Benazir Bhutto was certainly a brave and secular-minded woman. But the obituaries painting her as dying to save democracy distort history. Instead, she was a natural autocrat who did little for human rights, a calculating politician who was complicit in Pakistan’s becoming the region’s principal jihadi paymaster while she also ramped up an insurgency in Kashmir that has brought two nuclear powers to the brink of war.
“She was far bolder and braver than most men I know....She had to come back, she was a brave lady — one thing she was not was timid".
In order to get through this crisis, Bush must insist that the Pakistani Supreme Court, summarily dismissed and placed under house arrest by Musharraf, be reinstated. The PPP must be allowed to elect a successor to Ms. Bhutto without the interference of the military. Early elections must be held, and the country must return to civilian rule. Pakistan's population is, contrary to the impression of many pundits in the United States, mostly moderate and uninterested in the Taliban form of Islam. But if the United States and "democracy" become associated in their minds with military dictatorship, arbitrary dismissal of judges, and political instability, they may turn to other kinds of politics, far less favorable to the United States. Musharraf may hope that the Pakistani military will stand with him even if the vast majority of people turn against him. It is a forlorn hope, and a dangerous one, as the shah of Iran discovered in 1978-79. 'But will Bush do it?
The NYT reported that US Secretary of State Condi Rice tried to fix Musharraf's subsequent dwindling legitimacy by arranging for Benazir to return to Pakistan to run for prime minister, with Musharraf agreeing to resign from the military and become a civilian president. When the supreme court seemed likely to interfere with his remaining president, he arrested the justices, dismissed them, and replaced them with more pliant jurists. This move threatened to scuttle the Rice Plan, since Benazir now faced the prospect of serving a dictator as his grand vizier, rather than being a proper prime minister.Update: via Atrios
With Benazir's assassination, the Rice Plan is in tatters and Bush administration policy toward Pakistan and Afghanistan is tottering.
In terms of policy implications, this is reflective of a massive US foreign policy blunder, in that the Bush administration, in a monumentally stupid move, shoved Bhutto down the throat of Musharraf (and the rest of Pakistan) as a savior, despite her lack of broad popular support and general reputation as corrupt. In making someone who didn't necessarily have the ability to deliver the savior for democracy in Pakistan, we simultaneously set up our own policy to fail and offered Musharraf a return to (or continued) total power in the event that our little power-sharing arrangement didn't work. We also -- though not only us -- painted a big fat target on her back. Really a debacle all the way around.Of course, "When you look into the General's eyes, and he says to you I'll take care of the Taliban and the extremists", you trust him. At least if you are Bush.
Benazir Bhutto was rather more complicit in encouraging and tolerating Pakistan’s many pathologies (Faustian bargains with the Islamists that included tolerating anti-woman laws, state sponsorship of cross-border terrorism in Kashmir, and self-enrichment — her husband was widely known within Pakistan as “Mr. 10 per cent” based on what people alleged was his share of any government contracts); while Mr. Sharif tried to curb some of them and made some effort at reconciliation with India.
The fascination with Ms Bhutto by the people and governments of the West remains a mystery. Perhaps it is due to her charisma and Western education. She certainly knows how to press the right buttons when speaking to Western audiences through the mass media. Clichés of female empowerment, democracy, poverty eradication, human rights and war against the terrorists trip readily enough off her tongue. But they are all at odds with the actual record of her rule as Prime Minister, not once but twice.
"He hasn't crossed the line. As a matter of fact, I don't think that he will cross any lines," Bush replied, according to an ABC transcript. ". . . We didn't necessarily agree with his decision to impose emergency rule, and . . . hopefully he'll get . . . rid of the rule. Today, I thought, was a pretty good signal, that he released thousands of people from jail."Leading someone to ask:
"What exactly would it take for the president to conclude Musharraf has crossed the line? Suspend the constitution? Impose emergency law? Beat and jail his political opponents and human rights activists?" asked Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a presidential candidate.Let's see, what would it take? The general not funneling the US government's aid money back to US defense companies?
“The Americans are nervous about not having Musharraf in charge of Pakistan,” an official in the Pakistani presidency said. “They were told that the situation is very, very fluid.”How will that work I wonder.
In the wake of Musharraf's re-coup over the weekend, Condi Rice told reporters that the money we provide Pakistan really isn't to Musharraf or his government as it is to the people of Pakistan.But it turns out that it really is to Musharraf. Spencer provides the details. But the upshot is that the great bulk of the more than $10 billion we've given to Pakistan since 9/11 has been in the form of unsupervised and unaudited cash transfers. We cut him a check and he can do with it whatever he wants. It's not tied to a specific US Agency or program; it's just cash to do with as he pleases.
How'd that song go? Money for nothing, your chicks for free...
``The review of aid remains ongoing but the ultimate goal is not to punish the people of Pakistan; it's to help them get back on a path to democracy,'' White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe told reporters today in Crawford, Texas, where German Chancellor Angela Merkel is visiting Bush.It goes to show that the US does have a soul and feelings for lowly humans who happen to live outside its borders. But wait! I remember in the very recent past, aid from all western nations spearheaded by the beacon of democracy was withdrawn from a place called Palestine I think. And their crime was that they elected a party called, if I remember correctly, Hamas, in fair and free elections. The poor sods! And then there was the case of many thousands of children, in another country, called Iraq (though my memory is not as good as it used to be) being forced to go withhout medicines and stuff. Again because the beacon of democracy thought it right to put in place tough sanctions against it because the crazy country's ruler wouldn't toe the US line.
