In 2002, Pakistani president
Pervez Musharraf amended Pakistan's constitution to ban prime ministers from serving more than two terms. This disqualifies Bhutto from ever holding the office again. This move was widely considered to be a direct attack on former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and
Nawaz Sharif. On
3 August 2003, Bhutto became a member of
Minhaj ul Quran International (An international Muslim educational and welfare organization).
Since September 2004, Bhutto lived in
Dubai, United Arab Emirates, where she cared for her children and her
mother, who is suffering from
Alzheimer's disease, travelling to give lectures and keeping in touch with the Pakistan Peoples Party's supporters. She and her three children were reunited with her husband and their father in December
2004 after more than five years.
On
27 January 2007 she was invited by the United States to speak to President Bush and congressional and State Department officials.
Bhutto appeared as a panellist on the
BBC TV programme
Question Time in the UK in March 2007. She has also appeared on BBC current affairs programme
Newsnight on several occasions. She rebuffed comments made by
Muhammad Ijaz-ul-Haq in May 2007 regarding the
knighthood of Salman Rushdie, citing that he was calling for the assassination of foreign citizens.
Bhutto had declared her intention to return to
Pakistan within 2007, which she did, in spite of Musharraf's statements of May 2007 about not allowing her to return ahead of the country's general election, due late 2007 or early 2008. It is speculated that she may be offered the office of Prime Minister again.
Arthur Herman, a U.S. historian, in a controversial letter published in
The Wall Street Journal on
14 June 2007, in response to an article by Bhutto highly critical of the president and his policies, has described her as "One of the most incompetent leaders in the history of South Asia", and asserted that she and other elites in Pakistan hate
Musharraf because he is a
muhajir, the son of one of millions of
Indian Muslims who fled to Pakistan during partition in 1947. Herman has claimed, "Although it was muhajirs who agitated for the creation of Pakistan in the first place, many native Pakistanis view them with contempt and treat them as third-class citizens."
Nonetheless, as of mid-2007, the US appeared to be pushing for a deal in which Musharraf would remain as president but step down as military head, and either Bhutto or one of her nominees would become prime minister.
On
11 July 2007, the Associated Press, in an article about the possible aftermath of the
Red Mosque incident, wrote:
Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister and opposition leader expected by many to return from exile and join Musharraf in a power-sharing deal after year-end general elections, praised him for taking a tough line on the Red Mosque.
I'm glad there was no cease-fire with the militants in the mosque because cease-fires simply embolden the militants," she told Britain's Sky TV on Tuesday. "There will be a backlash, but at some time we have to stop appeasing the militants."
This remark about the Red Mosque was seen with dismay in Pakistan as reportedly hundreds of young students were burned to death and remains are untraceable and cases are being heard in Pakistani supreme court as a missing persons issue. This and subsequent support for Musharaf led Elder Bhutto's comrades like Khar to criticize her publicly.
Bhutto however advised Musharraf in an early phase of the latter's quarrel with the Chief Justice, to restore him. Her
PPP did not capitalize on its CEC member,
Aitzaz, the chief Barrister for the Chief Justice, in successful restoration. Rather he was seen as a rival and was isolated.