My Thoughts on the Bhutto Assassination

First, it's clear that even by the standards of Pakistani politics, she was highly corrupt, as mind boggling as this characterization was.

This is something that is frequently ignored, as the westerners that she met with were dealing with someone who went to Harvard/Radcliffe and then Oxford. She was well spoken, and knew how to make her point in terms that were familiar to the western officials whom she studiously cultivated.

In this way, she was very similar to Ahmed Chalabi, whose support from US officials, despite a history of criminal, dishonest, and corrupt dealings, managed to convince US figures who were profoundly ignorant of that part of the world to support his interests.

That they both went to college at prestigious western schools, (Chalabi received his BS from MIT, and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago) is not an inconsequential part of this equation. It taught both of them how to communicate their interests in a very fluent way with their American counterparts.

That being said, it is clear that Bhutto was far more interested in actually governing and implementing policies, as opposed to Chalabi's rather more venal interests.

Additionally, as the head of a the only major opposition party was assassinated yesterday, and with the elections less than two weeks away, it's clear that the elections will not mean anything.

All that they will do is to serve as a rubber stamp of Pervez Musharraf's power, as the only other potential rival to power, Nawaz Sharif, has not been allowed stand for election.

As to Mushaffaf, he is largely the product of, and completely beholden to, the Pakistani military establishment (which includes Pakistani intelligence services) which has little or no interest in pursuing the American anti-terrorism or anti Taliban agenda.

The Pakistani military's culture resembles to a very large degree that of the German Imperial Navy pre World War I. They are focused on "der tag"^*, the day, i.e. the eventual large scale conflict with India much in the same way that the German fleet focused on an eventual showdown with their British counterparts.

As a result, both organizations had limited effectiveness to the task at hand.

As such, it is no surprise that very little of the military aid that the US has sent to Pakistan has gone towards fighting the Taliban or terrorism, but has instead been directed toward India.

As to who is directly responsible for the assassination, I do not know, and neither does anyone else writing about it, though I lean toward various Pakistani warlords in the generally lawless border regions who were directly threatened by Bhutto's policies.

However, it is clear that Musharraf deliberately impaired the security arrangements for Bhutto, probably in an effort to hamstring her ability to campaign, and as such he does bear some direct responsibility for her death.

I don't see any resolution of this situation as being favorable to the United States, a quick perusal of Sharif's record shows him having amended the constitution to make removal of a prime minister nearly impossible, and considering the fact that Pakistan has somewhere between 30 and 100 nuclear weapons, and the possibilities for the average Pakistani citizen are even worse.

There is a more general lesson to be learned though, and that is that the US has for a very long time generally cast about for "our man" in various places in the world of interest, rather than looking at issues of governance and process, and the results when this individual falls up short, as has happened when the US withdrew to some degree from Musharraf and placed its chips on Bhutto, have almost always been disastrous.

^*At official events banquets, the German Navy always had a toast to "der tag", translated as "the day", referring to the eventual clash of fleets.