Tariq Ali

Satire fails me.

General Stanley McChrystal's kamikaze interview had the desired effect. He was sacked and replaced by his boss General David Petraeus. But behind the drama in Washington is a war gone badly wrong and no amount of sweet talk can hide this fact. The loathing for Holbrooke (a Clinton creature) goes deep not because of his personal defects, of which there are many, but because his attempt to dump Karzai without a serious replacement angered the generals. Aware that the war is unwinnable, they were not prepared to see Karzai fall: without a Pashtun point man in the country the collapse might reach Saigon proportions. All the generals are aware that the stalemate is not easy to break, but desirous of building reputations and careers and experimenting with new weapons and new strategies (real war games are always appealing to the military provided the risks are small) they have obeyed orders despite disagreements with each other and the politicians.

Never a quiet moment in the dear Fatherland. I'm not referring to the bombing of the US Consulate in Peshawar, which is hardly a surprise given the intensity of US drone attacks in recent weeks. On other fronts there are some interesting developments. Parliament has taken away all the president's powers, repealing the amendments introduced by previous military dictators. As if on cue the Supreme Court summoned the attorney general and asked him to provide the court with all the papers relating to the Swiss case against Zardari and his late wife regarding money-laundering and corruption. The Law Ministry refused to part with the documents. The attorney general informed the court and resigned in protest. Some spin doctor or other must have advised the president that a counter move was necessary to restore his image. Zardari announced that after his death all his organs, indeed 'his whole body' would be donated to the nation. When the news was reported on Pak Point, readers had a field day. A few of these comments convey the tone of the rest. Let nobody doubt Zardari's popularity: