Andy McCarthy: "There is the Pakistan of our fantasy. The burgeoning democracy in whose vanguard are judges and lawyers and human rights activists using the “rule of law” as a cudgel to bring down a military junta. In the fantasy, Bhutto, an attractive, American-educated socialist whose prominent family made common cause with Soviets and whose tenures were rife with corruption, was somehow the second coming of James Madison. Then there is the real Pakistan: an enemy of the United States and the West." Read the whole thing. See also Stanley Kurtz's article from a month ago entitled "The Democracy Myth."
UPDATE: Some further thoughts as I ponder what the assassination means for the U.S. and the world. While I have mixed feelings about Bhutto herself (I originally believed the corruption charges of the 1990s were politically orchestrated, but further reading convinces me the charges were real), she certainly carried a large following in Pakistan among those who wished to see Musharraf leave and move Pakistan towards democracy. Despite her flaws, in the final analysis I think she was Pakistan's best opportunity to take on militancy and further reforms. The extremists knew this, so she was their prime target. Jay Reding suggests that this may unite the Pakistanis against al-Qaeda, which will push Musharraf to crack down harder on extremists. I hope that's the case. For ourselves, this should remind us that we cannot act behind our borders. We are fortunate we haven't experienced an attack since September 11, 2001. But, this is no time for isolation or Huckabee's foreign policy naïvete. If the country collapses in crisis, the nightmare of Pakistan's nuclear weapons falling into the hands of Islamic extremists becomes very real and pressing (see Stephen Cohen's comments from last month). Dr. Schaff points out the hard truth of the matter: every policy option we choose is fraught with danger. Our interference will generate mass outcries of the U.S. involving itself in the internal affairs of a sovereign country. If free elections are held and Islamists take control, they then control nuclear weapons. Or we can support Musharraf, which runs counter to our democratic principles. All three options could generate more emnity towards us. The attack should remind us our war on terrorism is very real and far from over.
It's also important to highlight the new opposition leader in Pakistan, former prime minister Naqaz Sharif. Sharif has made appeals to Islamic militants, arguing that Pakistan should tool down its cooperation with the U.S. He immediately seized her death for political gain, visiting the hospital where she died, attacking Musharraf for supposedly providing Bhutto with insufficient security, and calling for the reunification of Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party and his Muslim League-Nawaz. With hope, the PPP will elect a new, strong leader to take up Bhutto's standard for liberty and democracy.
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