Kurt Bassuener March 28th, 2008

Also in today’s New York Times is a Jane Perlez analytical piece assessing U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte’s trip to Pakistan in its totality.  It’s definitely worth reading to see how the Bush administration’s uncritical pro-Musharraf policy is coming back to bite.  Here’s one excellent exchange with a local think-tanker:

Perhaps the most startling encounter for the 68-year-old career diplomat was the deliberately pointed question by Farrukh Saleem, executive director of the Center for Research and Security Studies, at the reception Wednesday evening.

“How is Pakistan different to Honduras?” Mr. Saleem asked, a query clearly intended to tweak Mr. Negroponte about his time as ambassador to Honduras in the 1980s, when he was in charge of the American effort to train and arm a guerrilla force aimed at overthrowing the leftist government in Nicaragua. He was later criticized for meddling in the region and overlooking human rights abuses in pursuit of United States foreign policy goals.

The diplomat demurred, according to Mr. Saleem, saying, “You have put me on the spot.”

Mr. Negroponte had no reply to his next question, either, Mr. Saleem said. “I asked him, ‘What do you know about our chief justice that we don’t know?’ ”

That question was meant to reflect, Mr. Saleem recounted afterward, that the Bush administration had refused to recognize the illegality of the firing of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, and that many Pakistanis were angered that the United States had signaled it did not favor the reinstatement of Mr. Chaudhry who, it appeared, was too opposed to Mr. Musharraf for Washington’s taste.

Mr. Negroponte and the Bush administration were tone deaf, Mr. Saleem and others said, to the changes in Pakistan, though the message of the tune seemed inescapable.

And there’s more where that comes from, including a worthy exchange between Negroponte and the angry head of the Supreme Court Bar Association.  Definitely worth the read.

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