Our best remaining option in Pakistan
While Mike Huckabee has disassociated himself from the view he initially (and, it seems, inadvertently) expressed – that the U.S. owes an apology for the murder of Benazir Bhutto – portions of the Bush-hating left are flirting with, and in some cases embracing, this “blame America first” position. Tonight, for example, Alan Colmes kept suggesting that the Bush administration was at fault for Bhutto’s death because it pushed “too fast” for the renewal of democracy in Pakistan. His suggestion was politely rejected by a close associate of Bhutto who appeared on the program. It was, after all, Bhutto’s own courageous decision to return to Pakistan, and it was the terrorists (as far as we can tell) who killed her. Colmes looked particularly ridiculous after the replay of an interview he did with Bhutto in October 2001, in which he suggested that the U.S. should not support Musharraf because he’s a dictator.
But the fact that the U.S. is not to blame for Bhutto’s death does not mean that our decision to side with her against Musharraf was the correct one. The case that this decision was incorrect has been made today by Andy McCarthy, Stanley Kurtz, and on David Frum’s blog where a reader familiar with U.S.-Pakistan relations writes:
[O]ur policy towards Pakistan in recent months was totally, totally wrong. Musharraf was right to declare Emergency, and the U.S. was wrong to call for its repeal, force him to leave the military, and press for elections. The usual rules just don't apply. The "Freedom Agenda" should have had a big asterisk next to it: "except for Pakistan." Anyway, with a free press, better protection for Christians and Hindus, and 10% economic growth, freedom was doing pretty well before all this. [We] just had one small problem about the guy still wearing a uniform so he could try to keep a lid on the Islamists, and an obstinate Supreme Court. Not a hard call, in my view.
This has been my sense, though there is room for doubt, Musharraf perhaps being a more ambiguous figure than the comment above suggests. In any case, the way forward looks pretty clear now, at least for the short-term. The Bhutto option no longer exists, which would seem to leave little doubt that Musharraf is our best remaining option.
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