Bomb Your Enemies, Threaten Your Friends: Bush Diplomacy 101

The President of Pakistan today published a memoir in which he describes in some detail the threats he claims were made against his country by the US Government following the September 11th attacks.

According to Pervez Musharraf, both Colin Powell and Richard Armitage spoke with him by phone. He claims that Powell said “You are either with us or against us,” and Armitage said that if Musharraf didn’t start cooperating, he could “Prepare to be bombed back to the Stone Age”.

The White House, of course, is already denying this, so I think it’s worth exploring what Musharraf has to gain by revealing this information (or disinformation).

First of all, Musharraf’s allegiance with the USA over the last few years has not been popular at home. A recent poll by the International Republican Institute (not affiliated with the Republican Party, but boasting several of its senior members) found that 85% of Pakistanis disapprove of the American government, and 83% disapprove of Americans generally. Describing his decision to support the American position on the ‘War on Terror’ as ‘coerced’ could be a way to make himself more popular domestically.

Secondly, it should be noted that General Musharraf rose to power through a coup d’etat in 1999, and that most international observers have declared the electoral college which legitimized his rule in 2004 as corrupt. He will seek re-election in October 2007, so he has a limited amount of time to distance himself from the unpopular American stance.

President Bush, wheeling out Osama bin Laden for the November elections as expected, recently went on the record to say that if bin Laden were to be found somewhere in Pakistan, American troops would be deployed on the ground to eliminate him. Musharraf later portrayed such a move as a ‘joint effort’ but seemed caught off-guard by the President’s words. Of course, deploying American troops on Pakistani soil without that country’s assent could be viewed as an extremely inflammatory act.

So Musharraf certainly has the motive to lie – both the timing and the content of his statements could well be motivated by the reasons detailed above.

However, when we look back to 2001 we see that in fact Musharraf leveled this same allegation, albeit not backed up by details, way back on September 19th 2001, just a week after the attacks on the WTC. At that time, he said in an address to the people that while he supported the Taliban, unless Pakistan reversed its support, the country risked being endangered by an alliance of India and the USA. He spoke at length about having to do the pragmatic thing to save his country. (Read that speech here.)

Now I don’t know whether Musharraf is telling the truth or not. He evidently hasn’t provided corroborating testimony or exhibits to prove his claims. However…

One of the biggest questions I’ve always had about this phoney war is – why did Tony Blair support it?

Blair is a rational, left-of-center politician who had, prior to the war, always commanded the utmost respect in Britain – even his political enemies were in awe of his ability to empathize with the public.

His decision to involve the UK in Iraq wasn’t just surprising – it was utterly stunning. And his steadfast support for Bush, a natural political enemy, has been nothing less than incomprehensible, particularly given the overwhelming opposition to the Iraq war within his own party and political base.

Unless of course Blair found himself in the same boat as Musharraf. Now, I don’t think for one minute that one of Bush’s cronies would have threatened Britain with bombing. But I have hypothesized in the past that the reason Blair supported Bush could well be economic. After all, Britain’s #1 export is – (can you guess?) – North Sea oil. And their biggest customer is – (can you guess?) – America. Total trade between the two countries was $74 billion in 2005 – the sixth most valuable trading relationship to America, and the second most valuable to the UK.

With Bush and his gang bombing our perceived enemies and threatening our potential allies, is it really so far-fetched to assume that the Bush administration threatened to bankrupt Britain by imposing economic sanctions or restrictions on trade between the two countries?

It is the only logical reason I can see that Blair would join Bush on his quest to wage illegitimate war. Just like Musharraf, he might have been putting his country’s needs above his own.

Thoughts?