From the archives: Bhutto’s Visit to U.S. May Set Off ‘Benazir Mania’

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan -- A year ago, when Benazir Bhutto arrived in Washington as a struggling and relatively obscure leader of her country’s political opposition, her Pakistani driver joked with her about her life’s dream of overthrowing the military regime of Pakistani President Zia ul-Haq.

“When we succeed you must let me drive you to the White House for dinner,” Bhutto, during an interview Saturday, recalled her driver saying. “Well, we both just laughed.”

That kind of laughter won’t be heard Tuesday night, however, when Bhutto, now the prime minister of America’s closest ally in South Asia and the only woman leader in the Islamic world, arrives at the White House in a presidential limousine to attend a state dinner in her honor hosted by President Bush.

Bhutto’s visit to the United States, which many here have predicted will spread “Benazir mania” across America, comes at the end of the young leader’s most extraordinary year.

During that year, she has been transformed from a naive but committed street politician into a world leader with an international cult following, who conducted a populist political campaign that overthrew a dictatorship and put her in power within months of Gen. Zia’s death in a plane crash last year.

The dinner is just one of several highlights of the 35-year-old prime minister’s U.S. visit, which begins Monday and includes an address to a joint session of Congress and meetings with key officials at the Pentagon, the State Department and the CIA. Also on the agenda are talks with important American business leaders and a “sentimental journey” to Bhutto’s alma mater, Harvard University, where she will deliver this year’s commencement address.

U.S. and Pakistani officials insist that the visit is more than a simple image-building campaign, which strongly resembles a trip to the United States by Philippines President Corazon Aquino six months after she helped overthrow dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos in 1986.

American officials are billing the trip as an opportunity to reinforce a newly formed democracy in this strategic nation and to restate America’s strong, bipartisan commitment to Pakistan through increased economic and military aid, the latter likely to include a new fleet of sophisticated F-16 warplanes.

Key Juncture in Afghan War

Bhutto’s visit also comes at a critical juncture in the war in Afghanistan, Pakistan’s western neighbor, where Islamic rebels financed and armed by Washington and Islamabad have been faltering badly in their bid to topple the Soviet-backed government in Kabul since the withdrawal of Soviet troops.

Although Bhutto and President Bush are likely to discuss Afghanistan at length, no new policy decisions are expected to come out of their meeting. Instead, U.S. and Pakistani analysts describe the sessions as “golden opportunities” for the two leaders to simply meet and get to know each other better.

“It enables Bhutto to have a personal rapport with Bush,” said Maleeha Lodhi, a prominent Pakistani newspaper editor and close friend of Bhutto. “And that’s extremely important, because there are certain differences over issues, and this personal rapport is crucial to get over these differences.”

Specifically, both Congress and the Bush Administration are increasingly concerned about Pakistan’s often reported program to manufacture a nuclear bomb, a charge Bhutto denies but one that technically could derail an estimated $627 million in aid that Pakistan is considered almost certain to receive as a result of Bhutto’s visit.

Carving New Paths

Still, most analysts said Bhutto’s trip is principally aimed at introducing one of the world’s most unusual leaders to America and the West. As Bhutto herself said Saturday, her leadership is “a demonstration that you can reach out across traditions and carve out new paths.”

“To the American people, Benazir is a romantic figure,” editor Lodhi said. “She is the political ‘Lady Di’ of Asia. She’s a woman leader of an Islamic nation, and that paradox fascinates people in the West.

“She is the symbol of the moderate Islam, and that appeals at a time when the world is so concerned about fundamentalism.”

For Bhutto herself, though--a woman who has managed to grow into her job despite carry-over instability and a wealth of political problems and enemies--the excitement of the trip seemed as personal as it was professional Saturday.

She was interviewed by The Times in her colonial-era office here, surrounded by piles of files and dog-eared copies of a harsh austerity budget that she would be presenting to her nation just a few hours before her departure.

Looking Forward to Trip

She discussed her trials at home as well as the pleasure she anticipates during this week’s visit to a nation she called home for more than four years during college.

“I am so happy about going back to the States,” she said. “I am familiar with the United States. I’ve lived there. I visited many times. And what could be a more sentimental journey than going back to Harvard as prime minister? Harvard Yard is like a home to me.

“And, of course, one of the first places I’m going to go is Brigham’s (ice cream parlor) to get an ice cream.”

Bhutto, who has often lamented a loss of personal privacy since she became prime minister, added that she has insisted that she be alloted at least an hour or two to herself during her visit to Cambridge.

“I thought I’d get a little T-shirt with Harvard written on it and wander around, look at the books and have a nice time,” she said.

But Bhutto also talked about the harder realities of her new job.

Severe Economic Crisis

Her U.S. trip comes at a time of intense domestic political infighting, a severe economic crisis and increasing criticism of her administration’s efficiency and honesty.

In claiming the prime minister’s post during elections last November, Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party won by only a narrow margin, and, during her first six months in office, she has fought frequent and bitter power battles with her principal opposition, the Islamic Democratic Alliance, which is made up largely of the late Gen. Zia’s followers.

The alliance, headed by Pakistani millionaire Mian Nawaz Sharif, who is the elected leader of Pakistan’s wealthiest and most populous province, the Punjab, has charged Bhutto’s government with widespread corruption, massive patronage and inept governance. And Sharif has said that political imbalances in the country, where Bhutto controls only two of the four provinces in weak coalitions, are working against her.

“She’s a most unfortunate prime minister,” Sharif said in a recent interview. “She cannot even pass legislation.”

And he has sharply criticized Bhutto’s new national austerity budget, which relies heavily on international borrowing that already has put Pakistan $13 billion in debt. “I would rather eat grass than borrow money,” Sharif has said several times.

Powerful Military Intelligence

In addition, Bhutto remains surrounded by a powerful military intelligence apparatus created by Zia, who, before he died, used the intelligence network to help form the alliance that continues to oppose Bhutto.

Last week, in what editor Lodhi called “the most decisive assertion of authority by Benazir Bhutto since she took power,” Bhutto removed the chief of the 93,000-member Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul. Many analysts had considered Gul the most powerful individual in Pakistan, as head of one of Asia’s most effective military intelligence organizations.

Although most analysts said that Gul’s removal was principally for domestic political reasons, aimed at undermining the opposition alliance, Gul’s principal function in recent months has been to oversee the U.S.-financed pipeline of CIA aid to the Afghan rebels.

Senior diplomatic and Pakistani military sources said, however, that Washington approved of Bhutto’s decision to remove Gul, who had been seen increasingly as favoring the more fundamentalist Afghan rebel groups, and most expect no changes in Pakistan’s Afghan policy.

Transfer Demoralized Alliance

Bhutto was guarded about the intelligence issue Saturday, saying only that “Gen. Hamid Gul had been closely associated with the Zia administration, and it is no secret that, when he was directed to do so, he helped form the (opposition alliance). With his transfer, the (alliance) is totally demoralized.”

Bhutto’s reluctance to discuss the issue reflects her continuing care not to upset the country’s powerful armed forces, which have staged half a dozen coups since Pakistan’s independence. And several times, Bhutto praised the army as the institution most responsible for protecting her new democratic administration.

On the economy, the other major domestic crisis, which Bhutto described as “a shambles,” the prime minister said the new budget unveiled Saturday is “bitter medicine” needed after a decade of favoritism and neglect under Zia, but she said it will not trigger a popular uprising.

“For the first time, we’re going to tax the smugglers and the corrupt,” Bhutto said about the budget, which imposes heavy new taxes on middle- and upper-income Pakistanis. “It’s tough, but it could have been tougher.

“And since it’s not against the poor people, it’s not going to cause that much of a problem.”

Had No Choice

Most independent analysts agree that Bhutto had no choice but to present a budget that raises taxes and holds down government spending, and they predicted that international and domestic economists will praise it.

Perhaps the most troubling lingering criticism of Bhutto’s government, though, is her own increasing isolation and the alleged incompetence of some of her advisers.

“She has got a lot of really dumb people around her, and they give her a lot of bad advice,” one Western diplomat said in Islamabad, echoing the outspoken anger of frustrated businessmen and foreign aid workers who said they now find themselves sorting through a bureaucracy that has been tangled by hundreds of new patronage posts awarded by Bhutto to her party supporters.

Bhutto defended her Cabinet by saying that it’s better than Zia’s. She vowed, however, that there will be at one or two major shake-ups in the coming years “to encourage and motivate people to do their job.”

And Bhutto candidly conceded that her new job increasingly alienates her from the populist forces that brought her to power.

‘Really Miss That Contact’

“I do feel isolated from the people,” she said. “I tell you, I really miss that contact with people in the party or well-wishers.”

Referring to her months-long campaign to power, Bhutto added: “At that time, I would be meeting a journalist every second day. Now I hardly ever meet a journalist.

“Now, all the time it’s the work of the different ministers, and, in a way, you do get cut off. It’s difficult to make the two meet.”

But, despite the many problems at home, Bhutto said she has no misgivings about leaving on her five-day trip.

“I feel confident enough,” she said, “to be leaving for the United States. I am just so happy about going.”