Is Asif Zardari a Pawn in a Battle of Wits,

Dont Know who is the author. But Worth Reading.....    Is Asif Zardari a pawn in a battle of wits?          To resign or not to resign is not for Asif Zardari to decide. His illness  and the Memo scandal might have taken him to Dubai. He might also return to  Islamabad. However, the decisive factors are well beyond his control. He may  be only a pawn in a battle that the Pentagon, the State Department and our  army are fighting among themselves.      First the background The battleground is Afghanistan. The State Department  wants to cut losses and run from it because peace, whatever its shape, may  help Barack bin Obama stay in the White House for the next term. On the  other hand, the Pentagon wants to prolong its stay as long as possible. Bob  Woodward laid their intentions bare in his book, "Obama's wars." According  to him, Obama could never pin them down to an exit strategy. (They only said  that the insurgency required 500,000 troops, 100,000 Americans and 400,000  Afghans. With only about 100,000 Afghan soldiers available after 10 years,  the rest may take decades.)      The Pentagon do realize that the army's help is crucial in prolonging their  stay. That may not be certain if the Zardari government continues because it  is under the thumb of the State Department. Left to the State, both Zardari  and his party may be reelected easily for another term. If it does not  happen, the successor elected government may also not be palatable because  it may be less pliable    .  The interest of the army coincides with that of the Pentagon. It wants the  Pentagon to stay on in Afghanistan so that civil war does not start there,  as it happened after the Russians left, with harmful fallout for our  country. The army also wants to get rid of the government, and sooner the  better.      The maneuvers by Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State under President Bush,  paved the way for NRO and then PPP government. The idea was to have a  liberal, pro-America government that will go out of the way to help the war  in Afghanistan. It worked very well. America got concessions and facilities  that Pervez Musharraf would have not agreed to. (No wonder, he was eased out  within months of the PPP taking over.) Americans had the run of the country,  while the rulers were too busy plundering the country, and destroying the  economy and institutions.  The army played ball until now. It ignored every destructive action of the  government, while the people groaned in misery and desperation. The problem  was that the U.S. was running amok and it would not have been easy to change  the government without its consent.      Though the State is still in love with the Zardari coterie, help is coming  from the Pentagon. On its prodding, Mansoor Ijaz exploded the bomb of the  Memo scandal under the feet of the PPP regime, which is now tottering on the  verge of collapse.      Now the action The army was up in arms because it was never aware of the  treacherous Memo by the government. Its first step was to get the head of  the State's man in our embassy in Washington. The next would have been to  bring down the government but the State intervened. It is also trying to  shore up the coterie, with its powerful lobby in our media working full time  to discredit the Memo and Mansoor.      The Pentagon made the next move by attacking deliberately the Silala post.  The purpose was to provoke the army to force the government take some  drastic steps: NATO supplies blocked, Shimshi airport vacated, and most  important, Bonn conference boycotted. The State was stunned    .  Now the battle is raging. The State wants the army to overthrow the Zardari  coterie so that it may go abroad and wait for better days, as it happened  with Benazir, who left the country in 1999 just before she was to get her  first conviction in court, until her triumphant return in 2007.  On the other hand, the Pentagon wants PPP government to go on its own, so  that it may deal easily with the army and also reduce anti-Americanism in  the country.      The army also does not want to have another political martyr on its hands.  Therefore, it wants Zardari to resign voluntarily and disappear into  oblivion. That will pave the way for a better political setup in the interim  period and also allow a massive cleanup of the political mess that has been  accumulating for decades.  The outcome. If the State Department wants the help of the army in  Afghanistan, it will have to ask Zardari to resign. In addition, it will  have to retrace the steps it has been taking in favor of India. If it  doesn't, there will be more problems. That will allow the Pentagon blame the  State for snatching failure from the jaws of a (presumed) military success  in Afghanistan.      Who will blink first?  Wait for some more days. Meanwhile, Zardari will keep  his fingers crossed, here or abroad, though not for long. 2012 will be a really new year for us, the people. http://www.scribd.com/doc/61839666/Indo-Pak-Wars-A-Pictorial-History http://www.scribd.com/doc/21686885/TALIBAN-WAR-IN-PAKISTAN-AFGHANISTAN-A-WRITERS-PERCEPTIONS-FROM-2001-TO-2011 http://www.scribd.com/doc/22457862/Military-Decision-making-and-leadership http://www.scribd.com/doc/22151765/History-of-Pakistan-Army-from-1757-to-1971-PRINTING-ENABLED-Do-acknowledge-to-the-author http://www.scribd.com/doc/22455178/Letters-to-Command-and-Staff-College-Quetta-Citadel-Journal http://www.scribd.com/doc/23150027/Pakistan-Army-through-eyes-of-Pakistani-Generals http://www.scribd.com/doc/23701412/War-of-Independence-of-1857 http://www.scribd.com/doc/22107238/HISTORY http://www.scribd.com/doc/21693873/Indo-Pak-Wars-1947-71-A-STRATEGIC-AND-OPERATIONAL-ANALYSIS-BY-A-H-AMIN-THIS-BOOK-CAN-BE-PRINTED-FROM-THIS-SITE