Posted on 01/01/2008 3:30:08 PM PST by Natty Bumppo@frontier.net
Author's Note: I just saw the movie “National Treasure”, in which one character notes that prior to our Civil War, people said “The United States are…”, whereas afterwards, people said “The United States is…”. The assassination of Abraham Lincoln was a watershed moment in our history, but what kind of milestone will the assassination of Benazir Bhutto be for Pakistan?
One does not coddle a drunken neighbor who’s waving a gun – yet, that’s exactly what the United States has been doing with Pakistan for the last year, and it appears that it has taken an assassination to make the folly of such a strategy plain. As heinous as it is, the killing of Benazir Bhutto is not the worst thing that could have happened for American policy towards Pakistan.
In the West, assassination is viewed as either a particularly odious form of political cheating or the inexplicable act of crazies and zealots. Nonetheless, assassination has long been part of the political process in some places, and such acts often serve to expose where cults of personality have replaced real political process.
Pakistan, as a political entity, is barely half a century old – younger than the United States was when torn in half by civil war. Furthermore, Pakistan is also, to some extent, a constructed national entity: when the British Indian Empire broke up, Pakistan was the destination for most Muslims, whereas Hindus and Sikhs fled into what became India. In short, Pakistan is a mélange of both old and new history with a troublesome mix of competing interests.
Pakistan’s short history is a mixture of extremes – secular governments alternating with theocratic ones; democracy, autocracy, and dictatorships. Bhutto’s father, a secular Prime Minister, was deposed and executed by one of his generals, who instituted Islamic religious sharia law in Pakistan. Bhutto’s brothers died violently, having opposed from their sister in a murderous splinter of their father’s political party.
In short, Pakistan is not the kind of country where quietly rational political processes are likely, and the Bhutto family is not a political dynasty blessed with any history of stability. Brave, intelligent, determined, and dedicated as Benazir Bhutto may have been, it is arguable that in such a setting her death was inevitable. To both Pakistanis and Americans, her death is a terrible set-back in the struggle for normalcy.
The list of those who would want Bhutto dead is a long one, including her rival and current Pakistani President, Pervez Musharraf; the Pakistani intelligence service; the Taliban and Al Qu’aeda; the Pakistani Army; her other political opponents, and even adherents of her deceased brothers’ political spinter-groups. The Pakistani government’s clumsy handling of her murder has only fueled the rumor-mill, and Pakistan has gone to lengths to portray her death as being at the hands of Islamic extremists, an all-too-convenient idea which may well backfire.
Pakistan may be a partner in the global war on terrorism, but a very dangerous one. Politically unstable, violent, dangerously tribal, feudal, corrupt, stratified, and divided between secularists, fundamentalists, and the military, it is the home to both a nuclear arsenal as well as a sizeable number of Islamic extremists. Pakistan is the sixth most populous country on this planet, and has the second-largest Muslim population, a growing Islamic insurgency, and a history of poor governance.
The tragic death of Benazir Bhutto dashes one of the few hopes that everyone may have had for a more stable Pakistani future, even if it was a long shot – a very long shot. While Bhutto may have represented a fusion of Sindhi and Punjabi concerns, the fact remained that she had been sacked as Prime Minister twice already, and still faced charges of corruption and ineptitude.
An armed drunk is more threat than neighbor – a distinction that the U.S. has been reluctant to assign to Pakistan. A nuclear-armed ally who sells weapons technology, cannot control its own borders, and is in danger of collapsing into sectarian anarchy is far more threat than ally. If nothing else, the death of Benazir Bhutto has served to show both Americans and Pakistanis how tenuous a hold that Pakistan may have on nationhood, and how vain a hope it may be to pin the fate of a nation on a single person.
Rather than engage in geopolitical wishful thinking about Pakistan’s role in combating terrorism, Americans need to wake up to the very real threat represented by a marginally failed state that is armed with weapons of mass destruction. Pakistan could be an ally, but is far more likely to be a deadly threat. With the murder of Benazir Bhutto, there can be few excuses for ignoring that reality.
It won’t be the first time that someone had to die before we woke up.
This is a WONderful article. It managed to encapsulate just about every thing I was thinking regarding the Bhutto assassination.
Happy New Year, and thank you for this thread.
(bookmarked)
Yes. As I said on another thread a while ago, about the only rational thing we can do, as far as I can see, is to send in some special forces, seize the nuclear weapons, and get them out of there, before they are dispersed and it is too late to act.
Whether the administration has the knowledge, the means, and the will to do that is uncertain.
I suspect we know where the weapons are, and I think we have the means in that general area or not too far away. But I don’t know if we have the will, given the fact that we are just coming into the election process and we have a treasonous congress and a treasonous press, as well as a State Department full of delusional idiots and a CIA more anxious to bring down Bush than our enemies.
Not a good situation.
Very good article by Dave Aland. Thanks for posting.
Not sure about that, but her brother was really good in Animal House!
Hasn't all this been self-evident from the very start? Back in 2001, before we went into Afghanistan, well before Bhutto's assassination.
Gee, golly whiz, a politically volatile Muslim state with nuclear weapons is a potential problem for the U.S. in prosecuting the War on Terror. Aland is belaboring the obvious.
And, as an excuse for re-stating the problem, does he offer any solutions? No. Absolutely none. Anything that he'd do differently from President Bush? No, nothing at all.
Sorry, but I fail to see any value in this article.
I totally agree.
We would also need to do something about their nuke scientists. What's the point of taking their nukes, if they retain the ability to build more?
We live in a real physical world with real limitations as to what we can do. We can’t fix Pakistan. It is far better to have boots on the ground with some clue as to what’s going on with Pakistan’s nukes than it is with no first hand information like in Iran.
Who was it who said keep your fiends close and your enemies even closer?
The Islamic menace counts on the insipid response of the West, the liberal lunacy of negotiation and compromise. We couldn’t have made it easier to take down America for them. They breed like Drosophila melanogaster. With liberalism blocking proper response they will take over this country and the world within 3 generations. No shots fired by us, just the nightly news of beheadings, murder, mayhem, atrocities, suicide, and muslim fundamentalist religious idiocy. It just comes down to one basic point. We don’t have the testicles to do what needs to be done now to save this country.
That is why we will continue to support the army and Musharraf for the moment. Musharraf has survived nine assassination attempts. Physical survival is an essential skill to rule a place like Pakistan. An intent to deny the Taliban and al Qaeda control of his country is the only quality Musharraf need possess for U.S. support. Experiments in democracy can come later.
Your analysis kind of reminds me of a Daniel Schorr analysis. By that I don’t mean his liberal views. But Schorr has a way of describing the imperfection of things and just heaving it out there without a viable solution. Like he is the first one to have discovered the world isn’t perfect or something.
After reading your post I have no idea what it is you would like the United States to do about Pakistan. The world is full of unstable countries and we just can’t fix the world. Cheers.
I guess I should have mentioned that my comments were for the author - David J. Aland - and not you. My apologies.
Sort of. Nothing is going to happen in the US until the jiahd directly impinges on us. Nothing happened anywhere prior to 9/11, and nothing will happen anywhere again until there is a direct attack on the US.
Would it be better for us to act preemptively? Yes. Will it happen? No.
Don Vito Corleone.
Second, Musharaf imagines himself as the Pakistani Ataturk, founder of a new system of government for his nation. But Musharaf simply can't chose, he tries to have it both ways. He supports jihadis and Islamism and supports terror attacks in Kashmir and in Afghanistan. The Pakistani intelligence service the ISI has played a pernicious role in the region for years and years. The ISI siphoned off a huge percentage of the US support for Afghan mujahideen fighting the Soviets after '89 and gave it to their guy Hekmatiyar, an all-around creep, who mostly fought other Afghanis. The ISI later practically invented the Taliban and helped them gain power in all but one corner of Afghanistan. The Taliban (and ISI) allowed Bin Laden to move in and set up his al Qaeda operation. 9/11 was planned and prepared in Afghanistan.
I remember soon after 9/11 Musharaf gave a TV speech saying he was going to support the US attack on al Qaeda. Mushie was trembling and sweating bricks. I said at the time he potentially was signing his own death warrant. Al Qaeda tried to get at least a couple of times and came darn close.
I had no idea that Mushie could play the double game so well and keep on that tightrope without falling off. Mushie has one last opportunity to choose the US, Nato and the West. He's still trying to dance on that rope, but the strain is showing. Most of Pakistan hates him and he's brought Pakistan nothing of substance.
“Nothing is going to happen in the US until the jiahd directly impinges on us. Nothing happened anywhere prior to 9/11, and nothing will happen anywhere again until there is a direct attack on the US.”
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So true, Livius.
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