Pakistan's darkest hour

It is emerging by the day with established facts that our president is losing rapidly in estimation where it counts. Zardari's visit to the US badly hurt his image. The known and the unknown details of his visit have raised serious questions about his inherent capabilities. He spent over18 days abroad during his first month in office including two visits to London and three to Dubai all unofficial except for the one to the UN where, he should not have gone according to our system of governance where such conferences are attended by the PM. Foreign commentators freely described this as Pakistan's bleakest moments' in its turbulent history. With the foreign reserves just about the size of funds left to half a dozen members of this present government by Musharraf as his parting but unlawful gift, there is open talk of Islamabad defaulting on loan payments. The much touted Friends of Pakistan has become a group of bystanders without Saudi Arabia which is plainly unhappy with the incumbent regime.

About two weeks earlier strange stories had started to float around in the media concerning our president which indicated that: i) he would be more than obsequies to US wishes than Musharraf had been, and ii) that this unofficial visit to US patently remained unjustified as the premier had been to US on a similar visit barely three weeks earlier.