Dr. J.'s 'He Really Said That': President Musharraf: I'm Coming to Iowa

Well he didn't exactly say "I'm" coming to Iowa. But he has announced that he is sending a high-level delegation of experts in conducting elections and also in solving political in-fighting and both inter- and intra-party conflicts to deal with the increasing level of political bitterness in both parties. (He also hinted that he might turn up there himself, but noted that, given what happened to Mrs. Bhutto, for understandable reasons he couldn’t make that public, particularly as to time and place.) The Pres. declared that he found the divisiveness of American politics very troubling. Since he is so used to such problems himself, he thought that he could profitably (as the vaunted American free-marketeers are wont to say) lend a hand. With his own election well in hand, he stated that he would be on the ground in Iowa.

He will be attempting, from the beginning of the primary season through the general election, first to heal the growing intra-party rifts and then the inter-party conflicts that he has seen develop over the past seven years. He is aligning himself with the new coalition of both Republican and Democratic center-rightists that is attempting to coax New York's Mayor Bloomberg into the race (even though he is a Jew). He says that before he can bring stability to his own country, he first has to bring stability to his country's, and particularly his own, sword and shield.

He was asked how he had the audacity to project himself into American politics. He noted that the U.S. has been a major player in Pakistani politics ever since it used Pakistani soil to launch its campaign to help overthrow the Afghan Communist regime that had been established by a coup against the former monarchy in 1978. So turnabout is fair play, he averred. He also allowed that since the bulk of the American intervention had been carried out from his country, it was the height of chutzpa (and he chuckled over his own use of a Jewish colloquialism) to call the current film about that intervention "Charlie Wilson's War." But that he considered another matter.

It was noted that he did not have a reputation for running entirely clean elections himself, so how could he pass himself off as an expert. He responded by noting that it is widely held on the Web around the world (with which he proudly said he is oh-so-au-courant, using there a French figure of speech), that his close friend Pres. Bush stole two elections and is still trying to tell him how to run his own "fairly." Again, he averred, turnabout is fair play.

He concluded by noting that if he could run a country driven by rivalries between Pashtuns, the Taliban, Osama bin Laden, and his three other major national minorities, he should be able to mend rifts first between the two Christian camps that are currently rivals for the leadership of the Republican Party and then between the two center-right/"let's compromise all the time even if there is no one to compromise with" Democratic candidates, Sens. Clinton and Obama. He did note that if either Sen. Edwards or Gov. Richardson got the Democratic nomination, there would be no point in sticking around because they clearly see the differences between the two parties. Thus for them, forming that "grand coalition" that the new David Broder promoted center-right faction is promoting would be out of the question. He left the interview to don a disguise and go caucus in Iowa, first on the Republican side, then on the Democratic.

Steven Jonas, MD, MPH is a Professor of Preventive Medicine at Stony Brook University (NY), a weekly Contributing Author for the Web zine The Political Junkies.net; a Special Contributing Editor for Cyrano’s Journal Online; and an invited contributor to the Web log The Daily Scare.