Is Nawaz Sharif also a US buddy?
Sharifs left Saudi Arabia with American blessings
Article by Muhammad Saleh Zaafir - September 7, 2007

 
ISLAMABAD: A “courageous and victorious” return of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif from exile is yet another episode of the international play that has been very craftily and proficiently written by the global stakeholders.
 
 Nawaz Sharif happens to be a friend of former US president Bill Clinton and at times considered to be the right-wing zealot since he used to provide all sorts of assistance to the Mujahideen of late Gen Ziaul Haq in the 1980s, who were fighting the war of Islam under the patronage of the United States.
 
 The diplomatic receptions in the federal capital are the occasions where all types of theories are discussed these days with fair amount of interest. The narrators are mostly former top bureaucrats and retired high-ups of the ‘sensitive’ outfits who recount close association of the man with the people in the West and his homecoming is being mockingly portrayed by his adversaries as return of the Tarzan. The leaders of his Pakistan Muslim League-N contemptuously reject these notions and insist that Nawaz Sharif is a naive leader who has nothing to do with any such manoeuvrings.
 
 The narrators while talking candidly to The News said that the prime minister who was turned into a hijacker on that ‘fateful day’, was overthrown in a meticulously worked out plan that was drawn weeks earlier and executed with perfection. Unlike his predecessor, Gen Pervez Musharraf did not consign his rival to the gallows and instead dispatched the whole family to the most revered place on earth within 14 months where he was received at the Jeddah airport by the most powerful Crown Prince of his times. The important capitals of the world heaved a sigh of relief while Washington was more than happy about it. Interestingly, it was Nawaz Sharif who had overtly annoyed the United States two years earlier by exploding a nuclear device and making Pakistan a member the exclusive nuclear club.
 
 The second part of the story takes off when the Sharif family left for Saudi Arabia with the US blessing. Initially it was stated that the family has gone to Saudi Arabia for a period of 10 years and that during this period none of its members would take part in political activities. The Sharif family had not spent even half of the period there when Nawaz Sharif’s younger brother Shehbaz was easily allowed to proceed to the United States where he got treatment for cancer and miraculously recovered. He visited the US more than once and regained health to the extent that he got married despite having his own married children.
 
 On the other hand, Nawaz’s son also suddenly fell ill in London and Nawaz Sharif was permitted to go to London to be with him. The day he arrived in London, his son started recovering miraculously and no one heard about his ailment afterwards. Shahbaz Sharif had already ventured to return to Pakistan defying all the undertakings but failed. The Musharraf administration kept facilitating the Sharif family on humanitarian grounds. Nawaz Sharif had already shifted his capital to Europe and wound up his flourishing business in Saudi Arabia. He settled in the United Kingdom and kept on expanding his international acquaintances while keeping a low profile.
 
 The observers are questioning how all this could have happened without the consent of the Americans as their closest buddy was on the top of Nawaz Sharif’s hit-list. The British media did not report about the presence of Nawaz Sharif in the United Kingdom in the initial days but lately he was appearing regularly on the British as well as the world media without any hindrance. He was holding his party meetings and addressed a number of news conferences in London where he had gone to attend to his ailing son. He chanced to have meeting with his ace erstwhile rival Ms. Benazir Bhutto in London and inked the Pakistan-specific charter of democracy (CoD).
 
 The tarnishing of Pervez Musharraf’s image started with the infamous reference of March 9. Since then the events are taking place in such an organized way that not a single day passed when the demolition process of Pervez Musharraf rule was not on. The popularity graph of the President fell to record low. At this juncture the General started cozying up to the PPP leadership. Benazir Bhutto has been the darling of the West for long. All of a sudden people came to know that the two who had been abusing each other publicly for last eight years had secret contacts for about three years. Pervez and Benazir met on the soil of United Arab Emirates (UAE) in July courtesy the ruling family of that brotherly country.
 
 While his marriage of convenience has raised many eyebrows, it has indirectly benefited Nawaz Sharif immensely. The observers wonder how the global stakeholders could have agreed to let Nawaz Sharif return to frustrate their longstanding designs in the region.
 
 Raja Muhammad Zafarul Haq Chairman PML-N when asked to comment on the scenario said that the administration in Washington did consider General Pervez Musharraf as their credible ally till sometime back. But with the passage of time they have changed their mind and US Congress, think tanks, media and public opinion have reached the conclusion General Musharraf grip on the affairs of the country has weakened. For the same reason the British opinion makers have also started asking their government and even the US authorities not to bank on one person, as he is not indispensable.
 
 The British asked the Americans to ‘widen their support base’. When Raja Zafar was asked whether Nawaz Sharif planned sojourn is part of the efforts to ‘widen the base’, he smiled and said Nawaz Sharif’s views about the United States are well known. When his attention was drawn to a recent statement of Nawaz Sharif on terrorism Raja Zafar disputed the contents of the statement.