President Musharraf may have been the victim of subterfuge when he launched his ill-concieved plan to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict. When he visited Saudi Arabia and UAE he was accorded the highest honors then something happned which exposed Musharraf as a pawn in the Bush enclave. He shares some blame since it was his over-reach and over meglomania that led hin on this path.
But that is not just the only purpose of this thread. Retd General Hameed Gul, former boss of ISI and humble servant of American interests has made some very inetresting remarks about Musharraf. Very conviniently, Hameed Gul has blamed Musharraf for this fiasco and absolved the Saudis who happen to be the primary force behind this move. One reason for this can be explained by the fact that Hameed Gul has been the beneficiary of Saudi benevolence in the form of financial assistance that goes in the millions of dollars.
Head of ISI, working for the Americans and now for the Saudis this person is responsible for manipulating elections, setting up terrorist units across Pakistan, formenting sectarian hatred, creating the anti0shia policy and continues to support the Taliban agenda. Monsters like Hameed Gul have become self-styled leaders but are nothing more than cheap lotas who will sell their souls to the highest bidder.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/IC08Df01.html
Musharraf: From favorite to fall guy
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad’s eight-hour trip to Saudi Arabia last weekend to meet with King Abdullah dealt a body blow to US efforts to drive a wedge between the Persians and the Arabs. Plans to create a Sunni bloc to isolate and oppose an Iran-dominated Shi’ite “crescent” have also been derailed.
And Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf has come out of the whole episode with egg on his face.
Lieutenant-General Hamid Gul, a former head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence who maintains close ties with Riyadh and Tehran, told Asia Times Online that he believes Musharraf’s meddling in Middle Eastern affairs has further isolated the general.
Apart from anything else, Ahmadinejad’s visit rattled some nerves in Jerusalem. Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni commented, “Ahmadinejad is a leader who denies the Holocaust, who tells the Jews to go back to Europe, talks of a vision of wiping Israel off the map. He should not be accepted as a member of the international community. Now he is being received in Saudi Arabia.”
Over the past few months, Pakistan, a founder member of the United States’ axis against terrorism formed after September 11, 2001, has emerged as a new proxy for Washington on the world stage.
Islamabad recently hosted a meeting of the foreign ministers of six other members of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) - Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Malaysia and Indonesia - Sunni Muslim countries subscribing to what Musharraf calls “enlightened moderation”. This came after Musharraf had visited the pro-American states of the Persian Gulf and the Middle East.
The formation of this core group was a Saudi idea, which included the formation of a multinational Muslim peacekeeping force from OIC countries. But Pakistan’s spin on a resolution of the Palestinian issue was sensed by all, including Saudi Arabia, as a US ploy, and very quickly the dynamics of the game changed.
“The immense popularity of the Iranian president and Hezbollah’s Hasan Nasrullah among Arab youths was a matter of concern for Arab monarchs, but it does not mean that they will be part of any American designs in the Middle East,” Gul told Asia Times Online.
“The entire Saudi plan of a peacekeeping force and resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict was one perspective, but the Americans tried to hijack the plan through Egypt and Pakistan,” Gul said.
"The spirit of the Saudi Middle East peace plan was the three-point agenda of King Abdullah when he was crown prince in which he demanded that Israel withdraw to its position before 1967 [the Six Day War]. Jerusalem would be the capital of the Palestinian state. If these demands were accepted, Israel would be accepted as a secular democratic state in the Middle East. But the Israelis did not accept all these points.
"That was the crux of the whole matter, but the Americans meddled through Pakistan and Egypt and hijacked the whole agenda by turning it into [creating] a Sunni bloc and the recognition of Israel. The scheme was exposed because of General Pervez Musharraf’s haste when, during his Middle Eastern visit, he held a press conference in the UAE [United Arab Emirates] and said that Israel is a reality and it would be better for it to be recognized by the Islamic world. This exposed the designs for a ‘Sunni bloc’ to cater to the American agenda.
“Arab leaders were stunned by Musharraf’s remarks, and King Abdullah went out of his way in a newspaper interview to embarrass Musharraf by saying that Palestine is purely ‘our’ issue and nobody needs to meddle in the area with their own agenda,” Gul said.
Gul maintains that the theory of creating a Shi’ite-Sunni divide was developed by US think-tanks such as the Rand Corporation and is a figment of their imagination.
“The Iranians never tried to export Shi’ite ideology. The reasons for sectarian tensions are different and purely local in each society. Imam [ayatollah Ruhollah] Khomeini was completely against the idea of concentrating on the Shi’ite school [of Islam] and once said that as Shi’ites were 6% of the whole Muslim ummah, if Iran tried to concentrate on Shi’ites only, it would not work. Al-Qaeda is also pan-Islamist, and pan-Islamists would never go for a narrow definition of their ideologies like Salafism,” said Gul.
“Any US aggression on Iran would be a litmus test of pan-Islamism, and jihadis all over the world would join hands with Iran against America. And Iran never back-stabbed al-Qaeda. Pakistan has caught over 700 al-Qaeda members and handed them over to the Americans. The Iranians did not hand anybody to the Americans. Osama bin Laden’s families crossed through Iran, Saiful Adil and other important al-Qaeda leaders crossed through Iran, and nobody was bothered, because Iran is a follower of pan-Islamicism and not of any narrow sectarian definition,” said Gul.
“The whole American scheme has been exposed, and Musharraf and [Egyptian President] Hosni Mubarak fell flat on their faces after the Iranian president was received with open arms in Riyadh. Now Musharraf should sort out his options, as he has already lost his Afghan card to the Americans and his significance is only to guard against Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal falling into anybody’s hand who would use it against Israel,” Gul said.
