Thread by @umaraqti

1/
The historian Ian Buruma argued that Daughter of the East had been written to ‘enchant Western readers’.

In it Benazir Bhutto described her life in a way that played to Western perceptions of the East and resonated with Western mythic traditions: hers was the story..

2/
..of a vulnerable young woman overcoming archaic tradition & deep prejudice,surviving years of hardship and exile to avenge her father’s death at the hands of a wicked, all-powerful man.

Buruma wrote that Benazir had a double life: the Larkana Bhutto and the Radcliffe Bhutto.

3/
A 1998 exchange of letters with the highly regarded PPP senator, lawyer, and human rights activist Iqbal Haider revealed another aspect of BB's personality that even some of her most ardent supporters found difficult to defend: "the feudal mindset she never escaped."

4/
Unlike virtually any other senior member of the PPP, Iqbal Haider had had the courage to tell Benazir what he thought of her husband, writing to her that he believed Zardari had been one of the main reasons for the dismissal of the PPP government..

5/
..and that if his role was not diminished the party would continue to suffer.

Benazir’s response brimmed with her sense that, while she had the right to lead, others with more modest backgrounds did not.

She accused Iqbal Haider of failing to show enough gratitude..

6/
for having been made a senator and of forgetting where he came from. Her feudal attitudes were never far from the surface.

In 2001 responding to the criticism on Zardari's corruption, BB said: "OK. He is not an angel. Maybe he did things that were wrong...

7/
..He is man enough to say, “I did it” in a fair and impartial inquiry. But what about all those others . . ."

In the early years of her time in power, BB thought she had enough to cope with and wanted to avoid picking fights with Zardari.

8/
But senior PPP colleagues did not see it like that and insisted he should conduct his business elsewhere.

Frustrated and refusing to back down, Zardari moved to Karachi, obliging Benazir to fly down with baby Bilawal every weekend to see him.

9/
Zardari did not get a free pass on everything.

The couple’s marital disputes trickled down to their advisers, who used to joke that there was an ‘A’ team backing Asif and a ‘B’ team with Benazir.

In 1991 there were rumors that Benazir briefly considered leaving him..

10/
and some on the ‘B’ team encouraged her to do so.

But those on the ‘A’ team reckoned that, either for personal reasons or to avoid a scandal, she would never walk out of her marriage. They were right – as Benazir’s closest friends have said, she was at heart..

11/
a conservative woman who believed that marriage, however difficult, was for life. Or as Zardari rather unromantically put it when asked about the rumors:
"She behaves as an Eastern wife should behave. Why should she dump me?"

12/
BB made little secret of how her husband at times hurt her feelings. In a heart-to-heart with Hillary Clinton in the White House at the height of the Lewinsky scandal. BB told Hillary:
‘We both know from our own lives that men can behave like alley cats and it is accepted,’

13/
Najam Sethi (1997) on BB's 2nd tenure:

"..BB has given us a very bad legacy..her feudal instincts came to dominate her western education..she reverted back to being a Queen instead of being a democrat.."

14/
Benazir Bhutto had a profound impact on Pakistan's politics, she left a legacy of corruption, nepotism, and hereditary politics.

A thread on her legacy. Rest in peace BB.

https://twitter.com/umaraqti/status/1077591310931017730?s=20

15/
On Pakistan's Nuclear Program, BB's old friend Peter Galbraith had tested the waters when he was with her in Larkana as news of her 1988 election victory came in.

Galbraith said:
‘We thought she was persuadable on nuclear issues, she was amenable’.

16/
Peter was leaving for Delhi a few days after the election, and, offering to take a letter to BB's counterpart Rajiv Gandhi, he started drafting a handwritten letter to him.

Sitting next to her as he wrote, he began with some lines about improving relations, strengthening..

17/
democracy and her need and desire to control the military, which would be made easier if she had good relations with India.

He then included a paragraph on the nuclear program, saying she did not want either country to have nuclear weapons..

18/
and that Pakistan would not go ahead with nuclear weapons. When Benazir copied out the draft in her own hand she used all of it except the paragraph relating to the nuclear issue.
‘Should I convey that orally?’ Galbraith asked. BB agreed.

19/
A record of a 1989 meeting with Margaret Thatcher gives a hint of a back-room deal: Thatcher stressed ‘the importance of limiting Pakistan’s nuclear program to peaceful uses’ and said that ‘she knew that Miss Bhutto had given certain assurances to the Americans..

20/
..[and that] it was very important that these should be honoured or US aid would be cut off ’.

Benazir Bhutto knew she owed her freedom in part to Peter Galbraith and the US senators he had been working for. Many of this group..

21/
..were also very keen on nuclear non-proliferation issues: her support for a non-nuclear-armed Pakistan was related to an important US political constituency for her.