Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani’s maiden visit to United States and his second meeting with President George W. Bush has attracted more criticism than praise from politicians and analysts while evaluating its outcome. The meeting seemed to have been scheduled in a hurry as Bush is completing his second term in five months and in any eventuality, the Gilani administration will have to deal with a new government in the US in 2009. The two leaders, contrary to past tradition, refused to take any questions from the press after their respective statements, leaving everyone wondering why Gilani chose to be bashed and at the same time pampered by highly controversial American leader, who is fading away in the global power politics.
Opposition politicians in Pakistan have a habit of criticizing ruling party leaders when they meet world leaders, particularly, when it comes to meeting their Indian and American counterparts. Today’s ruling Pakistan Peoples Party, when in opposition had taken on Pervez Musharraf and Shaukat Aziz very hard whenever the two leaders met the American president or officials blaming them of compromising national interest to seek a pat from the US administration. This time the PPP was at the receiving end and most analysts believed that Gilani’s performance at White House meeting was worse-ever by any Pakistani leader. In the post-meeting news conference, Gilani lacked confidence and charisma of a political leader, he was extremely inarticulate raising doubts that he was able to present Pakistan’s viewpoint in an authoritative and convincing manner to the American president, analysts say.
According to media reports, the prime minister was not well-prepared for the meeting and for the post-meeting press encounter. Gilani was taken by surprise when Bush blamed the ISI for having links with militants and that some officials in the spy agency were tipping off Taliban and Al-Qaida leaders of possible attacks by the US forces. He wasn’t briefed well enough by Pakistani diplomats and policy makers about the issues that would be raised by the American officials during the visit. Resultantly, the prime minister was speechless and clueless how to respond to the concerns and deal with the situation.
“The premier was told that his crucial meeting with Bush at such a critical juncture will raise his stature as a world leader and that he will get full backing from the Americans,” one PPP leader, who is in knowledge of developments before Gilani’s departure, said. The Pakistanis took it too easy under the impression that Gilani’s government will win laurels from the Bush administration for promoting democracy. What Pakistanis didn’t realize was that the Bush administration is least interested in democratic values and it is more keen on seeing its agenda and targets met as far as the so-called war on terrorism is concerned, the leader added.
While Gilani was in the US, the CIA kept leaking information to American newspapers about how Pakistan was linked to the suicide bombing of Indian embassy in Kabul last month. One newspaper reported that a CIA official has visited Pakistan to deliver the US concern to high ranking Pakistani officials that the ISI was not playing fair in dealing with the Americans in tribal areas. At the end of Gilani’s visit, assistant secretary of state Richard Boucher said that Pakistan’s government and its institutions (probably referring to ISI) need to work together in the same direction. Unfortunately, there was no firm response from the government over series of allegations one after the other.
The pressure from US on the coalition leaders began soon after the February elections and even then analysts and political observers were smelling rat in meetings of US officials and diplomats with Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif. The US viewpoint had become quite clear in those meetings that they wanted a status quo and it told the leaders not to remove Musharraf and not to change the policy on so-called war on terrorism. During his recent visit to Islamabad, Boucher told reporters that the ruling party coalition leaders should forget Musharraf and focus on addressing issues of economy and poverty. After the general elections, the top diplomats of western countries including the US, Britain and France had started meeting the coalition leadership putting pressure on them to accept the rules of the games set at that time.
General impression among the Pakistani people is that nothing has changed from the past. The policies of the previous regime are being followed and implemented, which is an insult to the wishes of the people, who had actually voted for a change of February 18. Even though, political leadership has tried to change policies, for instance by reaching peace accord with militants in Swat, their efforts have been sabotaged by the Pakistani establishment led by Pervez Musharraf and the US. And this was the purpose for the American and other diplomats to meet the coalition leaders after the elections and convince them not to radically or even slightly change the policies of the past.
The major concern regarding Gilani’s visit arises from the fact that Bush is fast becoming ineffective leader and the world’s leadership is looking at the forthcoming US presidential elections and forming their policies accordingly. There was no need to arrange his visit when it was pretty obvious that it would bring more embarrassment to the nation than any relief. As seen live on television channel, Bush appeared to dominate the event by suggesting that the new Pakistani leadership had completely accepted the US dictates and it won’t disturb the status quo. Premier Gilani, on the other hand, made no suggestion that the new government was independent in its policy making and that it would like to come out of the trance of the Bush administration as it was answerable to people of Pakistan and not to the American people.
The first few visits of premier Gilani, be it to the US or Sri Lanka for SAARC summit, have left a real bad impression on the Pakistani people. It doesn’t matter if GIlani doesn’t have the personality or charisma, he would have been a stronger leader if he was exercising authority within the country. The problem here is that he is completely unable to perform inside the country, how can he impress the global audience. His address to the nation, the first by him, was a complete disaster. While his media officials are trying to fix responsibility, who may have been behind that disaster, the real cause is none other than his own failures in governance and the confidence that he lacks miserably.