Comments | burninglondon: Death and Taxes

burninglondon

Death and Taxes

Dec 28, 2007 10:41

Yesterday, while driving in to work I heard over NPR about the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. For those who don’t know, she was the former Pakistani Prime Mnister and leader of the People’s Party of Pakistan. Her father was Zulfikir Ali Bhutto, the first popularly elected leader of Pakistan who was ousted in a military coup in 1977, and ( Read more... )

Comments 1

cirsium December 29 2007, 04:33:52 UTC

Yeah, Musharraf is a military dictator. But he's a military dictator who's fighting against al-Qaeda, he's established at least the form of democracy (Bhutto's party was allowed to oppose him, for instance), and he has enough support to prevent the government from simply falling apart. As bad guys go, he's pretty likable.

Frankly, I'm not sure what other options we have. We need a stable government in Pakistan. Musharraf isn't very popular at the moment; he needs the U.S.'s political support. Especially without Ms. Bhutto, there isn't another strong Pakistani leader.

On the other hand, I guess the US could give up on diplomacy; we could charge in to depose the dictator and then use our military to both restore a credible government and root out the terrorists.