Left Flank

I'm undecided about buying former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's posthumously published plea for Islamic and civilizational «Reconciliation». Mostly, I can't forgive her for abetting A.Q. Khan to build his uranium bomb (and, recall her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, got Khan started), but The Economist is about as even-handed as I care to read about Ms. Bhutto and keep considering a purchase.

Much of this book's argument has been rehearsed before. Bhutto defends Islam's liberal, tolerant traditions. The first person to embrace the religion, she points out, was a woman, Bibi Khadijah, later to become the Prophet's wife. And she debunks as “convenient and simplistic” the notion that Islam and democracy are somehow incompatible. Yet her own political overview of Muslim countries tends also to be rather simplistic.

She tackles head-on the thesis of Samuel Huntington's essay and book, “The Clash of Civilisations”, declaring herself a “reconciliationist”, not a “clasher”. She even proposes her blueprint for reconciliation: a kind of Islamic Marshall plan, using the petrodollars of the Gulf and the riches of the West, Japan and China to assist “the Islamic world to leap into modernity”.

The observation that economic backwardness fuels anti-Western feeling and fanaticism, however, is hardly new. Familiar, too, is her analysis of the culpability of the West in propping up dictators where they seem strategically useful, undermining its claims to be promoting democracy. The victims of this hypocrisy include, of course, her own country, which, like a recent cover of this newspaper, she calls “the most dangerous place in the world”. Her effort to make it safer led her last year to negotiate with Pervez Musharraf, the president she had long reviled as an unprincipled military dictator. She recounts the pragmatic haggling that enabled her return, at the expense, her critics would argue, of the unity of the civilian democratic opposition.

Here as elsewhere in this book and in Bhutto's autobiography, “Daughter of the East”, there is a tension between the fervour of her expressed ideals and the reality of her political life. Her refusal to acknowledge any mistakes during her deeply disappointing stints as prime minister may be inevitable in a campaigning politician. But it made it hard to share her enthusiasm for what she might achieve at the third attempt.

But, yes, she was brave.

I'm sure this will never be good enough for the Pakistan's People's Party or Ms. Bhutto's family—and dámn it, if the lone gunman is still out there for conspiracy theorists to search for—but it was just a distraction from the larger issues.

Western diplomats warned that the findings in Scotland Yard's report will not help president Pervez Musharraf's government tackle the political fallout from Ms Bhutto's killing, as Pakistan heads towards parliamentary elections which are now due on February 18th. Earlier, the elections were due on January 8th but were delayed after nationwide riots occurred following Ms Bhutto's killing.

«The PPP will keep on arguing that this was a conspiracy hatched possibly with support of people in Pakistan's ruling structure» said one western diplomat. «They will keep on rejecting Scotland Yard's outcome».

The Pakistani government this week announced the arrest of two suspects in Ms Bhutto's killing. A third was arrested last month, when Pakistani officials accused Baitullah Mehsud, the pro-Taliban Islamic militant, of backing Ms Bhutto's assassins. But the official position has been thrown into fresh controversy after officials on Wednesday confirmed a ceasefire between Mr Mehsud and Pakistani government troops in the region bordering Afghanistan.

Now, excuse me while I stick a finger down my throat to purge my reaction to the "creeping convenient canonization of Benazir Bhutto." Individual Count strikes just the right chord.

If deportation is a form of respect for a writer's touching a nerve, then Nicolas Schmidle must have spoken truth to power. Schmidle's feature on the messy alliance between the Taliban's godfather, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, and the Next-Gen Taliban comes with both a plea for democracy and an indictment of President Pervez Musharraf.

I asked Rehman, who used to refer to the Taliban as «our boys,» if he still considered the Taliban, even those who might be firing rockets at his house, his boys. «Definitely,» he replied. «But because of America's policies, they have gone to the extreme. I am trying to bring them back into the mainstream. We don't disagree with the mujahedeen's cause, but we differ over priorities. They prefer to fight, but I believe in politics.»

Mushahid Hussain, secretary general of the pro-Musharraf faction of the Pakistan Muslim League, told me that no one can negotiate the politics of the North-West Frontier Province better than Rehman. «We know that we need a bearded, turbaned guy out there,» Hussain told me. It is perhaps a measure of how inextricable Islamism and politics have become in Pakistan that even the United States would deal with an anti-American like Rehman. In September, he had the first meeting of his 30-year political career with an American ambassador. What did Rehman and Anne Patterson, the American envoy, discuss? «She urged me to form an electoral alliance with Benazir Bhutto and Musharraf,» he told me a few days after the meeting. «I am not against it. But politically, because of the American presence in Afghanistan and rising extremism, it is a bit hard for us to afford.» Plus, the fact that the Americans thought Bhutto could tackle the Taliban had simply baffled him. «She has no strategy in those areas, and nothing to do with those people,» he said.

When asked if Patterson's meeting signaled a change in American attitudes, an embassy spokeswoman said it «reflects our approach to democratic politics in Pakistan» and was «part of a process of talking to all those who represent political movements in Pakistan, across the spectrum.» The U.S. has given more than $5 billion to Pakistan in the past few years to fight Islamist militants, but recent reports suggest that the aid has not been effective. Late last month, Congress put restrictions on some military aid and called for the restoration of democratic rights.

Even after the Bhutto assassination, Rehman told me he would stay in the election — although, as he put it, «the reality is that this is complete anarchy, and no one can run a campaign.»

Schmidle discusses these issues and returning to the US with his wife after receiving his walking papers from a motorcycle-equipped ISI agent. Washington, is it time to turn a page?

FP Passport's Blake Hounshell seems to endorse Matthew Yglesias' argument that the US has no justification for criticizing the Pakistan People's Party for anointing former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari as its titular leader, because "...the odds of us going Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton in the White House look pretty good..." It's like marking a liberal bona fide, where good intellectuals just don't throw rocks while living in glass houses. But, it's really ultimately a a bad analogy that justifies propping up a dictator.

However, Joshua Hammer and Michael Hirsch can both joke about the Clinton-Bush feud, AND more pertinently point out that General Pervez Musharraf kept a lid on democratization. The medievalism of the PPP might be manifest, but Musharraf played a more corrosive role by not allowing democratic alternatives to appear, mostly notably when he ousted Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry.

America is not Pakistan: President Bush and Bill Clinton do not jail and exile political opponents.

Ata Ur Rehman's neat contrast between American political parties and support for tyranny (via TMV) might be put to the test. Rehman argues that Democrats in the White House coincide with democratic leaders in Pakistan; Republicans favor dictators.

Yet, two conservative publications, Strategic Forecasting and Cato Institute disagree wildly about US policy in Pakistan after Benazir Bhutto's assassination. George Friedman (from an email alert, not a subscription), after a unsurprising analysis concludes with a zinger:

But the United States now faces its endgame under far less than ideal conditions. Iraq is stabilizing. That might reverse, but for now it is stabilizing. The Taliban is strong, but it is under pressure and has serious internal problems. The endgame always was supposed to come in Pakistan, but this is far from how the Americans wanted to play it out. The United States is not going to get an aggressive, anti-Islamist military in Pakistan, but it badly needs more than a Pakistani military that is half-heartedly and tenuously committed to the fight. Salvaging Musharraf is getting harder with each passing day. So that means that a new personality, such as Pakistani military chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, must become Washington's new man in Pakistan. In this endgame, all that the Americans want is the status quo in Pakistan. It is all they can get. And given the way U.S. luck is running, they might not even get that.

Cool, calm conservatism, indeed.

Cato Institute's Justin Logan must be voting for Ron Paul, though.

As Pakistan remains wracked by political unrest, Washington must keep its policy priorities ordered. First among them is ensuring the stability and security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. The Bush administration should make clear that it intends to cooperate with Pakistani authorities on anti-terrorism and, if necessary, in securing the Pakistani nuclear arsenal. At the same time, cooperation on those issues should not take the form of blanket support for the regime in Islamabad. Too often in the past America has allied itself with sitting governments only to see them toppled by opposition forces that then turn on the government's American patron. What is required today is close attention to American security interests in Pakistan, but an aloofness from the tumult of domestic Pakistani politics.

Gee whiz, another lecture about the Prime Directive, Captain Picard!

There might just be more interesting debates happening at the Republican convention this year!

It's politics as usual in Pakistan, where opposition leader and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's assassination has become a negotiating point:

Miss Bhutto died in a suicide attack in Rawalpindi on December 27th while campaigning for the election, which was supposed to be held on January 8th. But the former ruling Pakistan Muslim League (Q) party, which is loyal to the recently demobbed Mr Musharraf, and the electoral commission, which is allegedly also loyal to the president, have argued for a delay. They cite worries over the destruction of at least 13 polling stations in Miss Bhutto's southern Sindh province, as well as festering insecurity. They may also fear that a surge of sympathy for Miss Bhutto may galvanise opposition to Mr Musharraf.

For its part the PPP, now nominally led by Miss Bhutto's 19-year-old son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, with her widower, Asif Zardari, as co-chairman and, in effect, his son's regent, has insisted that the election be held on time. In a joint statement, Mr Zardari and his son said: «The January 8th elections must proceed as scheduled. This will not only be a tribute to the memory of Benazir Bhutto, but even more important, a reaffirmation of the cause of democracy for which she died.»

The PPP fears that a postponement would allow time for Pakistani sympathies to dwindle. It would also give Mr Musharraf's army agents pause to make fresh arrangements to rig the election in his favour. They have, after all, rigged the recent elections presided over by Mr Musharraf. On Monday PPP officials said that Miss Bhutto had been due to hand a long dossier on Mr Musharraf's latest election-rigging schemes to a visiting American delegation.

Other opposition parties, notably Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (N), the third biggest, want a prompt election for much the same reasons. Mr Sharif, the main opponent of the Pakistan Muslim League (Q) in Punjab, Pakistan's most populous province, is hoping to profit from a wave of anti-Musharraf feeling there. His prospects were poor before Miss Bhutto's murder, but could perk up considerably. That would represent a fresh logistical challenge for Mr Musharraf's agents, who may consider it imperative to prevent the PPP and the Pakistan Muslim League (N) winning sufficient votes to be able to form a government together. On Monday Mr Sharif demanded that Mr Musharraf—who deposed him in a coup in 1999—should step down, a unity government be formed, then elections held.

Reuters makes clear just how the PPP has taken advantage of its slain leader's canonization:

Bhutto's killing has fuelled doubts about stability and the transition to democratic rule in nuclear-armed Pakistan, a crucial U.S. ally in its anti-terrorism efforts.

The Election Commission said on Tuesday "in principle" the vote would be delayed but Bhutto's party has objected and analysts said a postponement could lead to more violence.

Bhutto's party would expect to reap a considerable sympathy vote following her assassination in a gun and bomb attack as she left a rally in Rawalpindi on Thursday.

God forbid, militants or the military don't assassinate any more leaders, or else the the value of blood will trump the middle class vote.

Juan Cole, reporting on the Palistan People's Party's decision to run Makhdum Amin Fahim for prime minister on January 8th, takes a good swipe ridiculing the party of feudalism the PPP is determined to remain.

The PPP during the past two decades has been internally split between a rising middle class urban leadership and the old landowning families. An alternative to Fahim would have been the smart Punjabi lawyer, Aitzaz Ahsan, who was jailed for protesting the dismissal of the justices, and is admired by a lot of the urban activists. Despite Benazir's own education abroad, her instincts (and now those of her widower) was always to "run the feudals," and to depend on the landlords' ability to get out the vote among their own (largely illiterate and repressed) peasants.

The PPP leadership had a chance to become the party of the future and to galvanize the new middle class, which has spearheaded the challenge to Musharraf over his gutting of the judiciary. It has instead run the feudals again. Fahim seems to me unlikely to generate the sort of excitement that Aitzaz Ahsan would have. But then, the PPP will probably get a big sympathy vote. Once in power, however, unless it pursues policies that benefit urban classes, it will find itself eclipsed.

So, Pakistan=Fief, People=Lord, Party=Clan?

Joshua Foust recommends two geostrategic essays on Pakistan, and I'll second that. Both are a healthy departure from William Kern's alarmism. Not that the prospect of a nuclear-armed state unravelling is not worrisome, but how often do the interests of Saudi Arabia, India, PRC, and the US line up? The second post reminds the US, as Elizabeth Bumiller reminds us "How Bhutto Won Washington", that "how little the United States fathomed the feudal politics of South Asia, and its own ability to control events in the cauldron of Pakistan."

Ironically, the Bhutto assassination might have more impact on the US primary elections (at least for Senator Joe Biden's chances for third place in Iowa) than on Pakistan.