When Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari travels to Iran on Monday to oversee the formal inauguration of an ambitious gas pipeline project from Iran to Pakistan, his gesture of defying US pressure on this issue will be seen broadly as a hollow one.
With just days before the tenure of his elected government ends, Zardari has chosen to portray himself as the ultimate nationalist by choosing to defy US pressure on the pipeline deal with Iran. The tailend of the regime led by Zardari’s Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) makes it difficult to know if the new political leaders, to be elected in polls this summer, will choose to continue with the project or go into retreat mode.
looking beyond borders 