Not for the conference alone

President Asif Zardari will attend the UN interfaith conference convened at the initiative of Saudi King Abdullah, reminding many of his attendance often enough before in the company of his late wife, the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, at the Prayer Breakfast in Washington. But whereas that was an occasion for public relationing to return to power rather than an opportunity to engage in Protestant prayer, which is what the Breakfast actually was.
This time around, the Pakistani people are not so much interested in the results of the conference, as of the sidelines diplomacy that the president will conduct. This is because the president has committed Pakistan to the War On Terror as much as the previous regime, which does not sit well with Pakistanis. The sidelines diplomacy is being closely watched in the forlorn hope that it will indicate some relief from the manifold and multiple crises that are not letting of the Pakistani state.
To the War On Terror has been added the global financial crisis. While Pakistan has not witnessed any bank collapses, it too has faced a liquidity crunch, which has only made worse the ongoing crises in oil, power and food staples. Attempts to parley participation in the War On Terror into cash, to allay the crisis, have not borne fruit, mainly because the USA is used to playing hardball with Pakistan, and because the crisis has meant that there is little cash to spare for Pakistan, or other non-Americans affected by the world financial crisis. Also, the USA has been going through the eight-year exercise it has set itself, of getting a new president, an exercise which is only just over, and which has left the USA with its first black president, Barack Obama.
The conference President Zardari is attending is as much linked to the War On Terror as the sidelines diplomacy, but is not closely linked to Pakistan. For a start, if there had been no War On Terror, there would have been no conference. The conference has been organised by the UN, but the first conference on the subject was held by the Saudi king. This has been the Saudi contribution to the War On Terror, presenting proof that Islam is as tolerant a religion as anybody wants, and is against the concept of suicide bombing, or resisting the USA in any way.