rupees in kick backs and commissions).

Nonetheless, with a declining vote bank even within the 30% of the migrant origin (Mohajir) population of Karachi (and not all Karachiites of migrant background vote MQM as a significant percent votes for the PPP too) the MQM was not willing to accommodate any other of the diverse ethnic groups of Karachi represented by the PPP and the ANP and soon resorted to its violent and fascist past.

This most recent betrayal is completely in keeping with the party culture of the MQM and its contempt for the other ethnic groups of Pakistan. As a junior coalition partner for nearly 3 years and after a contentious elections in which it gerrymandered and fraudulently increased its parliamentary seats by atleast 3-4 in Karachi alone, MQM finally undertook what it had been blackmailing from day one.

Inspite of its tall claims for being secular, MQM was conspicuously silent in the Blasphemy debate while PPP atleast made some token protest. Similarly, MQM stabbed the government in the back at nearly every step. As a fiefdom of an ex-gun runner for the Jamaati Islami and self-declared Fuhrer of Karachi, it is unlikely to change and evolve and far more likely to disintegrate unless another able thug is developed by the establishment.

The Sharif Brothers and their version of the King’s Party, the Muslim League Nawaz:

Nawaz Sharif may be the most popular leader as per the polls conducted by right-wing establishment henchmen but his party has taken a battering even in his strongholds of North and Central urban Punjab. Nawaz and his party are in an informal coalition with the founding party of the Taliban, the Jamaat Islami and with the Ahle Sunnah Wal Jammah formerly known as Sipah Sahaba, Al Qaeeda’s most reliable affiliate in Pakistan; something that is a death knell for the significant minorities that reside in Punjab.

When the Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanullah is seen with the masterminds of the shrine bombings like Sipah Sahaba leader, Maulana Ludhianwi, the moderate vote in Punjab has clearly migrated. For now, the Sharifs are biding their time and waiting for an even more Islamist army chief than Kiyani before signaling their willingness to form the next government. The floods and an economy that has been sucked dry by the tens of billions of dollars of unaudited military budget and concealed mismanagement by previous military dictators makes even the Sharif’s uneasy.

The educated middle class and the elite:

One of the most venal, fickle, shallow and hypocritical segment that can be found on this planet, this segment is the bane and definitely not the solution of Pakistan’s myriad problems. Since its inception, this class that is largely comprised of Punjabi and Migrant elites has been a willing collaborator with the security establishment.

They have created and maintained a noxious blend of toxic lies that is then forced down the throats of every Pakistani child in the form of the official Pakistani ideology.

Furthermore, this has been the same class that has welcomed every military dictator. In a recent inter-establishment struggle for power between Gen. Kiyani and Musharaf which was packaged as the Lawyer’s movement by the media, this class was firmly with the dark Islamist forces and other shady remnants of the Zia ul Haq regime. Now that the false halo that surrounded the movement has receded, this class continues to place its hopes in another military adventure that will intrigue to overthrow another PPP elected government.

On a recent visit to Lahore and Karachi, it was tragical and comical to see yuppies at expensive cafes spout Marx and Lenin interspersed with the rantings of Imran Khan and Maudodi (twentieth century ideologue) as they simultaneously cursed BB and Zardari and then proceeded to defend the Taliban and their violent acts. All within the space of an expensive evening after which they drove off in chauffer driven cars where the Pushtun chauffers probably voted for the PPP and inwardly cursed the Taliban for destroying their lands.

The voice of this class is the shifty advisor to governments, Mosharraf Zaidi. This is the typical Pakistani yuppie analyst who hides his admiration for the establishment under the thin veneer of perfunctory criticism that misses the real picture. This is the type of analyst who portrays themselves as neutral even as they frequently give in to unsubstantiated rants against Zardari and energetic defense of the establishement. These are the ISI-inspired analysts whose prejudiced and elitest analysis is part of the opinion manufacturing process; we can only give such consideration to such rubbish at our own costs!

Today, the rest of the world can no longer ignore the dangerous games being played by the Pakistani Generals. The short term success of their objectives is a volatile region and the long term effects are the acts of terrorism in every European , American and Australian city and capital because some of us could not see the writing on the wall and choose sides between the establishment and State of Pakistan vs its elected government and civilians.

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