Daily Times Editorial April 1, 2015

Double track Pakistan seems to be caught in a cleft stick. On the one hand, given our public posture of being beholden to Saudi Arabia for its help over the years, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s ringing declarations of support to the Kingdom are understandable. However, this is only one face of the Pakistani dilemma. On the other side is neighbour Iran which, although it has denied supporting the Houthi rebels in Yemen (a position endorsed by the Pakistan foreign office, whose spokesperson says there is no proof of Iranian involvement), is widely accused of being behind the rebellions’ major advances in recent days. Pakistan does not want to insert itself into what is perceived as a proxy sectarian war in Yemen between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Pakistan’s interests are obviously best served by maintaining friendly ties with both countries. That is why Pakistan is now turning to the UN, OIC and the international community to find a political solution to the Yemen war that would let Pakistan off the hook of committing troops to the Yemen war in support of the Saudi-led Sunni Arab coalition. Whether such multilateral diplomacy can yield any results seems difficult given that the OIC is toothless, the UN prevaricating, and the so-called international community wondering whether the US’s support for Saudi intervention is something they want to go along with. Meanwhile events on the ground in Yemen are rapidly escalating along with the bloodshed. While the Saudi-led air strikes have taken out missile systems and blunted the pell mell advance of the rebels, the military logic suggests and reports confirm Saudi preparations for a land offensive into Yemen. This then is a sensitive and critical time for the high level Pakistani delegation to be visiting Saudi Arabia for discussions. The Pakistani decision makers will perhaps be clearer about their chosen path once the delegation returns and briefs them about the situation. The Pakistani authorities have shown unusual alacrity in mounting an evacuation of Pakistanis caught up in the fighting in Yemen. One flight carrying almost 500 stranded Pakistanis has arrived back safely, but one cannot be sanguine about the fate of the rest of our countrymen still there. Aden is threatened by the Houthi advance, so escape overland to Mokallah and then by air to Pakistan has become precarious. Evacuation by sea is being contemplated, with the foreign office revealing that two naval vessels have been dispatched for the purpose as well as feelers sent out to China, which already has naval ships in the area, to help with the evacuation of the remaining trapped Pakistanis. The tragedies of such a war are familiar tales. Around 40 people have been killed and 200 injured by airstrikes near a displaced persons camp at Haradh in northern Yemen. Exiled president Hadi blames Houthi artillery for the collateral damage. Saudi Arabia has no comment. Threatened Aden has also seen for the first time Egyptian warships in action to stave off the Houthi juggernaut. Most interestingly, the real aim of the Saudi intervention is revealed in a cabinet statement that says the Kingdom is open to a meeting of all Yemeni parties to preserve the country’s security under the aegis of the Gulf Cooperation Council. One wonders then whether such a robust military intervention really was necessary if all Saudi Arabia wanted in the end was a political-diplomatic solution. Did Riyadh even attempt such a move? There is no evidence to that effect. The flexing of Saudi military muscle in the region of late, starting with the intervention in Bahrain and now Yemen, points to the dual role Riyadh appears to be acquiring of policeman for the Arab world in defence of Sunni power against Iranian-Shia encroachment. This may sound acceptable now that Saudi Arabia has the military bite to match its bark, but the whirling eddies of spreading sectarian conflict throughout the Muslim world it may set off would be a replay five centuries later of the sectarian wars that tore Europe apart. That extended conflict ended with secularism separating church from state. Whether the Muslim world can achieve a similar outcome, which logically seems the only way to prevent a dangerous and bloody sectarian conflict from spinning out of control, is still an open question. For Pakistan, we reiterate, the best course is to be patient, diplomatic, and keep its powder dry while staying away from an extremely dangerous entanglement that looms.

Daily Times Editorial March 30, 2015

COAS’s resolve Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Raheel Sharif stands out in contrast to his predecessor, General Ashfaq Parvez Kiyani. Whereas the latter dragged his feet over clearing FATA, especially North Waziristan, of terrorists and their local and foreign affiliates, General Sharif has taken the bull by the horns. One of the triggers may have been the APS attack in Peshawar that led to the massacre of students and their teachers, but the COAS’s resolve to eliminate terrorism from Pakistan’s soil predated his elevation to overall command of the army. General Sharif is credited with being the conceptual and in practice leader of turning the military towards first understanding and then eliminating the existential threat to the country that entrenched terrorism represents, and which by now is received wisdom across the board. The COAS, even before he was elevated, is widely believed to be the counterinsurgency General of the army, having written the manual on the subject and trained troops for the task. Not for General Sharif the ambiguity and duality of long years of prevarication and spurious distinctions between good and bad Taliban that hamstrung any effective action against them in the wishful desire to project power in Afghanistan through armed proxies. Instead of achieving that outward aim, the country is now suffering from the ‘reverse osmosis’ of Pakistani Taliban based on Afghan soil mounting raids against the military and security forces on our side of the border. There is little doubt that Operation Zarb-e-Azb has rocked the terrorists, once considered difficult to winkle out of their redoubts in FATA, on to the back foot and triggered an exodus from areas in the path of the military’s operations. It therefore comes as no surprise when the COAS reiterated his and the army’s determination to go after the terrorists wherever they may be. His message while addressing the convocation of the CMH Lahore Medical College on Saturday was straight and unambiguous. He said the army was tackling the menace of terrorism head-on and would not rest till it had delivered to future generations a terror-free Pakistan. The task of cleansing Pakistan of terrorism promises to be a protracted one. After all, terrorists have proliferated and consolidated themselves for four decades and more on our soil as an unintended consequence of our long involvement with our neighbour Afghanistan. While endgame approaches in Afghanistan with foreign troops reduced to a virtually token presence and the Kabul government open to political negotiations with the Afghan Taliban to find a peaceful solution to the long running war, Pakistan has a big stake in such an outcome next door. Peace in Afghanistan would have the reverse effect of continuing war. The latter would open up the door to the risk that the Afghan Taliban may be tempted to go on supporting the Pakistani Taliban on their soil, to Pakistan’s security detriment. Peace on the other hand, would avoid such a spillover and may even make the existence of the Pakistani Taliban inside Afghanistan difficult if not impossible. On the domestic front, we now have the first report to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif under the National Action Plan (NAP). The report states that from December 24, 2014 to March 25, 2015, the law enforcement agencies have arrested 32,347 people on various charges in 28,826 operations conducted across the country since the start of the NAP. A province-wise breakdown shows that of these operations, 14,791 were conducted in Punjab, 5,517 in Sindh, 6,461 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), 84 in Balochistan, 405 in Islamabad, 1,394 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), 83 in Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) and 91 in FATA. The breakdown of arrests reveals that of the total 32,347 people arrested, 2,798 were from Punjab, 6,467 from Sindh, 18,619 from KP, 3,483 from Balochistan, 762 from Islamabad, nine from AJK, 30 from GB and 179 from FATA. It may appear at first glance incongruous that there appears not to be a correlation between operations in a province and arrests made from that province, and this is especially glaring in the case of Punjab. But it is inherently very difficult to find such a correlation for the simple reason that such operations are intelligence-led which, like all human endeavour, is an imperfect science. The number of operations therefore cannot be expected in each and every instance to reap a similar crop of suspects. But it is nevertheless reassuring to see that Punjab leads the list of the number of operations in the context of first, the perception that the terrorists have treated Punjab as a safe haven in the past and therefore refrained from too many actions in the province, and second, the allegations and accusations in the air that the Punjab government tried to save the province from the unwanted attentions of the Taliban by appealing to them to spare Punjab. Whatever the truth of such past mistakes and illusions, the fact that the figures underline what the COAS said, that terrorists would be pursued no matter where they are in the country, is cause for satisfaction. However, the other side of the picture is that even after such intense operations in a relatively short time, terrorism is not completely scotched and that brings us back to our starting point: we are in a protracted war against terrorism, one we cannot afford to lose.

Daily Times Editorial March 28, 2015

A bad idea In response to the Houthi rebels’ advance on Aden, the southern port city of Yemen where embattled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi fled when the capital Sanaa fell to the insurgents and who has now left the country to appeal for support from the Arab League meeting in Egypt, an Arab coalition put together by Saudi Arabia has intervened through air strikes. The move has evoked responses along expected lines in the region, with Iran condemning it and its Shia allies such as Iraq and the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon joining in. The escalation of the civil war in Yemen has set in motion an international/regional dynamic as well as widened some old and other relatively new fissures internally. On the external front, it is by now clear that Saudi Arabia is counting on Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Sudan to join its military intervention in Yemen. On Thursday it was revealed that Pakistan too has been asked to contribute to the effort. Whereas the Pakistani foreign office has been at pains to deny that any decision on the request has been taken just yet, high level civil-military meetings indicate a disturbing rush to get involved. A ministerial level delegation including senior military officers was due to travel to Saudi Arabia for discussions on the issue on Friday, but that visit has been postponed because of the Arab League meeting being attended by all Arab stakeholders. The statements emanating from the government disturbingly hide behind the mantra that any threat to Saudi Arabia would be met with a strong response. It is questionable however, whether any such ‘threat’ exists. The fact that Saudi Arabia’s southern neighbour Yemen is going through the trauma of a bloody struggle for power does not, by any stretch of the imagination, threaten Saudi sovereignty or territory, unless one buys the notion that Yemen has always been Riyadh’s ‘backyard’ and therefore not beyond Saudi whims and wishes to control events in that country. For Pakistan to insert itself into the middle of a largely sectarian Sunni-Shia conflict in Yemen would be foolish adventurism. Pakistan has enough problems of its own on its plate, including but by no means confined to a life-or-death struggle against terrorism. To offer Pakistani troops for the war in Yemen would place us unnecessarily at loggerheads with neighbour Iran, and cause complications for our relationships throughout the Middle East. It is by now also clear that the purpose of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s recent unscheduled dash to Riyadh to meet King Salman was tied to the request that has now broken water. For our rich Arab friends to regard the Pakistan army as a mercenary force available for fishing in their troubled waters, including siding with one side in a sectarian-tinged war, is insulting to the dignity and respect of our fighting men. Yemen has had a troubled modern history. Once two states, North and South Yemen, it merged into one country after the North’s civil war between royalists and nationalists ended in the former’s victory and the communist government in the south was removed in 1990. The merger broke down into a civil war between north and south in 1994, in which former strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh crushed the south brutally. Saleh himself fell to the winds buffeting the region in the shape of the Arab Spring in 2012. His deputy and successor Hadi has steadily lost ground of late to the Houthi rebels, backed by former president Saleh and his son Ahmad’s supporters, whose ranks boast military units loyal to Saleh. The Saudi air strikes followed the deployment of 150,000 Saudi troops on the Yemen border and were carried out by 100 aircraft. Other Arab countries such as the UAE are said to have supplied aircraft and pilots for the mission. In the midst of this Sunni-Shia divide and conflict, the old resentments and separatist sentiment in the South have re-emerged. Whether it finds traction in the present circumstances or not, it does show that Yemen is fracturing along sectarian and internal regional lines. For an already troubled Pakistan with more than its share of problems to get involved in this complex and potentially explosive war sounds like a thoroughly bad idea.

Daily Times Editorial March 24, 2015

Pakistan Day Every March 23rd, Pakistanis genuflect towards an imagined idea of their country, a construct that has striven since independence 68 years ago to grip the hearts and minds of our people without, it must be admitted, universal acceptance. The reasons for this duality and confusion are not hard to find. Post-1857, the Muslims of India struggled against marginalisation, the insecurity surrounding which was spurred by Hindu majoritarianism and even, at the fringes, revanchism. When it became clear (gradually, it must be said) that Muslim dominance in India had seen its day, the response of the community was diverse and differentiated, reflecting its internal divisions. The first school of thought to lose out in this crisis was the ‘return of Muslim glory’ trend. Squeezed between British rule and a resurgent Hindu majority whose anti-colonial nationalism was tinged at the margins with an extremist religious mindset, the Muslim polity trifurcated between Muslim (some British created) large landowners (feudals), the religious (millenarian in quite a few cases) lobby, and the modern nationalism of the products of British education: the Muslim intelligentsia. While the first category were predominantly loyal collaborators with the British, the second were hopelessly backward looking, dreaming of an Islamic revival. It was therefore left to the third and newest of the forces that broadly defined the Muslim community to seek its place in the sun, initially under British rule, increasingly challenging it. This intelligentsia’s alliance and cooperation with the relatively modern outlook of the Hindu majority forces, coagulating finally in the formation of the Indian National Congress, is a story of two stages. The first was the period of joint struggle for Home Rule, leading into the formation of the All-India Muslim League, the second the divergence into religious identity, brought on by Gandhi’s appeal to ‘tradition and culture’, which in India’s context could not avoid religion as a reference point. Mr Jinnah, rightly dubbed the ‘ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity’, was the first to critique this attempt to sneak religion through the back door into the politics of the independence movement, warning of its divisive and potentially deadly effects. His prescience was validated by subsequent events when the religious divide sparked by Gandhi’s appeal to religious traditional symbols coalesced into the communal gulf, with tragic consequences. By the time the Lahore Resolution of March 23, 1940 was passed by the Muslim League, demanding autonomous states in northeast and northwest India’s predominantly Muslim regions, the Congress-Muslim League rivalry had solidified to the point where, even when Mr Jinnah accepted the Cabinet Mission Plan, arguably the last gasp chance for a united independent India, Congress leaders Nehru and Patel threw a monkey wrench in the plan and made partition inevitable. The massacres and displacement of populations that followed were unprecedented in their scale in human history. Almost inevitably, this cruel bloodshed on both sides made ‘permanent’ enemies of the two new states, exacerbated by disputes over Kashmir, etc. It also had the unintended consequence of handing the postcolonial state in Pakistan the key to constructing a national security state under constant threat from its larger neighbour, with the military and bureaucracy inherited from colonialism assuming the viceregal heights and manipulating/using the political forces to their advantage and interest. This capsule view of the origins of Pakistan underlines the trajectory taken by the new state and its continuing validity even at present. Military interventions and martial laws became the punctuation that interrupted brief periods of civilian rule, but the latter lacked the necessary strength and vision to consolidate a representative democracy. Arguably, we keep coming full circle to the same starting point. Today’s Pakistan faces the most serious challenges of its chequered history, perhaps even greater than the events that led to the breaking away of East Pakistan in 1971 after a bloody civil and later India-Pakistan war. Both before and after the emergence of Bangladesh, the Pakistani state, dominated by, and whose policies were dictated to a large extent by the security establishment, has learnt little from its mistakes. Pakistan was always, and remains, a mosaic of nationalities, diverse identities, cultures, languages. In the paranoid aftermath of the shocking events of partition, these realities were ignored in favour of an imagined construct of Pakistani identity, but which proved with time to be hollow and by now is losing in resonance. Only a remaining Pakistan that practices inclusive democracy based on the rights of its federating units, their peoples, and a guarantee of justice and equity can make its place in the comity of nations.

Daily Times Editorial March 22, 2015

Ominous signs While attention of late has been transfixed on the MQM and its travails, other forces delivered a deadly reminder in Karachi on Friday regarding the other dangers and challenges that still afflict the city. Two bomb blasts targeted the citizens of Karachi, one through a bomb planted in a motorcycle innocuously parked outside a Bohra mosque in Arambagh, the other a suicide attack on a Rangers vehicle. In the first incident, which followed the by now familiar pattern of attacks on Friday prayers congregations, two worshippers were killed and around 20 injured. In the second, two Rangers were killed, two injured, and another two passersby were also injured. The Bohra community of Karachi is one of the most peaceful, industrious people around. They have been under attack before, more recently in Bahadurabad where one shopkeeper was killed and four others injured. Such attacks have been in evidence from time to time since 2012. It should be obvious that the Bohra community is being targeted not for anything it has done to offend anyone (quite the contrary) but because of its beliefs. The sectarian factor in the spate of target attacks against them therefore cannot be ruled out, although it must be said with regret that none of the perpetrators have so far been brought to justice. The Karachi police meantime are pointing to the possibility that in the second incident on Friday, the Rangers may have been targeted by either militant or criminal groups or even both, since the operation in Karachi has extended its grip to both sets of possible suspects. In a further development, the Rangers have asked the citizens of Karachi to remove all barriers to facilitate their operations within 72 hours otherwise the Rangers would themselves remove them without discrimination. Temporary as it may be, these tragedies on Friday took the spotlight away from the MQM affair. But, as can be expected for such sensational developments, it did not take long for the matter to intrude once again into the media and public space. Rumours swirling around that the names of some top leaders of the MQM had been placed on the Exit Control List were (finally?) laid to rest by a statement from the Interior Ministry denying the speculation on the grounds that no such request had so far been received from the Sindh government and if it was, only then would the matter be considered. Make of that what you will. MQM parliamentary leader Farooq Sattar returned with his MNAs to the National Assembly they had been boycotting since the Nine Zero raid and straight away forced the chair to suspend the rules of business to allow Sattar to harangue a largely empty house on the ‘victimisation’ of his party in Karachi. He underlined the argument that this could prove the thin edge of the wedge and other parties could find themselves on the receiving end of similar unwanted attention all too soon. The prime minister on the other hand is at pains to remind all and sundry that the Karachi operation was agreed to by all the parties, including the MQM, and that it was aimed at cleansing Karachi of criminal elements without discrimination, not to target one particular party. It is becoming more and more difficult to contest the emerging perception that the powers that be have finally decided enough is enough and that the damage to Pakistan’s industrial and commercial hub can no longer be tolerated. If that means any and all armed elements, militants, criminal mafias and the armed wings of political parties have to be taken out to achieve a satisfactory outcome, so be it. If this perception is correct, all one can say is, better late than never. And follow that with the innocent question why it has taken so long for this point to be reached when Karachi has been in increasing turmoil since 1984. Unfortunately, the answer to that question is discomfiting. There is little doubt that successive governments, civilian and military, can be held culpable for the mess Karachi has been reduced to for purely expedient political reasons, whose chickens have finally come home to roost in a manner that leaves no choice but to sweep clean with a big broom.

Daily Times Editorial March 21, 2015

Operation Karachi How things have changed in the country’s biggest metropolis, commercial and industrial hub and the stronghold of the MQM. Starting with the Rangers raid on Nine Zero, the powers that be seem to be gathering force and strength to cut the MQM down to size. But unlike the operations against the party in the 1990s, this time the orchestrated strategy seems more subtle, defendable and far more effective. Basically, through the exposure of Nine Zero as a safe haven for criminals and wanted elements and a reservoir of illegal weapons, and the ‘confessions’ of Saulat Mirza, the MQM has been put badly on the defensive, struggling to hold its head above water, and probably desperately seeking remedies and damage control. Hit man Saulat Mirza’s allegations in particular have wounded MQM and its leadership to the quick. The MQM’s legal eagles have attempted to discredit Saulat Mirza’s confession as ‘a mockery of justice’ (given that it emerged hours before his execution and long after his appeals process had been exhausted) and inadmissible as evidence. That may be so, but there is no indication that the authorities seek to use his confession in a court of law. It is possible that their purpose is entirely different: to so sully the reputation of the MQM and its leadership that the party is laid open to further actions against it without the defence of ‘victimisation’ to hide behind. The events of the past few days have certainly put the cat among the pigeons as far as the clouds gathering over Karachi’s shoreline are concerned. The ground appears to have been cut from under the feet of the MQM, leaving it vulnerable and unable to deploy its usual ‘weapon’ of bringing Karachi to a shuddering halt. Of course the risk in this conjuncture is that the party, or its militant wing, may seek to ‘defend’ itself by force of arms. If any elements in the MQM are thinking along these lines, they would be advised not to contemplate going down what may be a disastrous path for the future of the party. Federal Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar is the soul of reticence in his public statements (including on the floor of the National Assembly) regarding the whole affair. He hints at giving the British High Commissioner proofs in the Imran Farooq murder case but discreetly refrains from indicating what those proofs are or what they show. It cannot be a mere coincidence that the High Commissioner, Philip Barton, has chosen to travel to London for consultations soon after his lengthy meeting with Chaudhry Nisar. At the same time, the minister is careful to make clear that no formal request regarding action against Altaf Hussain in London has been made. Perhaps this is wise because of the perception that the British authorities may not readily agree to any extraordinary measures against British citizen Altaf Hussain that go against the grain of British laws and traditions. Meanwhile reports say the government is contemplating reopening investigations into the murder of KESC MD Shahid Hamid after Saulat Mirza’s pointing the finger of accusation at no les than Altaf Hussain and Babar Ghauri. Saulat Mirza’s family house in Karachi has been ‘protected’ by police security soon after his video saw the light of day. And the exact circumstances, place and time the video was recorded has itself become a mystery after Balochistan Home Minister Mir Sarfaraz Ahmed Bugti said the video was not recorded in Macch Jail where Saulat Mirza is on death row. MQM Governor Sindh Ishratul Ibad has been at pains to deny the swirling rumours that he may resign (or be removed?). The MQM is boycotting the National Assembly and in a sulk while licking its wounds. If Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and COAS General Raheel Sharif’s meeting on Thursday is tied to events in Karachi, as is being speculated, it spells on the one hand the determination of the authorities to finally grasp firmly the nettle of the MQM’s hold on Karachi, and on the other arguably the gravest crisis in the party’s colourful history.

Daily Times Editorial March 20, 2015

Hit man Condemned prisoner Saulat Mirza has hours before his excution been reprieved, at least temporarily, on the basis of a video released showing him confessing to various crimes and naming MQM chief Altaf Hussain and other leaders of the party as the ones who gave him instructions to carry out target killings. Mirza said he was a MQM worker and received direct orders from party leader Babar Ghauri to assassinate KESC managing director Shahid Hamid, his driver, and guard. He was summoned to Ghauri’s house where he received the instructions on the telephone from no less than Altaf Hussain himself from London. Babar Ghauri, according to Mirza’s revelations, was the normal conduit for relaying such instructions. The former MQM hit man said workers like him were used and later discarded like “tissue paper”. Governor Sindh Ishratul Ibad is accused of providing protection for criminals within the party. Further, he said MQM workers who became popular were killed or removed in a humiliating manner. To illustrate the former he quoted the example of former MQM chairman Azeem Tariq who was murdered and for the latter he pointed to the humiliating ouster of former mayor of Karachi Mustafa Kamal. He appealed to other workers of MQM to learn lessons from his fate, which was the result of being brainwashed in the name of rights and nationalism. Saulat Mirza is said to be a resident of North Nazimabad, Karachi, who became active in student politics and joined the All Pakistan Mohajir Students Organisation, the precursor of the MQM. He first blipped on intelligence agencies’ radar in 1994 after the killing of two US diplomats and four workers of Union Texas, a US oil company, in Karachi. According to a police press conference on December 11, 1998, he was arrested at Karachi airport on his return from Bangkok, subsequently tried and sentenced to death. His appeals process has been exhausted, but Saulat Mirza’s execution has been postponed to allow the authorities to gain more information from the former hit man who is singing like a canary at the penultimate moment. Naturally, the MQM leaders named, i.e. Altaf Hussain, Governor Ishratul Ibad and Babar Ghauri have all denied the allegations. Altaf Hussain said he did not know nor had ever spoken to Saulat Mirza, nor did he threaten the Rangers in his television interview. That however, did not save virtually the entire top leadership of MQM’s names being put on the Exit Control List. The possible exception was Governor Ishratul Ibad, reportedly on his way to Dubai on a ‘private’ visit. Meanwhile the Federal Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar, as expected, has asked the British government through High Commissioner Philip Barton to take legal action against their citizen Altaf Hussain and stop him from defaming the armed and security forces in the manner he has been doing, and which has led to the registration of a case against him. Chaudhry Nisar argued such a threatening tone from British soil could damage the ongoing operation against criminal elements in Karachi. Following on after the Rangers raid on MQM headquarters Nine Zero the other day, these revelations by Saulat Mirza have further tightened the noose around the MQM. To add fat to the fire, the killer of PTI leader Zohra Shahid has been held and identified as a MQM worker whom the party says was in the authorities’ custody since February. The party has never been cornered in its entire history, not even during the operation against it in the 1990s, the way it is now finding its space shrinking. Denials and verbal protests are not helping the party wriggle out of the accusations. The country waits with bated breath to see what will happen next. Although the MQM has demonstrated many times in the past its ability to hold Karachi hostage to its whims and wishes, this time looks different. Any such attempt, particularly any manifestation of violence, could literally bring the house down around the MQM’s ears. More reasons for wondering about the PPP co-Chairperson Asif Zardari’s insistence on embracing the MQM at this juncture.