ISLAMABAD, 24 September 2006 — President Pervez Musharraf’s disclosure of a US threat to bomb Pakistan if it did not back the war on terror may have been meant as a sop to domestic opponents, but made him look weak instead, analysts say.
Experts said they were baffled why Musharraf had brought up the five-year-old alleged warning shortly before a crucial meeting Friday with US President George W. Bush.
“It is a bad reflection on the Pakistani leadership that it buckled to pressures despite the fact that we are a powerful nation with a strong army and nuclear power,” former army chief Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg told AFP.
“America threatened Iran with dire consequences — but have they succumbed to the pressure?” asked Beg, who now runs his own think-tank.
Musharraf, who supported the US-led ousting of Afghanistan’s Taleban regime after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, said former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage made the threat to Pakistan’s then head of intelligence.
“The intelligence director told me that (Armitage) said, ‘Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age’,” Musharraf said in the CBS interview.
“I think it was a very rude remark,” Musharraf said in the interview.
Analysts suggested Musharraf may have been explaining the pressure he was under to his domestic audience in his country, where anti-American sentiment is widespread.
Hard-liners and opposition parties in Pakistan regularly accuse Musharraf of being a US lackey. Extremists have tried to kill him three times primarily because of his ties to Washington.
But if the statement was meant for Pakistanis it was “poor management of public relations,” defense analyst Talat Masood said.
“Musharraf’s statement (on the bombing threat) reflects the fragile nature of our relations with Washington,” Masood said.
He said it may be a fact that Musharraf had acted in his country’s interests by bowing to US pressure after the attacks “but what Musharraf will achieve by saying so, I am baffled.” Columnist and political analyst Mohammad Afzal Niazi also described Musharraf’s statement as “confusing” but suggested that it could be to gain publicity for his autobiography, which is due to be published soon. “It is just before the launch of his book,” Niazi said.
Musharraf’s revelation would also increase anti-US feelings here, he said. “It obviously does not make America very popular. For many it would mean the US is a bully.” Beg said Musharraf’s so-called revelation on US television was especially puzzling as the alleged threat has already been reported in Pakistani papers soon after the 2001 attacks.
“This news is five years old,” he said. “He probably wants to remind his bosses in Washington how obediently he followed their diktat.”
