There’s reality and there’s Bush Administration ‘facts’. Chances are George may have accidentally tripped across what G. K. Chesterton said in Come to Think of It: "Facts as facts do not always create a spirit of reality, because reality is a spirit." Either way, Bush’s ‘facts’ seemingly flow from his ‘spiritual’ musings about sitting at the right hand of God while he – not He - misruled the world with ungodly wisdom.

Let’s spell out the undeniable here: The foreign policy of US administrations since World War II has unfailingly focused on undermining democracy in countries where local politics didn’t play out to US liking. Pakistan is a case in point, which also explains how Pervez Musharraf, the dictator-President, became an enthusiastic ally of George’s War on Terror.

General Musharraf’s resignation last month caused a lot of bother in Washington, although it was a well known secret that Benazir’s assassination in late December 2007 signalled a marked cooling off between him and his exchequer; Bush and Condoleeza Rice were at the time of the tragedy jointly playing kapuwa for a political marriage of convenience, but don’t ask whose interests the duo were so hell bent on safeguarding. Writing just weeks before the tragedy, columnist Tariq Ali felt the US was "fearful that if it did not push this through both parties might soon be too old for recycling." [Yes, desperation is often the trigger that propels ‘arranged marriages’ toward an unfortunately early and disastrous denouement.]

Intrigue, to be sure, is part and parcel of politics, but here’s a major revelation made on August 26 by the New York Times, but allowed to die unnaturally from non-exposure by the rest of the US mainstream media. Was Musharraf’s surprisingly abrupt decision to exit caused by a sudden withdrawal of US support? According to staff writers Helene Cooper and Mark Mazzetti, the State Department had not been in favour of an undignified and hasty departure, but unknown to them a hardcore neo-con faction led by Zalmay Khalilzad, the US Ambassador to the Security Council, was busy advising Zardari in secret and helping him plan the campaign to oust the General.

The Times reported: "Mr. Khalilzad had spoken by telephone with Mr. Zardari, the leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party, several times a week for the past month until he was confronted about the unauthorized contacts, a senior United States official said. "Can I ask what sort of ‘advice and help’ you are providing?", Mr. Boucher wrote in an angry e-mail message to Mr. Khalilzad. "What sort of channel is this? Governmental, private, personal?" Copies of the message were sent to others at the highest levels of the State Department; the message was provided to the New York Times by an administration official who had received a copy."

In a piece titled The Godfather as President, Tari Ali wrote in CounterPunch magazine: "Khalilzad is an inveterate factionalist and a master of intrigue. Having implanted Hamid Karzai in Kabul (with dire results as many in Washington now admit) he had been livid with Musharraf for refusing to give 100 per cent support to his Afghan protege. Khalilzad now saw an opportunity to punish Musharraf and simultaneously try and create a Pakistani equivalent of Karzai. Zardari fitted the bill. He is perfectly suited to being a total creature of Washington. The Swiss government helpfully decided to release millions of dollars from Zardari’s bank accounts that had, till now, been frozen due to the pending corruption cases. Like his late wife, Zardari is now being laundered, just like the money he made when last in office as Minister for Investment. This weakness will make him a pliant President of Pakistan."

An opinion poll carried out by the New America Foundation some months ago revealed Zardari’s approval ratings at a low ebb - less than 14 per cent. And yet he was elected President simply because the people have no say in the matter. In Pakistan’s system, it’s the Parliamentary cabals that determine the Presidency.

Zardari was charged with ordering the murder of his brother-in-law, Murtaza Bhutto, when Benazir was Prime Minister, but the case was never tried. "Characteristically, one of Zardari’s first acts after his party’s victory in the February 2008 polls was to appoint Shoaib Suddle, the senior police officer connected to the Murtaza Bhutto ambush and killing, as the boss of the Federal Intelligence Agency. Loyalty is always repaid in full," noted Ali.

America now has to confront a new political reality, one in which civilian leaders seem to have a tenuous hold on Pakistan’s powerful military and, more crucially, on the much feared Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) which exercises absolute control over the nation’s nuclear arsenal estimated at about 100 weapons.

Liaquat Ali Khan, Professor of Law at Washburn University, Kansas, in a recent commentary on the political storm warnings following Musharraf’s resignation and Zardari’s nomination, noted the two presidential models competing for approval in Pakistan: the ceremonial one subordinated to Parliament and borrowed largely from the legal-political traditions of England and India, and the one favoured by Pakistan’s all-powerful Army [and, needless to say, by the policymakers of every successive US administration since Reagan] which envisages a praetorian presidency that listens to the armed forces and kow-tows to American interests.

"Zardari does not qualify to be a ceremonial president," said Khan. "Though many criminal cases filed against Zardari were fabricated, his reputation is sullied with charges of corruption. His recent conduct to make and break political accords regarding the restoration of judges also leaves the impression that Zardari equates the art of politics with amoral cunning rather than tough bargaining over controversial issues."

"Under the praetorian model, the President exercises formidable powers, appoints heads of the armed forces, and can dissolve dysfunctional or discordant elected assemblies. Even the judiciary is made subservient to the President. The praetorian presidency empowers what Pakistanis call the establishment - a congregation of bureaucrats, army generals, advisers, and experts. The praetorian presidency focuses on economy and foreign relations. But it also alienates political forces and weakens elected assemblies. Consequently, corruption permeates the state machinery with little or no accountability."

Understandably, the US prefers Pakistan’s Constitution to remain the praetorian model, and that it not be weakened. "It is easier for the US to deal with one strong man at the top than with an elected Parliament accountable to the people. The US can fight the war in Afghanistan more effectively if Pakistan furnishes its intelligence and armed resources to defeat the Taliban and foreign fighters. Zardari, a powerful man who cannot overcome the reputation of being a crook, is a godsend for the US."

Just last week a team of US commandos entered Pakistan ‘in search of terrorists’ and twenty innocents were killed. "Zardari was being tested," wrote Tariq Ali. "But if he permits US troops to enter the Frontier province on ‘search-and-destroy’ missions his career will be short-lived and the military will return in some shape or form. The High Command cannot afford to ignore the growing anger within its junior ranks at being forced to kill their own people."

Zardari maybe a transitory godsend for America, not Pakistan. Being a non-military politician, Zardari’s ‘power’ isn’t the ‘long-life’ variety touted in battery adverts. Power-wise, Zardari’s reluctant US patron saint, GWB, is as good as dead too.