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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: kumar who wrote (199938)	8/28/2006 9:36:57 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Well, Pakistani internal politics are not my specialty.. I'd probably have to defer to Iqbal Latif (on SI) for more information related to this. However, I do seem to recall that Sharif waited until Musharraf was out of the country (just prior to the coup) and then suddenly dismissed him as Army chief. When Musharraf boarded a commercial airliner back to Pakistan, Sharif refused to grant it landing rights.. Musharraf then called his forces and they took over the airport and the plane was able to land with just a few minutes of fuel left. That strikes me that Sharif attempted to assassinate Musharraf (he could have just had him arrested upon landing).. So it seems to me that there is a lot of bad blood on all sides. And if I recall properly, Sharif was tried and convicted for that attempted hijacking and destruction of that commercial airliner. I think the US is just stuck with having to back the person who controls the army and using whatever pressure/enticements we can to prod them to take an alternative course. If we back Bhutto or Sharif, then we see a possibility of civil war.. It's not a great situation, but what's the alternative? No leader can rule without support of the military. And thus, it is unlikely that Sharif will be able to obtain that. Hell Kumar.. I don't really know the answer. Our focus, at the moment is Afghanistan and Iraq. What's India doing about this? China? Europe? Russia? Hawk