Axis of Sketchy Allies - New York Times
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September 23, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
Axis of Sketchy Allies
By
MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON

It helps to plug your book at the White House.

At a news conference with President Bush, Pervez Musharraf was asked about
his claim on "60 Minutes" that Richard Armitage had threatened to bomb
Pakistan
back to the Stone Age if it did not cooperate in routing the Taliban in
Afghanistan. After coyly sidestepping the question, saying he had to save
such
juicy tidbits for his book's publication next week, he shot up over 1,000
spots on
Amazon.com.

General Musharraf told Steve Kroft he found the Stone Age crack "very rude,''
and Mr. Armitage was on the defensive yesterday, explaining that he had been
tough with Pakistan just after 9/11 but had not made any Flintstones
threats.

The former deputy to Colin Powell needn't apologize. That was the last time
our foreign policy was on track, when we were pursuing the real enemy. It's
all been downhill from there.

The Pakistan president is a smooth operator, a military dictator cruising
around the capital with his elegant wife and enormous security contingent,
talking
about how much he likes democracy, which he won't yet allow.

He may have more respect for checks and balances than Dick Cheney, but that's
not saying much.

On the subject of Osama, he's so slippery you want to lock him in a room
with the muscle-bound Mr. Armitage. General ... General, as W. called him in
that
famous campaign pop quiz, tried to persuade Mr. Bush that the shabby truce
he recently made with tribal leaders, agreeing that the Pakistani Army would
stay out of the wild border area next to Afghanistan - where Osama and other
Al Qaeda and Taliban members are believed to be hiding - was really
"against"
the militants.

The Pakistan government has, in effect, simply turned over the North
Waziristan area to the militants. ABC News quoted Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan
Khan of
Pakistan as saying that the deal was an implicit amnesty, and that Osama
"would not be taken into custody" as long as he was "being like a peaceful
citizen."

American officials are dubious about Mr. Musharraf's commitment to
destroying Al Qaeda and the Taliban. But at the press conference, W., who no
doubt thinks
he has seen into General ... General's soul, acted as though he were willing
to believe the Pakistani president when he says he is "on the hunt" for
Osama
and the Taliban at the same time he's setting up a safe haven for them - and
getting huffy at the idea that American forces have the right to go into
Pakistan
to track Osama.

"Americans who are concerned about a recurrence of 9/11 are worried about
the Axis of Evil when the real problem is the Axis of Allies - Saudi Arabia,
Pakistan
and Britain,'' the British historian Niall Ferguson says. "The terrorists
are funded in Saudi Arabia, they're trained in Pakistan, and they organize
their
plots quite easily in London.''

Mr. Ferguson, who analyzes evildoers and despots in his new book, "The War
of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West,''
observes
that Mr. Musharraf could not survive if he truly tried to break up the cozy
relationship between militants, tribal leaders and some in his Army and
intelligence
service.

The Paks, as W. and Vice like to call them, are at the heart of the Faustian
deal the Bush administration has made. The justification for invading Iraq
was that they couldn't allow a dictator who might be harboring terrorists to
stay in power. But their great ally in the war on terror is General
Musharraf,
a dictator who appears to be harboring terrorists, including the one we want
most.

Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, who will dine with W. and General ...
General at the White House next week, expressed a sly skepticism about his
neighbor's
protestations that he is strategizing against militants. As David Sanger
reported, Mr. Karzai told Times editors and reporters that he had tried to
get
Pakistan's help in repelling the resurgent Taliban by giving the Pakistanis
"information on training ground, on operation, people, their phone numbers,
their G.P.S. locations.''

"Our friends come back to us and say this information is old,'' Mr. Karzai
continued. "Maybe. But it means they were there."

Asked where Osama was, he smiled and replied: "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."

We may not have Osama, but at least W. helped General ...General with his
Amazon ranking. "Buy the book," the president recommended as the two allies
wrapped
up.

Copyright 2006
The New York Times Company

Posted by Miriam V.