We recently had the opportunity to sit down with Pakistani media analyst, Javed Jabbar.  Jabbar, who was in D.C. to address audiences at the Atlantic Council and United States Institute for Peace, spoke to us about how to improve relations between India-Pakistan, Pakistan’s media industry, and the future of Pakistan itself.
Javed Jabbar is Chairman and [...]

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The media has been awash with reports of President Pervez Musharraf’s impending resignation in the face of the current coalition government’s move to impeach him. Late last week, both the Wall Street Journal and New York Times had issued reports that Musharraf was going to resign within days, with the Wall Street Journal going [...]

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Summary
Today, Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif, chairmen of Pakistan’s two largest parties agreed in principle to impeach President Pervez Musharraf. The agreement, however, is contingent on all coalition partners supporting the move. Just as there has been little-to-no “progress” on the reinstatement of the justices Musharraf sacked, it is just as unlikely that [...]

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On the eve of his first visit to the United States, Prime Minister Yousaf Gilani and his cabinet made the decision to place Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency, the ISI, under the jurisdiction of the the Interior Ministry alongside the Intelligence Bureau. As a result, the Interior Ministry, headed by Rehman Malik, will have administrative, [...]

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The Intel
Insider Brief sources report that Pakistani intelligence officials have recently been engaged in a spate of closed-door meetings. The topic of discussion? The ouster of Asif Ali Zardari and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) from power and the engineered return of Nawaz Sharif.
The Why
The news in and of itself should not be [...]

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Pundits and Pakistan-watchers alike continue to swear that democracy is the long awaited panacea that will cure all of Pakistan’s ills — be it rampant jihadism, lagging social indicators, or the crisis in governance. Their memories have proven to be short, having forgotten the 1990’s, a period that was marked by corruption, extreme abuses [...]

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THE ARMY ADVANCES …
Hot off its relative success in sweeping Swat of militants led by Maulana Fazlullah, sources report that the Pakistan Army has set its sights on Baitullah Mehsud, the purported mastermind behind the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.
In addition to military action, sources also report that a major facet of the newfound campaign involves [...]

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Editor’s Note: Ali Madison is the pseudonym of a leading Pakistani thinker and insider with ties to both the establishment and opposition. With an illustrious career and a number of books to his credit, Ali presents us with his thoughts on President Musharraf, Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto in the context of the [...]

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The News: Reuters
With Gen. Ashfaq Kayani’s ascendancy to the role of Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Reuters published an article on Nov. 28th [...]

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We’ve learnt that President Gen. Pervez Musharraf will be stepping down as Chief of Army Staff (COAS) in a changeover ceremony on Wednesday in which Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani will ascend to the army’s top slot (see our profile of Kayani here). On Thursday, Musharraf will be sworn in for his second term as [...]

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Our sources are now reporting that Nawaz Sharif could return to Pakistan as early as this Saturday or Sunday. Upon landing in Pakistan, he is scheduled to head directly to his home in Lahore or his massive 50-acre estate in Raiwind. He is apparently under strict orders by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to [...]

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Unbeknownst to the public, a high-ranking Pakistan Army delegation returned from a visit to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on October 11th. (Author’s note: Apologies to IB readers, as much as I’d like to divulge the names of delegation members, I am currently not at liberty to do so.) The visit may have been a courtesy call [...]

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Around the time I wrote “A New Spymaster and an Exposed Justice,” wherein I revealed the identity of the next ISI chief and plans to expose the Chief Justice’s alleged collusion with Nawaz Sharif, I also learned about a general understanding that had come about within the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
Following the Musharraf government’s re-deportation [...]

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He came, he saw, he … got deported.
Nawaz Sharif’s highly anticipated return from exile on September 10th very quickly dissipated into an anti-climactic return to exile.
In the wake of his deportation, Benazir Bhutto has announced that after nearly a decade in self-imposed exile, she herself will be returning to Pakistan on October 18th. The government [...]

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The Howie Mandel in all of us is asking, “Deal or no deal?”
It is a question that President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and self-exiled former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto will have to answer soon if they hope to counter the growing momentum of Nawaz Sharif’s campaign to return not only to Pakistan, but to power.
AN UNLIKELY [...]

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