{"id":4464,"date":"2007-05-25T15:30:20","date_gmt":"2007-05-25T20:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com?p=4464"},"modified":"2007-06-03T21:26:50","modified_gmt":"2007-06-04T02:26:50","slug":"power_and_seduc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2007\/05\/25\/power_and_seduc\/","title":{"rendered":"Sleeping with the Secretary"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.” — Henry Kissinger<\/em> <\/p>\n\n

Despite their staunch alliance, relations between Pakistan and the USA are … tense. If you were a Pakistani Prime Minister, what could be more natural than … a more personal approach to break the ice, to fill the yawning gap, to closely bring together two former intimates, these two strange bedfellows?<\/p>\n\n

<<\/p>\n\n

p><\/p>\n\n

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“Shortcut” Aziz gets shot down<\/p>\n\n

<\/td><\/tr><\/table>According to the new biography of Condoleezza Rice<\/a>, Shaukat Aziz tried to (ahem) charm Dr. Rice when she visited Islamabad in 2005:<\/p><\/p>\n\n

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Aziz “tried this Savile Row-suited gigolo kind of charm<\/font>: ‘Pakistan is a country of rich traditions,’ staring in (Rice’s) eyes …When Rice sat down with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, who fancied himself as a ladies’ man, Aziz puffed himself up and held forth in what he obviously thought was his seductive baritone,” the book says. [Link<\/a>]<\/blockquote>\n\n

<<\/p>\n\n

p>Aziz was not some wide eyed na\u00c3\u00aff when it came to the ways of the West. He was a former ibanker<\/a>, a VP at Citibank who had worked in London, Athens and New York. He may have had good reason to consider himself an experienced ladies man, a master of international affairs as it were, but he clearly met his match:<\/p>\n\n

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“He bragged — to Western diplomats, no less — that he could conquer any woman in two minutes<\/font>… There was this test of wills where he was trying to use all his charms on her as a woman, and she just basically stared him down … By the end of the meeting, he was babbling<\/font>. The Pakistanis were shifting uncomfortably. And his voice visibly changed…” [Link<\/a>]<\/blockquote>\n\n

<<\/p>\n\n

p>He could conquer any woman in two minutes <\/span>Pakistan’s response to these reports is that it’s all a cross-cultural misunderstanding:<\/p>\n\n

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Pakistan’s deputy information minister Tariq Azeem said that Aziz was only being polite. “The prime minister wanted to be nice<\/font> with Dr. Rice,” Azeem told AFP. “Our tradition is that we should talk to women gently and decently<\/font> and this was what the prime minister did…” [Link<\/a>]<\/blockquote>\n\n

Poor Aziz. He completely miscalculated in his approach :<\/p>\n\n

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Rice, according to friends and family, had a thing for bad boys<\/font>… [Link<\/a>]<\/blockquote>\n\n

Although her name means “with sweetness”<\/a>, nice guys finish last with Dr. Rice. Manmohan Singh would never have made that kind of rookie mistake, he would have shown Condi why you can’t spell aphrodisiac<\/em> without desi<\/em>. This is one part of Nehru’s legacy<\/a> that we can all embrace<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.” — Henry Kissinger Despite their staunch alliance, relations between Pakistan and the USA are … tense. If you were a Pakistani Prime Minister, what could be more natural than … a more personal approach to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4464"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4464\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}