So said President Bush yesterday in a joint White House press conference, as he covered for his good friend, General Pervez Musharraf. The general had declined to answer a reporter’s question about Musharraf’s claim of an American threat after 9/11 to bomb Pakistan “into the Stone Age.” Musharraf’s response: to answer would violate his book contract with Simon & Schuster.
Aside from the unusual tactic of using a White House press conference to plug a forthcoming book, the Financial Times yesterday reported on Bush’s faith in Musharraf’s truce earlier this month with tribal leaders on the border with Afghanistan. While Afghanistan argues that the militants are linked to the Taliban, Bush did not hesitate to declare his faith in Musharraf: “When the president looks me in the eye and says the tribal deal is intended to reject the Talibanization of the people and that there won’t be a Taliban and there won’t be Al Qaida, I believe him,” declared Bush.
News Shark recalls a similar episode in 2001, when Bush looked into Putin’s soul, and found a man committed to his country and acting in its best interests. You would think that by now Bush would have learned to stop trusting other heads of state—perhaps a helpful formula to remember would be that the more authoritarian the leader, the less you should take them at their word. After all, the only thing Putin is committed to is Putin. And ditto for Musharraf, who happens to be a genuine dictator, although a particularly savvy one.
The Financial Times astutely noted that while Bush appeared to trust Musharraf without hesitation, John Abizaid, commander of US forces in the region was not as naive. Earlier this month, the New York Times reported Abizaid commenting on the deal: “I'm very, very skeptical about this notion that people who have been harbored in the tribal areas are no longer going to be harbored," the general said.
According to the New York Times yesterday, US officials are most concerned that General Musharraf is only “episodically” battling Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Moreover, Musharraf’s control over Pakistani territory is questionable at best. The NYTimes probably got it right earlier this month when it characterized the deal as a “face-saving retreat for the Pakistani Army.” According to the Pakistani government, foreigners would be allowed to stay, as long as they respected the law and peace agreement. In other words, Osama, widely believed to be one of those foreigners, can stay, as long as he plays nice.
Perhaps Bush should listen instead to Hamid Karzai, who may actually be committed to the best interests of his country. When asked recently if he knew where Osama bin Laden was, Karzai responded, “If I said he was in Pakistan, President Musharraf would be mad at me. And if I said he was in Afghanistan, it would not be true.”
