First and foremost we ought to aknowledge and understand how the spread of Wahhabism from Saudi Arabia and paid for by the Saudi royal family's Petro Dollars helped create the situation we see today. And that Wahhabism is staunchly opposed to democracy of any form, most particularly in Muslim nations.

Furthermore, we ought to remember the close ties between the House of Bush and the House of Saud, as well as Saint Reagan's funding of Osama et al during the Soviet/Afghan War. One can generously assume a degree of ignorance of the future implications of these GOPer's short-term strategies. But they nevertheless aided and abetted Wahhabism to become entrenched, however unwittingly.

Who's responsible?

1) Since the partition in the late 40s, the Pakistani military and police have been shot through with Islamic fundamentalists intent on an Islamic state under sharia law. To blame this on "Al Queada" is to say virtually nothing about the actual perpetrators.

2) Bhutto was begging better security ever since her most recent return and the first assasination attempt that occured right after she got back "in country".

3) Bhutto had been in office twice before and had proven herself to be utterly corrupt. The only plus to the elections would have been the FACT of the elections.

Musharraff and Zia Al Haq before him were the kind of dictators normally preferred by the self styled "grownups" in the US press and foreign policy establishment, because when it comes right down to it, Democracy is messy and dangerous, as "the people" of these benighted foreign countries might not agree with the "grownups" who are just trying to rule the world in our best interests.

Bhutto's and other's claim that the corruption charges were trumped up is certainly highly plausible. But that doesn't necessarily mean that that's what happened. Seems to me that both sides have more than enough motive to spin crap for either claim to be taken as the gospel truth.

Dave,

I certainly do not disagree that propping up unsavory characters for selfish reasons has long been an easily demonstrable bipartisan policy. The question posed in the post was who is responsible (for this instance) and I responded accordingly. That doesn't mean that no Dem president has ever done anything similar. Carter going along with existing policy by continuing to prop up the Shah of Iran is a particularly relevant case in point.

That said... I'm not sure that I completely agree with Pat Ryan about islamist infiltration into the Pakistani military. It's certainly more likely than not that islamists have in fact infiltrated the military there. But to a high enough degree to pull off their own ops without the agreement of the command structure (ala the sectarian ops that appear to afflict the Iraqi military forces or the kind of crap we've seen in the Phillipines over the years)? I'm highly skeptical of that. Mostly because the Pakistani military has a well deserved reputation for being exceptionally professional and competent, very unlike their Arabic peers across the Gulf.

It seems to me that uncontrollable factions and a high degree of professionalism are mutually exclusive propositions for any military force. You can have one or the other, but not both.

I certainly would agree that the Pakistani military has done things or taken positions that seem to have benefitted islamists. The question is why? I strongly agree with Merkley that the military has been a stabalizing force in Pakistan and I submit that this reality helps explain why they can both be highly professional and have been friendly with the Taliban, for example. They're pragmatists trying to balance forces that far exceed what we have known for many generations here in America. The Tribal Areas is another case in point. The Pakistani military is more than capable of taking on tribal militants. But what good would it do them or the moderates in Pakistan to start a full-blown civil war? My money says that Pakistan would implode if the military doesn't tread carefully between the moderates and the islamists who would love a civil war. Not because they're weak or because they're too infiltrated by islamists, but rather because they're pragmatists.

She hit her head on the sunroof. That's sort of like saying that when you crash your car headfirst into someone else's car, they died because they hit their head on the windshield. Or when a person is shot, saying that they died because their blood leaked out of their body.

The bomb explosion was the cause.

Some related reading, for those who enjoy the raking of muck:

John Bolton talked about it on Hannity/Colmes

And a witness says the police abandoned their security posts shortly beforehand.

Interesting reading, whether completely factual or not.

For once I agree with UPO.

Posted by: A. Rab. | Dec 28, 2007 12:17:05 PM I don’t fully agree with Merkley. One of the biggest failures of Bush’s foreign policy is that it is dependent upon the internal factional politics of other countries, particularly countries that US policy makers have little expertise in. As such, successes or failure requires the United States to interfere in the local politics of these nations

Not sure what you are driving at and what precisely you disagree with Merkley over.

Now hold on there, Pat Ryan. Does this mean you support current US/UN efforts to get democracy in Iraq, or do you oppose it if only to oppose Bush?

That's a whole lot of wrong in one sentence Bob.

What US/UN effort? No evidence that the Neo-Cons who dreamed up this idea and executed it with absolutely no plan beyond terminating the employment of hundreds of thousands of armed Sunnis, had any "thoughts" at all.

Likewise Rummy and Shooter were just intent on swapping out an old model dictator for a more pliable gummint that would be amenable to turning over assets held by the Russians, French, and Chinese, to American based Oligarchs. You know, Restoring the Natural Order.

When a number of US generals and diplomats, along with some prominent Iranian Leaders like Al Sistani, ventured to suggest introducing some sanity, they were up against batshit crazy idiots like Daniel Pipes, John Bolton, Norm Podhoretz etcetera.

In these circumstances, Democracy was never close to being on the table.

<hr/>

As for my positions back when, read what I wrote over the past couple of years. You will not find my knee to have been jerking as you assume.

Oops, make that prominent Iraqi leaders.

Jeff Merkley's statement seems to me fatuous. It presupposes that Musharaff and the military were not involved, and that the goal of policy should be to shore up their credibility. If they were involved, or more likely, if some faction of the military or the intelligence service were involved, transparency would be either an outright conflict of interest, or at best dicey proposition with respect to internal "credibility."

While I would not claim to be expert in any sense, my impression from U.S. & British media reports is that Kevin is overstating the uniformity of the Pakistani military and more particularly of the intelligence service, in favor of a pragmatist & implicitly secularist orientation. It seems there are factions in both, but particularly the intelligence service, who actively supported the Taliban prior to 1991 and again latterly out of ideological rather than pragmatic motivations. I.e. there are risks for the "pragmatists" not only of general civil conflict in Pakistan but also internally to the military and intelligence services.

Still Kevin's view, extended to what pragmatism would mean for less ideologically radical factions of the military, is relevant to what is wrong with Merkeley's position. If the relatively more secularist factions have a modus vivendi with the more radically politically Muslim factions, why would we expect them to embrace transparency in the case of military/intelligence service involvement?

It would be nice for U.S. domestic politics if the Pakistani military were to be purged of its more politically radical Muslim forces. The anti-democratic pro-Pakistani military U.S. policy of the sort implied by Merkley's statement could be more easily justified. But that's a fantasy that has little to do with Pakistan & there's no reason to expect that the Pakistani military will engage in such a fratricidal purge -- which is what real transparency in all likelihood would require.

On the other hand I am not sure that political Islam in Pakistan can be reduced to Wahhabism, which characterizes Osama bin Laden, but not necessarily even the Taliban, never mind Pakistani factions. If we want to understand the U.S. role in Pakistan the main route does not run through Saudi Arabia but quite directly through Cold War politics & has been bipartisan.

Actually I think you were right the first time, Pat. Al Sistani was born in Iran.

Kennedy certainly didn't help, but I think credit for "starting" Vietnam might better go to Ike, who agreed to bail out the French at Dien Bien Phu in 54--or even Truman's rejection of independence in 1946.

Fair enough Kevin, but he is an Arab and an Iraqi.

One of the few good guys in this mess.

According to the various news reports she was shot and then the assassin blew himself up.

I certainly agree with that, Pat. It seems so rare these days to find a rational voice of reason coming from within the ranks of powerful clerics over there. Sistani certainly seems to actually give a rip about something other than his own power or potential to wield more of it.

One of the few good guys indeed.

Jeff Merkley's statement seems to me fatuous. It presupposes that Musharaff and the military were not involved, and that the goal of policy should be to shore up their credibility.

Whereas yours isn't fatuous because yours presupposes that Musharaff and the military were involved, and that the goal of policy shouldn't be to shore up their credibility?

Isn't that essentially the pot calling the kettle black?

By all means if you disagree with him then give your reasons for disagreeing. But when your explanation amounts to making the polar opposite assumptions to his assumptions... Well, calling his statement fatuous says the exact same thing about yours and for the very same reasons.

Yes, it is the pot calling the kettle black, Kevin.

But to all, it seems as though the evidence is beginning to point in the direction of Musharaff's government being involved. The fact that it occurred in the military garrison HQ, eyewitnesses are saying that police abandoned their security posts shortly beforehand, and the email Bhutto sent to Wolf Blitzer through Mark Spiegel back in October that said in the event of her death, to blame Musharaff. Not to mention the overwhelming probability that she was going to take Musharaff's job next week.

It would be wrong to write it off as al-Qaeda and not pursue other options, but Speaker Merkley is right to call for transparency in the investigation. The official Pakistani report that pointed fingers at al-Qaeda came from the Minister of the Interior, with very little actual evidence or reasoning.

Accountability aside, a tragedy for those in the Middle East who actually want to see peace and coexistence. She was certainly a hero in the country. Some nuclear experts are also viewing this historically as the kind of circumstances that would leave a country's nuclear arsenal exposed, the kind of scenario in which the "wrong hands" threat becomes very real.

Put the last comments by jaybeat and Campbell together and you've got my POV.

You don't need a conspiracy or foil hat, as in the case of 9/11, all you need is a little less vigilance by people in the power structure who might benefit from this or that tragedy.

The Pakistani miltary only needed to relax their vigilance in protecting a person that they largely despised, and the arrival of a nut with a gun and a vest was a foregone conclusion.

"[presupposing] that the goal of policy shouldn't be to shore up their credibility?"

Who in their right mind would seek to shore up the credibility of a weak dictator? Propping up unsupported secular leaders in Islamic countries is where much of the fault lies in US foreign policy.

The Pakistani miltary only needed to relax their vigilance in protecting a person that they largely despised, and the arrival of a nut with a gun and a vest was a foregone conclusion.

I'm not saying you're wrong, Pat. But didn't Benazir herself argue that she was the best choice in the upcoming election because when she'd been PM she had more effectively dealt with the Islamic extremists? Of course she didn't deal with them personally, the military did that. If the military leadership despised her then why would they have followed her directions towards that end?

Consider: General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq is who deposed Benazir's father from power. Haq was also responsible for the initial Islamization of Pakistan. He later died when his plane crashed under very mysterious circumstances, which was/is widely believed to have been an assassination. In fact his successor, General Mirza Aslam Beg (who was Vice Chief of the Army under Haq) was publically blamed for the assassination by Haq's son. General Pervez Musharraf served under General Beg and apparently had high respect for him, although they appear to have parted ways after 9/11.

That history coupled with Musharraf's decision to actively cooperate with Bush after 9/11 and I think a case can be made that, A) post-Haq military leaders weren't exactly friends of Pakistani Islamists (think the Red Mosque battle this past summer) and B) coupled with Musharraf's very public overtures to Benazir Bhutto prior to her return to Pakistan, that whatever bad blood there may have been between them was strictly political rather than religious. Furthermore, from what I've read and heard over the last several years, the large bulk of Pakistan's military personel come from the majority moderates... which also happened to be Benazir's political base.

Now, none of that necessarily means that Musharraf didn't passively allow Islamists to assassinate Benazir. It's certainly possible that that is exactly what he did. But I don't buy the Islamist/Military hypothesis. The evidence seems to point to them being natural enemies rather than natural allies.

Again, Kevin I don't think that we're that far apart inour respective POVs.

I'm saying that pro-Taliban pragmatists that had regional political concerns, re Iran, India, China, etcetera; were aligned with some real true believers inside the security service.

Not saying that any of this stuff is monolithic, just that there seem to have been enough of 'em to perpetuate the instablility-through-violence that has be Pakistan's misfortune almost since the founding post WWII.

<hr/> <h2>Also, (not directed at Kevin) when I assert that person X or administration X are corrupt, I am not assuming that their opponents are any less corrupt.</h2>