After a 41-year apprenticeship at Toyota Motor, Katsuaki Watanabe became its president in June। Best known for a cost-cutting initiative that squeezed suppliers and saved nearly $10 billion over five years, Watanabe, 63, takes charge at a time when Toyota (2004 sales: 7.5 million vehicles) is on track to eclipse General Motors as the world's largest carmaker. He spoke to TIME's WILLIAM GREEN and MICHIKO TOYAMA at his company's headquarters in Toyota City, Japan.
TIME How can you avoid the dangers of what you have called "Big Business disease"--of Toyota becoming too large and complacent?
KATSUAKI WATANABE Everyone should be dissatisfied with the present situation and should constantly try to improve or change things. It's important to realize that there is always something more we need to aim at. That's what needs to be recognized by every individual. When you're growing, you're satisfied with the status quo, and that's no good.
TIME What's your first priority as president?
K.W. Our present concern at our plants around the world is the quality and cost of production. We're concerned with what level each factory is at so we can assess its capability. If there's any gap, we have to fill it.
TIME You're renowned for cutting costs. Is there still a lot of fat to trim at Toyota?
K.W. There's plenty. Look, there are two p.r. people right here.
TIME So you're going to fire one?
K.W. Yes, one is enough ... Regarding costs for design, engineering, quality control, production, work force and management, there are still gray areas with waste and room for improvement. The next step is value innovation, where we're trying to make improvements in design that raise quality and lower costs.
TIME Toyota is more profitable than the U.S.'s Big Three carmakers combined. Why has it been so much more successful?
K.W. Everybody works as a team. We even call our suppliers our partners, and we make things that everybody thinks we should make.
TIME What's Toyota doing in car safety?
K.W. We're developing a night-system sensor that can see things a naked eye cannot. The system would automatically prevent a collision. Another system protects a car from spinning even after its emergency brakes are applied. In the future we can develop a sleep-and-drive-prevention system, whereby a device will tap the sleeper and wake him up. I want to make it happen quickly. My dream is a system that would pick up the danger of collision and save the driver or passenger from being [ejected] and suffering injuries--something like a net that rescues a person before collision because there are many cases where people are thrown and hit the road, an electric pole, a guard rail and die instantly.
TIME Toyota is enormously international, yet you don't have a single foreigner on your board. Do you plan to change that?
K.W. Yes, but not for the sake of change. Only if there's a non-Japanese I deem to be deserving.
TIME What kind of car do you drive?
K.W. In America, it's called Lexus LS and, in Japan, Celsior.
TIME Is there anything about it that annoys you, that makes you think, I must tell my staff to fix this?
K.W. As I drive my car, I get many ideas. On many occasions I notice things and tell my engineers. I test-drive cars too and share my findings with the engineers. Either the design isn't good, it doesn't sound good, or the way the car is built isn't to my liking.
TIME How do you retain this urgent sense that Toyota must keep changing and improving when you've worked there for 41 years? Aren't you tired of change by now?
K.W. I'm a very curious person by nature. My character leans toward aggressiveness, and I like it that way. I immediately recognize the problem, know right away that something is far too expensive, that something needs improvement. I notice things, and I don't resist change.
2008年4月22日星期二
Hollywood Chinese
John Kobal Foundation / Getty Images
Wow, this film is everything that the Anna May Wong film (which I wrote about here) was not. San Francisco director Arthur Dong’s documentary Hollywood Chinese, which won the Golden Horse Award (the Chinese equivalent of the Oscars) in December, chronicles the contributions Chinese-Americans have made to Hollywood films. But more than just a filmography, Dong interviews a rich range of actors and directors about their experiences, including Ang Lee, Wayne Wang, Amy Tan, Joan Chen and Nancy Kwan. Actress Tsai Chin says she’s not proud to have acted in five Fu Manchu movies, but she needed to put food on the table. Nancy Kwan describes how a woman accused her of shaming Asian women by playing a prostitute in The World of Suzie Wong.
While interesting, these themes are not new. One way Dong’s film distinguishes itself from other Asian-American films and books is when he interviews white actors who took on “Chinese” roles in the yellowface films of the 1920s-60s. German actress Luise Rainer, who landed the lead role (and an Oscar) as O-lan in The Good Earth (1927), based on Pearl S. Buck’s novel, defends the film’s yellowface casting, saying that being “true to the character” is “more important than being exactly right on the outside.” One of the most uncomfortable, yet brilliant moments in the film is when we see a close-up of Christopher Lee, a white British actor who played the maniacal Fu Manchu in the 60s, as he explains how makeup artists used latex glue to create the look of Asian eyes, or the “epicanthal fold.” Lee tells us how “uncomfortable” it was to have his eyes glued. Just imagine how uncomfortable it was for Asian actors to lose “Chinese” roles to actors in yellowface.
Besides interviews, Hollywood Chinese is also rich with archival materials, including casting notes from The Good Earth, showing that Anna May Wong failed to impress directors, a 1930s photo of a Chinese-American acting union, and footage from the Q&A session following Better Luck Tomorrow’s (2002) Sundance screening, when director Justin Lin was criticized for portraying Asian-Americans in a negative light. Film critic Roger Ebert stood up and shouted, “Nobody would say to a bunch of white filmmakers, ‘How could you do this to your people?’ Asian-American characters have the right to be whoever the hell they want to be.” It’s a powerful moment that makes one think, why do we still have to have this conversation? Dong also reveals clips from the earliest yellowface depictions of Chinese, such as Beheading the Chinese Prisoner (1900), Massacre of the Christians (1900), and The Heather Heathen Chinese and the Sunday School Teachers (1904). All show America’s fascination with and fear of the Chinese— issues that are still very relevant more than 100 years later. Hollywood Chinese is screening in various locations in the U.S. right now, but hopefully it’ll come to Asia again soon. If it does, be sure not to miss it.
Wow, this film is everything that the Anna May Wong film (which I wrote about here) was not. San Francisco director Arthur Dong’s documentary Hollywood Chinese, which won the Golden Horse Award (the Chinese equivalent of the Oscars) in December, chronicles the contributions Chinese-Americans have made to Hollywood films. But more than just a filmography, Dong interviews a rich range of actors and directors about their experiences, including Ang Lee, Wayne Wang, Amy Tan, Joan Chen and Nancy Kwan. Actress Tsai Chin says she’s not proud to have acted in five Fu Manchu movies, but she needed to put food on the table. Nancy Kwan describes how a woman accused her of shaming Asian women by playing a prostitute in The World of Suzie Wong.
While interesting, these themes are not new. One way Dong’s film distinguishes itself from other Asian-American films and books is when he interviews white actors who took on “Chinese” roles in the yellowface films of the 1920s-60s. German actress Luise Rainer, who landed the lead role (and an Oscar) as O-lan in The Good Earth (1927), based on Pearl S. Buck’s novel, defends the film’s yellowface casting, saying that being “true to the character” is “more important than being exactly right on the outside.” One of the most uncomfortable, yet brilliant moments in the film is when we see a close-up of Christopher Lee, a white British actor who played the maniacal Fu Manchu in the 60s, as he explains how makeup artists used latex glue to create the look of Asian eyes, or the “epicanthal fold.” Lee tells us how “uncomfortable” it was to have his eyes glued. Just imagine how uncomfortable it was for Asian actors to lose “Chinese” roles to actors in yellowface.
Besides interviews, Hollywood Chinese is also rich with archival materials, including casting notes from The Good Earth, showing that Anna May Wong failed to impress directors, a 1930s photo of a Chinese-American acting union, and footage from the Q&A session following Better Luck Tomorrow’s (2002) Sundance screening, when director Justin Lin was criticized for portraying Asian-Americans in a negative light. Film critic Roger Ebert stood up and shouted, “Nobody would say to a bunch of white filmmakers, ‘How could you do this to your people?’ Asian-American characters have the right to be whoever the hell they want to be.” It’s a powerful moment that makes one think, why do we still have to have this conversation? Dong also reveals clips from the earliest yellowface depictions of Chinese, such as Beheading the Chinese Prisoner (1900), Massacre of the Christians (1900), and The Heather Heathen Chinese and the Sunday School Teachers (1904). All show America’s fascination with and fear of the Chinese— issues that are still very relevant more than 100 years later. Hollywood Chinese is screening in various locations in the U.S. right now, but hopefully it’ll come to Asia again soon. If it does, be sure not to miss it.
'Informal' Clinton China Adviser says Goobye to Campaign 08
Rick Baum, a professor of political science at UCLA and one of America’s more knowledgeable China scholars, has apparently had enough of the preposterous US Presidential campaign—in this case, specifically, Hillary Clinton’s China fantasies. I hadn’t known Baum—who runs an informative on line forum for China hands called Chinapol—was advising Clinton, however informally. But his departure from the campaign, revealed here http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0408/9719.html on the indispensable Politico.com web site (indispensable that is if you’re interested in US politics and the 2008 Presidential campaign) is at least a small blow for what I’d call a reality based politics in the United States. One of the most striking things about this Presidential campaign has been the fact that so much of what the candidates say about the major issues—Iraq, the economy and trade most prominently—bears no resemblance, none, to real life, to how the world is actually working when it comes to the subjects being addressed. Campaign 08, particularly on the Democratic side, is the political equivalent of the `Truman Show.' It's all one big con. Barack Obama says he will pull American troops out of Iraq in 16 months, leaving only sufficient numbers there to “protect the US embassy.” That’s sheer fantasy. Similarly, Hillary says she not only is “the only candidate who isn’t just talking about cracking down on China, but I have a specific plan on how to do it.” And, she adds, “China should be our trade partner not our trade master.” Go to Hillary’s web site (www.hillaryclinton.com), click on “issues” and then on trade; China is directly mentioned once. The passage reads as follows:
Cracking Down on China’s Currency Manipulation. Foreign countries manipulate their currencies to make American goods look expensive on the world market and to make their own goods look inexpensive. This practice hurts American workers and it must end. Hillary is a co-sponsor of legislation that will require the administration to take definitive steps to stop China and other countries from harming American interests by undervaluing their currencies. Currency manipulation by our trading partners is also contributing to our trade deficit. Hillary has co-sponsored the Foreign Debt Ceiling Act, legislation that will require the administration to draw up an action plan to address our large trade imbalance.Yes, those devious Chinese currency manipulators have conspired to INCREASE the value of their currency, the Renminbi, from 8.1 to 6.9 to the dollar over the last 18 months, making their exports to the US MORE expensive, and US exports to China more competitive (ie less expensive.) In fact, the revaluation of the RMB is causing political problems here in China because a lot of factories in the Pearl River Delta and elsewhere can’t compete and are going under. Increasingly, exporters in China are putting ferocious, behind the scenes pressures on the government in Beijing to put an end to the RMB’s strengthening.But as on Iraq—where both Clinton and Obama refuse to acknowledge that, as Iraq blogger Michael Yon has written, the facts on the ground are virtually unrecognizable compared to what they were just 14 months ago—“miraculously” so, as Michael wrote here http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120787343563306609.html -- the Democractic candidates exist in a reality free zone when it comes to China. For one small voice related to the campaign, enough was finally enough. Kudos to Rick Baum.
Oh, and the thought occurs: on the campaign trail, Obama and Clinton and even John McCain go on and on about how the United States needs to `repair’ its tattered image abroad. The same is an article of faith among the Council on Foreign Relations crowd. Anyone else out there wonder how sticking it to China on trade—“cracking down” on them, in Hillary’s what’s-not-to-like phrase—might effect America’s ``image’’ in China? I mean, ok, it’s only 1.3 billion people—more than in all of western Europe and the middle east combined—but who’s counting? They're irrelevant because they don’t write anti American editorials in the Guardian or go to Council on Foreign Relations meetings. Memo to those involved in, covering or even just watching campaign 08 in the United States: there’s a big, real world out here. You might want to deal with it at some point.
Cracking Down on China’s Currency Manipulation. Foreign countries manipulate their currencies to make American goods look expensive on the world market and to make their own goods look inexpensive. This practice hurts American workers and it must end. Hillary is a co-sponsor of legislation that will require the administration to take definitive steps to stop China and other countries from harming American interests by undervaluing their currencies. Currency manipulation by our trading partners is also contributing to our trade deficit. Hillary has co-sponsored the Foreign Debt Ceiling Act, legislation that will require the administration to draw up an action plan to address our large trade imbalance.Yes, those devious Chinese currency manipulators have conspired to INCREASE the value of their currency, the Renminbi, from 8.1 to 6.9 to the dollar over the last 18 months, making their exports to the US MORE expensive, and US exports to China more competitive (ie less expensive.) In fact, the revaluation of the RMB is causing political problems here in China because a lot of factories in the Pearl River Delta and elsewhere can’t compete and are going under. Increasingly, exporters in China are putting ferocious, behind the scenes pressures on the government in Beijing to put an end to the RMB’s strengthening.But as on Iraq—where both Clinton and Obama refuse to acknowledge that, as Iraq blogger Michael Yon has written, the facts on the ground are virtually unrecognizable compared to what they were just 14 months ago—“miraculously” so, as Michael wrote here http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120787343563306609.html -- the Democractic candidates exist in a reality free zone when it comes to China. For one small voice related to the campaign, enough was finally enough. Kudos to Rick Baum.
Oh, and the thought occurs: on the campaign trail, Obama and Clinton and even John McCain go on and on about how the United States needs to `repair’ its tattered image abroad. The same is an article of faith among the Council on Foreign Relations crowd. Anyone else out there wonder how sticking it to China on trade—“cracking down” on them, in Hillary’s what’s-not-to-like phrase—might effect America’s ``image’’ in China? I mean, ok, it’s only 1.3 billion people—more than in all of western Europe and the middle east combined—but who’s counting? They're irrelevant because they don’t write anti American editorials in the Guardian or go to Council on Foreign Relations meetings. Memo to those involved in, covering or even just watching campaign 08 in the United States: there’s a big, real world out here. You might want to deal with it at some point.
Sign of the Times
Couldn't resist posting this, a sign in the back of a taxi in Qingdao city in the coastal province of Shandong. It refers of course to the infamous sign that supposedly was posted during the 20s and 30s in a park in one of the foreign-administered areas of Shanghai that read: "No dogs or Chinese allowed" (狗與華人不得入內). As I recall there has never been any proof that the sign actually existed, though the racist sentiment behind it certainly did. The one reference to it I remember was in a Bruce Lee movie (Fists of Fury?) in which Bruce does a flying kick that demolishes the sign.
Anyway, all this is right up there with the U.S. Congress renaming French Fries "Freedom Fries." It's also not entirely clear to me why the French got singled out. There was the much denied rumor that Carrefour investors somehow funded the Dalai Lama. And of course the chaotic progress of the torch through Paris and the attack on Jin Jing, the "wheelchair angel "paralympic athlete who protected the torch. (and of course is now under attack as a traitor" on the internet for suggesting that a boycott of Carrefour might actually do more damage to Chinese than the French). But all in all London was just as messy, or appeared to be. Jin Jing, incidentally, has now been invited by French President Nicholas Sarkozy to revisit France for a holiday, which she may well need. The President has also sent two former prime ministers as special envoys to China, apparently trying to patch things up. Their job will be made considerably harder by the fact that the Paris city council voted Monday to make the Dalai Lama an honorary citizen of the city. (And at the same time, as one commenter has pointed out to me, also awarding the same status to imprisoned dissident Hu Jia: do you think maybe someone on the Paris City Council is planning to run for office down the line?)
2007年6月19日星期二
U.S. Unfreezes Millions in Aid to Palestinians
WASHINGTON, June 18 — The United States on Monday ended an economic and political embargo of the Palestinian Authority in a bid to bolster President Mahmoud Abbas and the new Fatah-led emergency government he has established in the West Bank as a counterweight to Hamas-controlled Gaza.
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The American decision freed up tens of millions of dollars in aid to the Palestinians that has been frozen since the Hamas victory in legislative elections in early 2006. The European Union similarly announced plans to resume direct aid to the Palestinians, while Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel would release to Mr. Abbas Palestinian tax revenues that Israel has withheld since Hamas took control of the Palestinian parliament.
But in siding so firmly with Mr. Abbas, the Bush administration steered into new territory in its dealings with the Palestinians, as it essentially threw its support behind the dismantling of a democratically elected government. Mr. Abbas’s decision to strip Hamas of its representation in the National Security Council to form a new emergency government has already kindled a legal battle over whether he has overstepped boundaries laid out in the Palestinian constitution.
The American moves amount to a major step toward what some call a “West Bank first” strategy in which money, aid and international political recognition would be heaped on the West Bank, leaving Gaza to be ruled by Hamas, largely as its fief.
But Middle East experts said the Palestinian constitution might allow Mr. Abbas’s emergency government to remain in power for only 60 days, and Hamas, which won the last legislative elections, has indicated that it will not agree to new elections on Mr. Abbas’s timetable.
“We are going to support President Abbas and what he wants to do,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in announcing the change in policy. She said the United States would work to “restructure” and unfreeze $86 million in aid that was originally set out to help Mr. Abbas build up his security forces. It was frozen because Hamas would not renounce violence, was considered a terrorist group and did not believe Israel had a right to exist.
By diplomatic standards, the American response to the upheaval in the Palestinian territories has come about at the speed of lightning. It was less than a week ago that Hamas gunmen routed rival Fatah forces in Gaza, and took control over Fatah-run outposts on the teeming strip on the Mediterranean. Mr. Abbas called it a coup, dissolved the national unity government and announced a new cabinet made up of his allies and situated in the West Bank, where Fatah remains strong.
At least for now, the United States and Europe appear in agreement that perhaps the only way to salvage some advantage from the Hamas victory in Gaza is to bolster Mr. Abbas in the West Bank, in order to provide Palestinians there and in Gaza with a preview of what life could be like with a pro-Western government in charge.
Ms. Rice, in response to a question at a news conference on Monday, said she considered Mr. Abbas’s new government to be legitimate. “I think we will leave to the Palestinians issues of how they work through their own constitutional issues,” she said. “Our view, very strongly, is that what President Abbas has done is legitimate and it is responsible and we’re going to support that action.”
But Daniel Levy, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and a former Israeli peace negotiator, said the American move to back Mr. Abbas “looks suspiciously like there’s an effort afoot to reimpose single party rule on the Palestinian body politic.”
President Bush, who is to meet with Mr. Olmert at the White House on Tuesday, informed Mr. Abbas of the policy shift during a telephone conversation on Monday. Mr. Abbas moved quickly to capitalize on the shift, telling Mr. Bush that it was time to restart Middle East peace talks with Israel, his spokesman said. That is something that Ms. Rice has been pushing but, so far, with little overt backing from Mr. Bush.
“Everyone has looked over into the abyss and seen what happens when moderates don’t come together,” said David Makovsky, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “What we’re seeing now is a second chance for everybody.”
Administration officials said Monday that Mr. Bush might use the coming five-year anniversary of his announcement of a roadmap toward a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians as an occasion to throw his weight behind a renewed push for peace talks.
Plans for a regional meeting next week between Arab and Israeli officials, along with representatives from Europe, the United Nations and the United States, were put on the shelf for now, Arab officials said. But in a telephone call with Mr. Olmert, King Abdullah II of Jordan urged Israelis and Palestinians to restart the peace process.
Officially, Bush administration officials insisted they would not write off Gaza, and Ms. Rice said the United States would give $40 million to the United Nations to finance relief projects there. “It is the position of the United States that there is one Palestinian people and there should be one Palestinian state,” she said. “We will not leave one and a half million Palestinians at the mercy of terrorist organizations.”
A “West Bank first” strategy would mean leaning on the Israeli government to dismantle settlements, ease up on travel restrictions for Palestinians moving around the West Bank, and release a substantial number of Palestinian prisoners being held by Israel, Middle East experts said. Such moves would probably require significant prodding from the Bush administration; it is unclear whether Mr. Bush, who has thus far refrained from pressuring Israel to make political concessions to Mr. Abbas, will actually do so now.
“This is as serious as it gets,” said Ziad Asali, head of the American Task Force on Palestine. “It is time to lift the siege off the Palestinian people. This is the time to open up the political and economic horizons, and wage a campaign for the hearts and minds of the Palestinian people.”
The Associated Press reported that a Hamas spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri, accused the international community of hypocrisy, noting that Hamas had defeated Fatah in parliamentary elections in 2006. “This confirms the falseness of the international community’s support for democracy,” he said.
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Multimedia
Back Story With The Times's Helene Cooper (mp3)
The American decision freed up tens of millions of dollars in aid to the Palestinians that has been frozen since the Hamas victory in legislative elections in early 2006. The European Union similarly announced plans to resume direct aid to the Palestinians, while Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel would release to Mr. Abbas Palestinian tax revenues that Israel has withheld since Hamas took control of the Palestinian parliament.
But in siding so firmly with Mr. Abbas, the Bush administration steered into new territory in its dealings with the Palestinians, as it essentially threw its support behind the dismantling of a democratically elected government. Mr. Abbas’s decision to strip Hamas of its representation in the National Security Council to form a new emergency government has already kindled a legal battle over whether he has overstepped boundaries laid out in the Palestinian constitution.
The American moves amount to a major step toward what some call a “West Bank first” strategy in which money, aid and international political recognition would be heaped on the West Bank, leaving Gaza to be ruled by Hamas, largely as its fief.
But Middle East experts said the Palestinian constitution might allow Mr. Abbas’s emergency government to remain in power for only 60 days, and Hamas, which won the last legislative elections, has indicated that it will not agree to new elections on Mr. Abbas’s timetable.
“We are going to support President Abbas and what he wants to do,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in announcing the change in policy. She said the United States would work to “restructure” and unfreeze $86 million in aid that was originally set out to help Mr. Abbas build up his security forces. It was frozen because Hamas would not renounce violence, was considered a terrorist group and did not believe Israel had a right to exist.
By diplomatic standards, the American response to the upheaval in the Palestinian territories has come about at the speed of lightning. It was less than a week ago that Hamas gunmen routed rival Fatah forces in Gaza, and took control over Fatah-run outposts on the teeming strip on the Mediterranean. Mr. Abbas called it a coup, dissolved the national unity government and announced a new cabinet made up of his allies and situated in the West Bank, where Fatah remains strong.
At least for now, the United States and Europe appear in agreement that perhaps the only way to salvage some advantage from the Hamas victory in Gaza is to bolster Mr. Abbas in the West Bank, in order to provide Palestinians there and in Gaza with a preview of what life could be like with a pro-Western government in charge.
Ms. Rice, in response to a question at a news conference on Monday, said she considered Mr. Abbas’s new government to be legitimate. “I think we will leave to the Palestinians issues of how they work through their own constitutional issues,” she said. “Our view, very strongly, is that what President Abbas has done is legitimate and it is responsible and we’re going to support that action.”
But Daniel Levy, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and a former Israeli peace negotiator, said the American move to back Mr. Abbas “looks suspiciously like there’s an effort afoot to reimpose single party rule on the Palestinian body politic.”
President Bush, who is to meet with Mr. Olmert at the White House on Tuesday, informed Mr. Abbas of the policy shift during a telephone conversation on Monday. Mr. Abbas moved quickly to capitalize on the shift, telling Mr. Bush that it was time to restart Middle East peace talks with Israel, his spokesman said. That is something that Ms. Rice has been pushing but, so far, with little overt backing from Mr. Bush.
“Everyone has looked over into the abyss and seen what happens when moderates don’t come together,” said David Makovsky, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “What we’re seeing now is a second chance for everybody.”
Administration officials said Monday that Mr. Bush might use the coming five-year anniversary of his announcement of a roadmap toward a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians as an occasion to throw his weight behind a renewed push for peace talks.
Plans for a regional meeting next week between Arab and Israeli officials, along with representatives from Europe, the United Nations and the United States, were put on the shelf for now, Arab officials said. But in a telephone call with Mr. Olmert, King Abdullah II of Jordan urged Israelis and Palestinians to restart the peace process.
Officially, Bush administration officials insisted they would not write off Gaza, and Ms. Rice said the United States would give $40 million to the United Nations to finance relief projects there. “It is the position of the United States that there is one Palestinian people and there should be one Palestinian state,” she said. “We will not leave one and a half million Palestinians at the mercy of terrorist organizations.”
A “West Bank first” strategy would mean leaning on the Israeli government to dismantle settlements, ease up on travel restrictions for Palestinians moving around the West Bank, and release a substantial number of Palestinian prisoners being held by Israel, Middle East experts said. Such moves would probably require significant prodding from the Bush administration; it is unclear whether Mr. Bush, who has thus far refrained from pressuring Israel to make political concessions to Mr. Abbas, will actually do so now.
“This is as serious as it gets,” said Ziad Asali, head of the American Task Force on Palestine. “It is time to lift the siege off the Palestinian people. This is the time to open up the political and economic horizons, and wage a campaign for the hearts and minds of the Palestinian people.”
The Associated Press reported that a Hamas spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri, accused the international community of hypocrisy, noting that Hamas had defeated Fatah in parliamentary elections in 2006. “This confirms the falseness of the international community’s support for democracy,” he said.
Major Assault Pressed Against Insurgents Near Baghdad
Major Assault Pressed Against Insurgents Near Baghdad
Chris Hondros/Getty Images
Thick smoke rose over an area of Baghdad on Sunday after American airstrikes were called in to attack suspected bomb-making facilities।
BAQUBA, Iraq, Tuesday, June 20 — More than 10,000 coalition troops worked their way through Diyala province and thousands more engaged in operations elsewhere in and around Baghdad today, as part of a major attack against Sunni insurgent positions that began last night.
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The operation is aimed at blunting the persistent car and suicide bombings that have terrorized Iraqis and thwarted political reconciliation.
The assault is unusual in its scope and ambition, representing a more aggressive strategy of attacking several insurgent strongholds simultaneously to tamp down violence throughout the country.
It reflects an acknowledgment that as fresh infusions of American troops focused on Baghdad in recent months, insurgents moved their bases outside the city. Commanders said the goal of the operation, which is called Arrowhead Ripper, was to break the cycle of sectarian killings and retribution that has swept Iraq.
The fighting is expected to be hard. By daylight today, attack helicopters and ground forces had killed 22 suspected insurgents in and around Baquba, the capital of Diyala province, the military said in a statement. Lt. Colonel Christopher Garver, a military spokesman here, said this afternoon that he had received no reports of American casualties so far.
In recent months, Diyala has emerged as a center of the Sunni Arab insurgency as Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and other groups have made it their deadliest base of operations, supplanting Anbar Province. Violence in Anbar dropped after Sunni Arab tribes joined forces with the Americans to drive out Qaeda fighters.
American military officials say Diyala Province is now home to as many as 2,000 fighters who have flocked there from throughout the country, not only from Anbar but also from Mosul and, since the security crackdown, Baghdad.
But American commanders say the Baquba insurgents, a mix of former members of Saddam Hussein’s army and paramilitary forces, embittered Sunni Arab men, criminal gangs and Qaeda Islamists, are increasingly well trained and highly disciplined. In the past year or more, the militias have terrorized the mixed Sunni and Shiite population, wiping out Shiite families and turning the city into a ghost town.
The tense political situation in Baquba and surrounding Diyala Province, which is north and east of Baghdad, has been further inflamed over the past year by Shiite-dominated militias, some of whom had infiltrated the security forces and persecuted Sunni Arabs. They proved ill prepared to take on the insurgents.
Some of the fighters are also believed to be natives of the province who shifted to the western part of Baquba after an American battalion began operating in the eastern section of the capital several months ago. It is not clear if senior insurgent leaders are still in the city, but some American officials suspect they may have moved to other parts of Diyala in anticipation of the assault.
The Baquba operation is being led by the Third Stryker Brigade Combat Team, Second Infantry Division, with support from units from two other brigades. The American troops are either directly involved in the assault or in supporting efforts on the flanks, along with combat aircraft and artillery.
In the initial attack early Tuesday, American forces cut off the western portion of Baquba, where the commander of the brigade, Col. Steve Townsend, said 300 to 500 Qaeda fighters are believed to have been operating. Helicopters took part in the assault to cut off escape routes and tank fire could be heard down the streets.
In the next phase, American forces will begin the dangerous and painstaking process of clearing the city, which is still occupied by thousands of civilians. Iraqi security forces will have a role in securing the western section of the city after it has been captured by American troops, but are not involved in the initial assault.
The Qaeda and insurgent strongholds in Baquba are strongly defended, according to American intelligence reports. The insurgents’ defenses include enormous buried bombs that are powerful enough to destroy or disable an armored vehicle. Combat engineers recently cleared a main road in Baquba of 17 roadside bombs in a stretch of less than a mile, Colonel Townsend said. Of those, 14 were disarmed and three exploded but did not cause casualties.
Houses are believed to have been rigged with explosives, and enemy fighters — including expert snipers — are believed to have machine gun नेस्त्स
American forces are already operating in the eastern section of Baquba. A Stryker battalion began clearing the area several months ago and succeeded in the face of tough resistance. But those operations channeled some fighters to the western part of the provincial capital.
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Initially, however, in at least some parts of the city, resistance seemed to be limited.
In what appeared to be a preliminary operation in Baquba, police officials and witnesses said that early on Monday, a small contingent of Iraqi security forces moved into one area of Baquba, encountering little fire.
The Iraqi forces were joined by some members of the 1920s Revolutionary Brigade, a Sunni Arab group with units that have recently repudiated a longstanding alliance with Al Qaeda, and witnesses said the two groups were welcomed by the residents. American helicopters could be heard overhead, ready to assist, but residents told the Iraqis they wanted help stopping the sectarian bloodshed and ridding Iraq of the Americans.
“Why didn’t you do this in the past?” said a man in who gave his name as Abu Muhammad, as he pulled together the hands of a police captain and a brigade commander. He added: “If you work together you can secure Iraq, and the occupation will have no choice but to leave. But if you stay divided Al Qaeda will stay and the occupation will stay.”
The Iraqi police said the assault on Baquba led to the deaths of at least four insurgents by Monday afternoon. Fourteen others were arrested, the police said, and a large arms cache was seized, though American officials did not confirm the deaths or detainments. It was unclear if there were any casualties among Iraqi or American troops.
In what appeared to be a separate operation deep in the south near the Iranian border, a ferocious battle between American troops and Shiite militants left at least 20 people dead and wounded scores more, Iraqi and American officials said.
The clashes, in Amara and Majjar al-Kabir, a pair of mostly Shiite towns just north of Basra, started early Monday. They were sparked by raids on what American officials described as a secret network involved in transporting “lethal aid” from Iran to Iraq, particularly deadly roadside bombs known as explosively formed penetrators, or E.F.P.’s.
Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, an American military spokesman in Iraq, said American troops have intensified their focus on finding and dismantling places where those weapons are built, like the towns raided Monday, because the weapons were especially hard to stop at the border. “It’s hard to catch because they are shipped as components, not completed weapons,” he said.
According to officials aligned with the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr in Basra, the fighting involved members of Mr. Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia. The battle appeared to be the largest clash with Mr. Sadr’s loosely affiliated gunmen since the start of the new American security plan in February.
In addition to the 20 dead, six suspects were wounded and one was detained, officials said. A hospital official said that at least 60 people were wounded.
A few hours later, members of the Mahdi Army marched alongside the coffins of those killed, but the battle did not resume, said Abdul Karim al-Muhammadawi, a senior tribal and political figure in Amara. By Monday afternoon, he said, “The armed presence of the Mahdi Army was gone.”
Despite the heightened military operation, violence churned on elsewhere in Iraq. In southern Baghdad, two consecutive car bombs near a gas line killed at least seven people and wounded 29, an Interior Ministry official said. Baghdad authorities found 33 unidentified bodies, many showing signs of torture, as mortar shells, shootings and bombs across the capital killed at least nine people, including a national police commander.
Between violence in Anbar, west of Baghdad; Hilla, south of Baghdad; and Kirkuk, to the north, eight people were killed and more than a dozen wounded. The United States military said one soldier was killed late Sunday when an improvised explosive device exploded near a foot patrol in a southern part of the capital.
In Samarra, where insurgents destroyed the two remaining minarets of a Shiite shrine on Wednesday, gunmen and a suicide bomber attacked the headquarters of the area’s national police commandos, killing four policemen and wounding eight, security officials said. A civilian was also killed in the assault, which came the day after the lifting of a curfew that was imposed when the shrine was bombed.
Michael R. Gordon reported from Baquba, and Damien Cave from Baghdad. Reporting was contributed by Ali Adeeb, Karim Hilmi and Alissa J. Rubin from Baghdad, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Basra and Baquba.
Chris Hondros/Getty Images
Thick smoke rose over an area of Baghdad on Sunday after American airstrikes were called in to attack suspected bomb-making facilities।
BAQUBA, Iraq, Tuesday, June 20 — More than 10,000 coalition troops worked their way through Diyala province and thousands more engaged in operations elsewhere in and around Baghdad today, as part of a major attack against Sunni insurgent positions that began last night.
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The operation is aimed at blunting the persistent car and suicide bombings that have terrorized Iraqis and thwarted political reconciliation.
The assault is unusual in its scope and ambition, representing a more aggressive strategy of attacking several insurgent strongholds simultaneously to tamp down violence throughout the country.
It reflects an acknowledgment that as fresh infusions of American troops focused on Baghdad in recent months, insurgents moved their bases outside the city. Commanders said the goal of the operation, which is called Arrowhead Ripper, was to break the cycle of sectarian killings and retribution that has swept Iraq.
The fighting is expected to be hard. By daylight today, attack helicopters and ground forces had killed 22 suspected insurgents in and around Baquba, the capital of Diyala province, the military said in a statement. Lt. Colonel Christopher Garver, a military spokesman here, said this afternoon that he had received no reports of American casualties so far.
In recent months, Diyala has emerged as a center of the Sunni Arab insurgency as Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and other groups have made it their deadliest base of operations, supplanting Anbar Province. Violence in Anbar dropped after Sunni Arab tribes joined forces with the Americans to drive out Qaeda fighters.
American military officials say Diyala Province is now home to as many as 2,000 fighters who have flocked there from throughout the country, not only from Anbar but also from Mosul and, since the security crackdown, Baghdad.
But American commanders say the Baquba insurgents, a mix of former members of Saddam Hussein’s army and paramilitary forces, embittered Sunni Arab men, criminal gangs and Qaeda Islamists, are increasingly well trained and highly disciplined. In the past year or more, the militias have terrorized the mixed Sunni and Shiite population, wiping out Shiite families and turning the city into a ghost town.
The tense political situation in Baquba and surrounding Diyala Province, which is north and east of Baghdad, has been further inflamed over the past year by Shiite-dominated militias, some of whom had infiltrated the security forces and persecuted Sunni Arabs. They proved ill prepared to take on the insurgents.
Some of the fighters are also believed to be natives of the province who shifted to the western part of Baquba after an American battalion began operating in the eastern section of the capital several months ago. It is not clear if senior insurgent leaders are still in the city, but some American officials suspect they may have moved to other parts of Diyala in anticipation of the assault.
The Baquba operation is being led by the Third Stryker Brigade Combat Team, Second Infantry Division, with support from units from two other brigades. The American troops are either directly involved in the assault or in supporting efforts on the flanks, along with combat aircraft and artillery.
In the initial attack early Tuesday, American forces cut off the western portion of Baquba, where the commander of the brigade, Col. Steve Townsend, said 300 to 500 Qaeda fighters are believed to have been operating. Helicopters took part in the assault to cut off escape routes and tank fire could be heard down the streets.
In the next phase, American forces will begin the dangerous and painstaking process of clearing the city, which is still occupied by thousands of civilians. Iraqi security forces will have a role in securing the western section of the city after it has been captured by American troops, but are not involved in the initial assault.
The Qaeda and insurgent strongholds in Baquba are strongly defended, according to American intelligence reports. The insurgents’ defenses include enormous buried bombs that are powerful enough to destroy or disable an armored vehicle. Combat engineers recently cleared a main road in Baquba of 17 roadside bombs in a stretch of less than a mile, Colonel Townsend said. Of those, 14 were disarmed and three exploded but did not cause casualties.
Houses are believed to have been rigged with explosives, and enemy fighters — including expert snipers — are believed to have machine gun नेस्त्स
American forces are already operating in the eastern section of Baquba. A Stryker battalion began clearing the area several months ago and succeeded in the face of tough resistance. But those operations channeled some fighters to the western part of the provincial capital.
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Initially, however, in at least some parts of the city, resistance seemed to be limited.
In what appeared to be a preliminary operation in Baquba, police officials and witnesses said that early on Monday, a small contingent of Iraqi security forces moved into one area of Baquba, encountering little fire.
The Iraqi forces were joined by some members of the 1920s Revolutionary Brigade, a Sunni Arab group with units that have recently repudiated a longstanding alliance with Al Qaeda, and witnesses said the two groups were welcomed by the residents. American helicopters could be heard overhead, ready to assist, but residents told the Iraqis they wanted help stopping the sectarian bloodshed and ridding Iraq of the Americans.
“Why didn’t you do this in the past?” said a man in who gave his name as Abu Muhammad, as he pulled together the hands of a police captain and a brigade commander. He added: “If you work together you can secure Iraq, and the occupation will have no choice but to leave. But if you stay divided Al Qaeda will stay and the occupation will stay.”
The Iraqi police said the assault on Baquba led to the deaths of at least four insurgents by Monday afternoon. Fourteen others were arrested, the police said, and a large arms cache was seized, though American officials did not confirm the deaths or detainments. It was unclear if there were any casualties among Iraqi or American troops.
In what appeared to be a separate operation deep in the south near the Iranian border, a ferocious battle between American troops and Shiite militants left at least 20 people dead and wounded scores more, Iraqi and American officials said.
The clashes, in Amara and Majjar al-Kabir, a pair of mostly Shiite towns just north of Basra, started early Monday. They were sparked by raids on what American officials described as a secret network involved in transporting “lethal aid” from Iran to Iraq, particularly deadly roadside bombs known as explosively formed penetrators, or E.F.P.’s.
Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, an American military spokesman in Iraq, said American troops have intensified their focus on finding and dismantling places where those weapons are built, like the towns raided Monday, because the weapons were especially hard to stop at the border. “It’s hard to catch because they are shipped as components, not completed weapons,” he said.
According to officials aligned with the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr in Basra, the fighting involved members of Mr. Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia. The battle appeared to be the largest clash with Mr. Sadr’s loosely affiliated gunmen since the start of the new American security plan in February.
In addition to the 20 dead, six suspects were wounded and one was detained, officials said. A hospital official said that at least 60 people were wounded.
A few hours later, members of the Mahdi Army marched alongside the coffins of those killed, but the battle did not resume, said Abdul Karim al-Muhammadawi, a senior tribal and political figure in Amara. By Monday afternoon, he said, “The armed presence of the Mahdi Army was gone.”
Despite the heightened military operation, violence churned on elsewhere in Iraq. In southern Baghdad, two consecutive car bombs near a gas line killed at least seven people and wounded 29, an Interior Ministry official said. Baghdad authorities found 33 unidentified bodies, many showing signs of torture, as mortar shells, shootings and bombs across the capital killed at least nine people, including a national police commander.
Between violence in Anbar, west of Baghdad; Hilla, south of Baghdad; and Kirkuk, to the north, eight people were killed and more than a dozen wounded. The United States military said one soldier was killed late Sunday when an improvised explosive device exploded near a foot patrol in a southern part of the capital.
In Samarra, where insurgents destroyed the two remaining minarets of a Shiite shrine on Wednesday, gunmen and a suicide bomber attacked the headquarters of the area’s national police commandos, killing four policemen and wounding eight, security officials said. A civilian was also killed in the assault, which came the day after the lifting of a curfew that was imposed when the shrine was bombed.
Michael R. Gordon reported from Baquba, and Damien Cave from Baghdad. Reporting was contributed by Ali Adeeb, Karim Hilmi and Alissa J. Rubin from Baghdad, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Basra and Baquba.
2007年6月3日星期日
Former Leader Talks of Return to Pakistan, and Maybe Power
Former Leader Talks of Return to Pakistan, and Maybe Power
Joao Silva for The New York Times
Benazir Bhutto, the former Pakistani prime minister, has been in self-imposed exile for the last eight years.
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By CARLOTTA GALL
Published: June 4, 2007
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, June 3 — Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is stirring up Pakistani politics by quietly talking through intermediaries about a power-sharing deal with the president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, and suggesting in an interview that she could return to Pakistan before the end of the year.
Threatened with arrest and dogged by corruption charges, Ms. Bhutto has sat out the last eight years in self-imposed exile in London and Dubai, while still leading what is arguably the country’s largest opposition party. In that time, she has seen General Musharraf, her former chief of military operations, seize power in a coup. She has watched the political turmoil build as Pakistanis grow restless under military rule, galvanized most recently by General Musharraf’s ouster of the chief Supreme Court justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.
Her party, the Pakistan People’s Party, was heavily represented in a peaceful rally for Mr. Chaudhry in Abbottabad on Saturday, just weeks after more than 40 people died in Karachi in clashes related to his ouster.
As Pakistan veers toward elections this year, General Musharraf has run into mounting opposition over his plans to seek a second term. Ms. Bhutto, 53, is raising her profile once again and positioning herself as savior of the nation, someone who can lead Pakistan back to democracy and provide a more reliable ally than General Musharraf, whose performance she criticized in fighting terrorism and extremism.
Under General Musharraf, she noted, Al Qaeda and the Taliban have used lawless areas of northern Pakistan to regroup and cause havoc in neighboring Afghanistan and within Pakistan itself. Yet Washington continues to support General Musharraf, she said, giving him billions of dollars in assistance since 2001.
Despite his repeated insistence that Ms. Bhutto will not be allowed to participate in the elections, General Musharraf, according to aides and diplomats, has been conducting discreet negotiations for some kind of deal that would allow her to return and him to stay on as president. The corruption charges, which Ms. Bhutto says are politically motivated, might then be dropped. “General Musharraf says that he wouldn’t allow me back and I interpret that to mean that he would then arrest me and prevent me from having freedom of movement and freedom of speech and freedom of association,” Ms. Bhutto said in the interview, which took place recently at one of her homes outside Pakistan. “In any event I’d like to go back, and I’m looking at the window between September and December to do that.”
To some, the prospect of Ms. Bhutto’s return confronts Pakistan with an unsavory choice, one it has faced before. Since its independence in 1947, this nation of 149 million that now has nuclear weapons has alternated between rule by generals who have fronted for a domineering military and civilian politicians who have won an enduring reputation for corruption. They have by turns worn out their welcomes. The country has had no fewer than four Constitutions, four military takeovers of government, and never experienced a constitutional transfer of power.
General Musharraf seized power in a coup in October 1999, overthrowing Ms. Bhutto’s successor, Nawaz Sharif, who also lives abroad to avoid prosecution on corruption charges. General Musharraf was at that time embraced by much of the population, wearied by turbulent years of short-lived, self-serving civilian governments. Yet today, Ms. Bhutto, part of a storied family dynasty, is probably the most popular politician with national appeal. If allowed to return, she may well be in a position to form the next government and serve again as prime minister, even if General Musharraf remains as president, if both agreed.
The daughter of a politician executed by the military, educated at Harvard and Oxford and the first woman to serve as prime minister in the Islamic world, at age 35, Ms. Bhutto captivated supporters in the West as well as many Pakistanis in her early days. She was twice prime minister, from 1988 to 1990 and then from 1993 to 1996, when her personal and political fortunes unraveled.
She left Pakistan eight years ago under a cloud। She was embroiled in a family feud when her brother, Murtaza, tried to claim leadership of the party their father founded, the Pakistan’s People’s Party.
Her brother was shot dead in 1996. Ms. Bhutto’s husband, Asif Ali Zardari, was jailed on suspicion of the murder, though the case was never proved. Ms. Bhutto says the killing was a plot by Pakistani intelligence to divide and weaken her family.
That same year, Ms. Bhutto’s three-year-old government was dismissed amid accusations of mismanagement and corruption. Three months later she suffered a resounding defeat in elections. While she says the balloting was rigged, the polls also reflected the disillusion and anger of Pakistanis over a deteriorating economy, rising violence and a leadership that many here felt was concerned only with itself.
Though she has lived in self-imposed exile since 1999 to avoid prosecution for corruption, she denies wrongdoing. Her party fared badly in the previous two elections, after she and her husband left the country, but it remains politically strong.
No date has been set for the next elections, but the voting must take place by the end of the year. “Ultimately, for the elections to be credible, it is important that the participation should not be denied to a leader of a party, and a party which is the most popular party in the country,” Ms. Bhutto said.
For the general’s part, after a series of political missteps in recent months, including the suspension of the justice, he finds himself in ever greater need of allies if he is to win re-election by Parliament. Some of his supporters see Ms. Bhutto as the preferred moderate partner.
The violence in Karachi that left more than 40 people dead on May 12 occurred after parties backing General Musharraf clashed with members of the Pakistan People’s Party and other opponents as the justice flew in to make a speech. After that, Ms. Bhutto declared that all negotiations with General Musharraf were off. But in the interview she made clear that she still wanted to find a smooth transition to democracy.
“The fact that he was ready to engage with the P.P.P. was positive,” Ms. Bhutto said. “I think he toyed with the idea of moderate forces getting together.” Ms. Bhutto presents herself now as a leader who not only can help Pakistan thread a potentially treacherous course back to civilian rule, but also as someone who can stem a tide of extremism, a claim that opponents say she is exaggerating to gain favor in the West.
Two battle lines are being drawn in Pakistan, she said, military dictatorship versus democracy, and moderate Islam versus extremism. While General Musharraf is her most obvious foe, she says the elections may also be Pakistan’s last chance to choose a moderate path. “My fear is if we don’t act in these elections, by the next elections it might be too late,” Ms. Bhutto said.
“Anyone who has lived in Pakistan knows very well that there is a group of people who believe in a war against the West,” she added, referring to religious extremists both in the government’s intelligence agencies and in jihadi groups. “And it is not just that, it is the hatred that they preach.”
A negotiated transition to democracy remains her preferred option, she said, because violent confrontation could quickly be usurped by extremists. “If the streets hold sway, then it is anyone’s guess who actually captures the movement,” she said. “After all, when there was a revolution in Iran, nobody expected the religious parties to triumph.”
But Ms। Bhutto warned that while General Musharraf may speak in favor of moderate Islam, the advisers and the military and intelligence extremists around him, who hold the strings of power, were working against it. “The country is actually run by military hard-liners,” she said. “It remains my concern that these hard-liners want to destabilize democracy in Pakistan because their agenda is to bring about a soft Islamic revolution,” she added. “They are building secretly on their militant cells across the country.”
She pointed out that despite the general’s declared policy of leading Pakistan toward “enlightened moderation,” Al Qaeda and the Taliban had used northern Pakistan to regroup, and the Taliban influence was seeping into other parts of the country. She said she was appalled that the government had made deals that allow foreign militants sway in parts of the country. She pointed out that the building of madrasas, religious schools that have been used to recruit militants, had increased.
Critics have long charged that the situation was not wholly different even under her government, when Pakistan backed the Taliban and used Islamic extremist groups as levers against its neighbor, India, in their dispute over the border territory of Kashmir. But Ms. Bhutto defended her government’s performance in fighting terrorism, saying that even though she supported the Taliban in their early days, during her time in office there were no Qaeda terrorist training camps in Pakistan, and no terrorist acts anywhere in the world connected to Pakistan.
She said she had collaborated with the F.B.I. in the arrest of Ramzi Yousef, the man behind the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and had cracked down on extremist groups. At least six terrorist plots, including the London transit bombings, have been traced to Pakistan since General Musharraf took power.
“Look at what there was in 2002, and see how much worse the situation has got by 2007,” she said. Despite her alarm, Ms. Bhutto said she believed that the religious extremists in both the intelligence circle and jihadi groups were running out of options. And open and fair elections would show just how little support the religious parties and extremists actually had in the country, she said. “Elections are important because at the end of the day when we empower the people, the minority extremists will get totally marginalized and sidelined; their strength is being disproportionately blown up,” she said.
“It is a battle for the heart and soul of Pakistan,” she said. “It is also a battle for the rest of the Muslim world and the world at large. It is not just Pakistan. What we are doing in Pakistan has much larger implications not only on Afghanistan and India, but in my view for the larger world.”
Joao Silva for The New York Times
Benazir Bhutto, the former Pakistani prime minister, has been in self-imposed exile for the last eight years.
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By CARLOTTA GALL
Published: June 4, 2007
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, June 3 — Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is stirring up Pakistani politics by quietly talking through intermediaries about a power-sharing deal with the president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, and suggesting in an interview that she could return to Pakistan before the end of the year.
Threatened with arrest and dogged by corruption charges, Ms. Bhutto has sat out the last eight years in self-imposed exile in London and Dubai, while still leading what is arguably the country’s largest opposition party. In that time, she has seen General Musharraf, her former chief of military operations, seize power in a coup. She has watched the political turmoil build as Pakistanis grow restless under military rule, galvanized most recently by General Musharraf’s ouster of the chief Supreme Court justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.
Her party, the Pakistan People’s Party, was heavily represented in a peaceful rally for Mr. Chaudhry in Abbottabad on Saturday, just weeks after more than 40 people died in Karachi in clashes related to his ouster.
As Pakistan veers toward elections this year, General Musharraf has run into mounting opposition over his plans to seek a second term. Ms. Bhutto, 53, is raising her profile once again and positioning herself as savior of the nation, someone who can lead Pakistan back to democracy and provide a more reliable ally than General Musharraf, whose performance she criticized in fighting terrorism and extremism.
Under General Musharraf, she noted, Al Qaeda and the Taliban have used lawless areas of northern Pakistan to regroup and cause havoc in neighboring Afghanistan and within Pakistan itself. Yet Washington continues to support General Musharraf, she said, giving him billions of dollars in assistance since 2001.
Despite his repeated insistence that Ms. Bhutto will not be allowed to participate in the elections, General Musharraf, according to aides and diplomats, has been conducting discreet negotiations for some kind of deal that would allow her to return and him to stay on as president. The corruption charges, which Ms. Bhutto says are politically motivated, might then be dropped. “General Musharraf says that he wouldn’t allow me back and I interpret that to mean that he would then arrest me and prevent me from having freedom of movement and freedom of speech and freedom of association,” Ms. Bhutto said in the interview, which took place recently at one of her homes outside Pakistan. “In any event I’d like to go back, and I’m looking at the window between September and December to do that.”
To some, the prospect of Ms. Bhutto’s return confronts Pakistan with an unsavory choice, one it has faced before. Since its independence in 1947, this nation of 149 million that now has nuclear weapons has alternated between rule by generals who have fronted for a domineering military and civilian politicians who have won an enduring reputation for corruption. They have by turns worn out their welcomes. The country has had no fewer than four Constitutions, four military takeovers of government, and never experienced a constitutional transfer of power.
General Musharraf seized power in a coup in October 1999, overthrowing Ms. Bhutto’s successor, Nawaz Sharif, who also lives abroad to avoid prosecution on corruption charges. General Musharraf was at that time embraced by much of the population, wearied by turbulent years of short-lived, self-serving civilian governments. Yet today, Ms. Bhutto, part of a storied family dynasty, is probably the most popular politician with national appeal. If allowed to return, she may well be in a position to form the next government and serve again as prime minister, even if General Musharraf remains as president, if both agreed.
The daughter of a politician executed by the military, educated at Harvard and Oxford and the first woman to serve as prime minister in the Islamic world, at age 35, Ms. Bhutto captivated supporters in the West as well as many Pakistanis in her early days. She was twice prime minister, from 1988 to 1990 and then from 1993 to 1996, when her personal and political fortunes unraveled.
She left Pakistan eight years ago under a cloud। She was embroiled in a family feud when her brother, Murtaza, tried to claim leadership of the party their father founded, the Pakistan’s People’s Party.
Her brother was shot dead in 1996. Ms. Bhutto’s husband, Asif Ali Zardari, was jailed on suspicion of the murder, though the case was never proved. Ms. Bhutto says the killing was a plot by Pakistani intelligence to divide and weaken her family.
That same year, Ms. Bhutto’s three-year-old government was dismissed amid accusations of mismanagement and corruption. Three months later she suffered a resounding defeat in elections. While she says the balloting was rigged, the polls also reflected the disillusion and anger of Pakistanis over a deteriorating economy, rising violence and a leadership that many here felt was concerned only with itself.
Though she has lived in self-imposed exile since 1999 to avoid prosecution for corruption, she denies wrongdoing. Her party fared badly in the previous two elections, after she and her husband left the country, but it remains politically strong.
No date has been set for the next elections, but the voting must take place by the end of the year. “Ultimately, for the elections to be credible, it is important that the participation should not be denied to a leader of a party, and a party which is the most popular party in the country,” Ms. Bhutto said.
For the general’s part, after a series of political missteps in recent months, including the suspension of the justice, he finds himself in ever greater need of allies if he is to win re-election by Parliament. Some of his supporters see Ms. Bhutto as the preferred moderate partner.
The violence in Karachi that left more than 40 people dead on May 12 occurred after parties backing General Musharraf clashed with members of the Pakistan People’s Party and other opponents as the justice flew in to make a speech. After that, Ms. Bhutto declared that all negotiations with General Musharraf were off. But in the interview she made clear that she still wanted to find a smooth transition to democracy.
“The fact that he was ready to engage with the P.P.P. was positive,” Ms. Bhutto said. “I think he toyed with the idea of moderate forces getting together.” Ms. Bhutto presents herself now as a leader who not only can help Pakistan thread a potentially treacherous course back to civilian rule, but also as someone who can stem a tide of extremism, a claim that opponents say she is exaggerating to gain favor in the West.
Two battle lines are being drawn in Pakistan, she said, military dictatorship versus democracy, and moderate Islam versus extremism. While General Musharraf is her most obvious foe, she says the elections may also be Pakistan’s last chance to choose a moderate path. “My fear is if we don’t act in these elections, by the next elections it might be too late,” Ms. Bhutto said.
“Anyone who has lived in Pakistan knows very well that there is a group of people who believe in a war against the West,” she added, referring to religious extremists both in the government’s intelligence agencies and in jihadi groups. “And it is not just that, it is the hatred that they preach.”
A negotiated transition to democracy remains her preferred option, she said, because violent confrontation could quickly be usurped by extremists. “If the streets hold sway, then it is anyone’s guess who actually captures the movement,” she said. “After all, when there was a revolution in Iran, nobody expected the religious parties to triumph.”
But Ms। Bhutto warned that while General Musharraf may speak in favor of moderate Islam, the advisers and the military and intelligence extremists around him, who hold the strings of power, were working against it. “The country is actually run by military hard-liners,” she said. “It remains my concern that these hard-liners want to destabilize democracy in Pakistan because their agenda is to bring about a soft Islamic revolution,” she added. “They are building secretly on their militant cells across the country.”
She pointed out that despite the general’s declared policy of leading Pakistan toward “enlightened moderation,” Al Qaeda and the Taliban had used northern Pakistan to regroup, and the Taliban influence was seeping into other parts of the country. She said she was appalled that the government had made deals that allow foreign militants sway in parts of the country. She pointed out that the building of madrasas, religious schools that have been used to recruit militants, had increased.
Critics have long charged that the situation was not wholly different even under her government, when Pakistan backed the Taliban and used Islamic extremist groups as levers against its neighbor, India, in their dispute over the border territory of Kashmir. But Ms. Bhutto defended her government’s performance in fighting terrorism, saying that even though she supported the Taliban in their early days, during her time in office there were no Qaeda terrorist training camps in Pakistan, and no terrorist acts anywhere in the world connected to Pakistan.
She said she had collaborated with the F.B.I. in the arrest of Ramzi Yousef, the man behind the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and had cracked down on extremist groups. At least six terrorist plots, including the London transit bombings, have been traced to Pakistan since General Musharraf took power.
“Look at what there was in 2002, and see how much worse the situation has got by 2007,” she said. Despite her alarm, Ms. Bhutto said she believed that the religious extremists in both the intelligence circle and jihadi groups were running out of options. And open and fair elections would show just how little support the religious parties and extremists actually had in the country, she said. “Elections are important because at the end of the day when we empower the people, the minority extremists will get totally marginalized and sidelined; their strength is being disproportionately blown up,” she said.
“It is a battle for the heart and soul of Pakistan,” she said. “It is also a battle for the rest of the Muslim world and the world at large. It is not just Pakistan. What we are doing in Pakistan has much larger implications not only on Afghanistan and India, but in my view for the larger world.”
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