Terrorists have struck Lahore again in two separate attacks, killing at least 23 individuals. The first attack hit the local office of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), a civilian law enforcement agency under the Ministry of Interior that does extensive counterterrorism work. The blast was perhaps a warning message to the incoming civilian government. The blast shattered the windows of the eight foot building and damaged a gas pipeline nearby.

The second occurred near an office building in the posh Model Town area. The victims include a woman and three children. A GEO News correspondent reports that behind the office building is the home of an army officer, a possible target. Another GEO News correspondent claims the blast occurred near the local home of People’s Party Co-Chairman Asif Zardari and Lahore Mayor Amir Mahmood.  

Today’s attacks are the latest sign that Lahore is increasingly on the terrorists’ radar. Lahore has witnessed far less violence than other cities, including Karachi and Peshawar, in recent years. However, the ratio is now reversing this year. A suicide bomber targeted police at a lawyers’ movement rally on Janaury 10. And last week, militants attacked the city’s Naval College. Militants would like to demonstrate the reach of their network and that they can hit the so-called Punjabi establishment at home.

An angry crowd of protesters amassed near the FIA building, protesting against Pervez Musharraf as well as the terrorists.

Lahore’s hospitals are requesting donations of blood.

UPDATE: 2:07PM (New York) – There are indications both attacks were focused on the FIA.  There are rumors that the  local FIA office was visited frequently by foreign intelligence agencies.  A report on Aaj Television claims that the second attack could have been intended for an intelligence agency safe house nearby where suspected terrorists were being held.  This would indicate inside cooperation.  Also, both locations housed American-trained FIA units investigating the Naval College blast.

While the People’s Party (PPP) and Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) have become politically hitched, a dangerous division is emerging within the PPP that can jeopardize meaningful progress toward national reconciliation.

Bhutto loyalist and party stalwart Amin Fahim has become increasingly ostracized within the PPP over the past week. Around two weeks ago, it emerged that Fahim’s candidacy for the premiership was in serious question. Last week, his odds were renewed briefly, only to be followed by a fairly aggressive campaign to suggest otherwise. There were even claims that he had met Anne Patterson, the U.S. ambassador, without the consent of Asif Zardari. Fahim then, quite uncharacteristically, began to speak vocally in the media on his own behalf, becoming more assertive each day.

The most blatant display of Fahim’s rift with the PPP leadership was his absence at weekend’s historic press conference in Bhurban. Fahim remained in Islamabad and called into the news channels to make it know that he was not invited. Zardari claimed that Fahim was busy with other matters, which Fahim denied. PPP Information Secretary Sherry Rehman said today that Fahim had been sent an invitation via another unnamed senior official, who failed to successfully deliver it. Fahim gave an immediate reply to Rehman’s claim, questioning why he, as the party vice chairman and president of its electoral spinoff (the People’s Party Parliamentrians), would need an invitation.

As if all this were not peculiar enough, Khawaja Asif of the PML-N appeared on several news channels to criticize Fahim on the record. He said that his party had reservations about Fahim being prime minister because of his links to Pervez Musharraf and the establishment. He claimed that Fahim met with Musharraf on the night of Bhutto’s assassination and on her soyem (third after her death). Fahim fervently denied these allegations but wavered on the question of whether he’s met with Musharraf after Bhutto’s death. He seemed to first issue a denial, but then referred the questioner to Zardari. His insinuation: he met with Musharraf after Bhutto’s death, but with the consent or even urging of Zardari.

The truth is more likely somewhere in between. Fahim’s meetings with Musharraf were likely done with the approval of Bhutto and Zardari, but now his connections to Musharraf are no longer a utility but a liability and potential source of danger. There is perhaps a fear within the PPP that Fahim, as prime minister, would pull the forces back when time to confront Musharraf. And then there’s the now popular belief that Zardari seeks the premiership himself and doesn’t trust that Fahim would serve as a mere placeholder. That seems quite clear; Fahim is uninterested in other offices indirectly offered to him (such as the presidency or speakership in the National Assembly) and seems to feel that his loyalty has earned him the premiership. Fahim has been a company man, serving as a titular executive vice president, only to have a less senior executive promoted over him as CEO.

Anyway, there is a fine line between demotion and excommunication, and the PPP seems unable to navigate on one side. Its handling of the situation has been indelicate. Differences within the party should be communicated within and not simply fought on the airwaves. The fissures serve neither the party’s interests nor those of Pakistan as a whole. Now is a time for intra-party consolidation and inter-party cooperation, not fracturing — especially on provincial and ethnic lines. The only winners from a PPP divide are the losers of last month’s elections–political deadwood that can only gain from a politics of antagonism.

All is merry in Murree, or specifically beautiful Bhurban, where the People’s Party (PPP)  and Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) have agreed to both share power and restore the judiciary deposed by Pervez Musharraf last year.

Flowers fittingly adorned the microphone platform through which Nawaz Sharif and Asif Zardari made their historic announcement to Pakistan and the world.  Their political engagement made two and a half weeks ago is now a marriage.  The two leaders, once bitter foes in the 1990s, have now, it appears, become partners for parliamentary democracy.

The PML-N will fully join the PPP-led central government in Islamabad, while the PPP will do the same with Punjab’s PML-N-led provincial government.  In other words, the two parties will, more or less, share both the fruits and failures of governance.  As a result, both parties will have a keener interest in the viability of both the federal and Punjab governments.

Additionally, on the one year anniversary (to the date) of Musharraf’s first attempt to depose Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, the PPP and PML-N agreed to restore the judges to their November 2nd positions.  Their method: a parliamentary resolution passed by a simple majority within the new government’s first 30 days.  There, however, remains disagreement–perhaps contrived–within Pakistan’s legal community as to whether this is a constitutional method.  As a result, the judges’ restoration isn’t guaranteed.  Nor is the fate of judges who assumed the places of the deposed justices clear.  Perhaps they will be reverted back to their original posts as well.

The Sharif-Zardari accord, if it lasts, will serve as a monumental step toward resolving Pakistan’s endemic governance challenges.  Their rapprochement helps mend the long standing, deleterious intra-civilian divide; in concert with Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, who is recalling the military from politics, Pakistan’s emerging troika can significantly restore civil institutions, parliamentary democracy, and the military’s effectiveness.  Cynics will say this is a long shot.  But today’s events should temper that cynicism.  For while many of the actors in Pakistan’s politics remain the same, they speak a new language and don new clothing (even hair pieces).  The country has changed.  Politicians, who survive on knowing in which direction the wind blows, have apparently followed suit.  The trick, perhaps, is for Pakistan’s civil society and electorate to keep the wind blowing.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, an aspirant for the Democratic presidential nomination, released today her plan for Afghanistan-Pakistan, which she describes as the “forgotten front line” in the war on terror.  The New York senator called for the appointment of a special envoy to Pakistan-Afghanistan “to develop a regional strategy to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaeda.” She stressed on the linked fates of both countries:

“Providing security to Afghanistan cannot be accomplished without greater security on the Afghan-Pakistan border and greater stability within Pakistan.”

The plan leans toward viewing Pakistan within the prism of Afghan stability.  In doing so, it reflects a prevailing weakness with the U.S. foreign policy establishment — namely, subsuming a pivotal country of 165 million population country under a critical, but more peripheral nation of 30 million.  A substantive Pakistan policy would require an appreciation of the country on its own right and not simply how it pertains to the challenges, real as they may be, in Afghanistan.  It necessitates a paradigmatic shift that gives greater weight to Pakistan in the Pak-Afghan equation.  For long, U.S. policymakers have overly prioritized the Afghan side of the border.  Active consideration must also be given to how policies in and toward Kabul impact Islamabad.

Clinton’s plan does offer four Pakistan-specific proposals:

• moving beyond a Musharraf-centric policy and toward a broader engagement of political and civil society actors in Pakistan;
• increasing non-military assistance to the country (“aid should be targeted at strengthening democratic institutions, building civil society, and improving economic and educational opportunities. A stable and democratic Pakistan will be a stronger security partner for the United States in the years ahead.”);
• making military assistance more accountable (no explanation of how);
• improving Pakistan-India relations (no specifics; did not mention the “K”-word).

This plan follows her January statement calling for the joint British-American oversight of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.  Also, in recent weeks, Clinton has appropriated the Republican talking points accusing Obama of threatening to attack Pakistan.

Pervez Musharraf was in Jacobabad earlier today to inaugurate a new potable water supply project. His comments, however, ventured out of the territory of drinkable water and into the recent dubious reports that he was being pushed out by Gen. Ashfaq Kayani. An assertive Musharraf said: “This is my Army. This Army will never leave me.”

He also said the next parliament will convene within two weeks.  A senior government official had said earlier that the body would convene by this coming Wednesday. Looks like someone’s not going to “behave like a fatherly figure.” Deals are to be made.

SEPARATION OF POWERS
Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ashfaq Kayani chaired a meeting of the Corps Commanders this afternoon in Rawalpindi. Kayani asserted the army’s commitment to its primary professional tasks and pledged to keep the institution out of politics.

The army chief indirectly addressed a dubious report claiming that he asked Musharraf to resign within days. An Inter-Services Public Relations press release paraphrases Kayani’s assertion of neutrality–”any kind of schism, at any level, under the circumstances would not be in the larger interest of the nation”–and notes his emphasis on the “importance of the constitutional relationship between Army and the National Command Structure.” The latter is headed by the president.

Kayani’s denial was couched in the language of constitutionalism and the national interest–not personal loyalty. Musharraf’s name was not even used. He remains an irredeemable political black sheep.

ISPR also posted an Urdu version of the press release on its site, which it rarely does. The story of Musharraf’s forced resignation emerged from a South Korean ‘citizen’s journalist’ website and was eaten up by the Urdu press.

POWERLESS IN KARACHI
This morning, the federal Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) cut off supply of energy to the Karachi Energy Supply Corporation (KESC), which provides electricity for the 20 million plus Karachi metropolitan area. The much-derided KESC, of which a private Saudi-Kuwaiti consortium holds a majority stake, owes the government half a billion dollars in back payments. Power is slowly being restored.

POWER SHARING IN PUNJAB AND ISLAMABAD?
The Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the People’s Party (PPP) and have agreed to a framework for a coalition government in Punjab. The PPP entertained the idea of a coalition government with the Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) in the province, but this was largely a measure to induce the PML-N to join the federal cabinet. Until late last night in Pakistan, the PML-N had only agreed to join the government short of accepting cabinet ministries. This would have provided the PML-N a clean exit from the governing coalition should it deteriorate or if the PPP compromises on removing Musharraf or restoring the judges. But late last night, the deadlock between the two parties reportedly broke with PPP Co-Chairman Asif Zardari giving PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif his guarantee for full support on the judges restoration. This is Pakistan so, of course, nothing is final till it’s final.

The PPP postponed naming its nominee for prime minister today, though it could do so within a few days. The National Assembly will convene by next Wednesday (March 12).

EXPLOSIVE POWERS
In other news, Lahore police arrested two suspected suicide bombers with three explosive jackets.

Polls concerning U.S.-Pakistan relations tend to focus on how Pakistanis view the United States.  A new Gallup survey provides a look at the flip side.  How do Americans view Pakistan?

Pakistan is one of the most unfavorably viewed countries.  Seventy two percent of Americans polled have negative views on Pakistan.  It trails Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, but finds itself ahead of Afghanistan, Iraq, the Palestinian Authority, North Korea, and Iran.  Republicans are almost twice more likely than Democrats to view Pakistan positively.

Supreme Court Bar Association President Aitzaz Ahsan is currently speaking at a lawyers gathering in Karachi. An impassioned Ahsan said the people of Pakistan have made their decision and Pervez Musharraf is near his exit. He asked the United States and other Western states why, despite this clear message, they continue to support Musharraf. Ahsan also said his movement supports strengthening parliament — a major stated goal of People’s Party Co-Chairman Asif Zardari — but argued that an independent judiciary is necessary to achieve this.

Roughly two weeks have passed since Pakistan’s elections, but parliament and the provincial assemblies have yet to convene, governing coalitions haven’t been finalized, and Pakistan’s largest party hasn’t chosen its prime ministerial nominee. The sluggish pace of the transition was expected, though if the status quo prevails into the weekend or next week, those interested in Pakistan’s stability and political reform should be concerned.

The political situation in Pakistan remains quite fluid.

Two days after the elections, the People’s Party (PPP) and Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) agreed to form a government “in principle.” But since then, the two parties haven’t really addressed the major sticking points between the two publicly, and the PPP has continued in direct and back channel talks with Pervez Musharraf and his domestic and foreign allies. At the same time, the Supreme Court has dismissed petitions against Musharraf’s National Reconciliation Ordiance, which enabled political re-entry for Benazir Bhutto and Asif Zardari, but not Nawaz and Shahbaz Sharif.

Though the PPP is positioned for accommodation with Musharraf, the basis for a PPP, PML-N, and Awami National Party (ANP) coalition government in the center remains intact. Both can occur, but they are more likely to be mutually exclusive.

Last week, it appeared that the PPP was putting forward a prime ministerial nominee from Punjab, not Amin Fahim from Sindh. But now there are reports that Fahim is back in the good graces of Zardari — or, at the very least, a majority of the party’s central executive committee.

What is clear is that the PPP is positioning itself for a measured opposition to Pervez Musharraf that will enable it to either extract maximal concessions from him or go for the jugular–impeachment–when ready (or both).

In contrast, the PML-N would like to keep a safe distance from the president, consistent with its anti-Musharraf election campaign, so as to reap full rewards from his eventual downfall.

More to come.