MANIPAL, India, March 18 (UPI) -- Regular readers of this column will not have been surprised at recent developments in Pakistan, in which army chief Ashfaq Kayani enforced the surrender of the Pakistan Peoples Party-led government to the demands of the Pakistan Muslim League-N chief, Nawaz Sharif.
The core purpose of Kayani's institution
is to ensure the continued supremacy of Wahhabi Punjabis over all other groups
in Pakistan, a mission that it has fulfilled thus far.
Uppity non-Punjabis, such as assassinated
former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, were shown their place for daring to talk
of a genuinely federal structure for the country. Now it is the turn of her
husband, President Asif Ali Zardari,
to be at the business end of Kayani's swagger stick.
The "honest" former -- and soon
to be reinstated -- chief justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Chaudhry, has been a
member in good standing of the Punjabi supremacist brigade since his years as a
lawyer. He detests Zardari and has only kind words about his champion and
fellow Punjabi, Nawaz Sharif. This despite the fact that the Sharif family has
acquired an asset base of close to $2 billion, entirely because of its
proximity to the military and other levers of patronage in Pakistan.
