With Bhutto Gone, Does Bush Have a Plan B?
Bush’s failed policies in Pakistan, a nuclear power that al-Qaida still uses to plot against the West, threatens U.S. security more than Iraq ever did.
The assassination of Benazir Bhutto on Thursday provoked rioting in Islamabad and Karachi, with her supporters blaming President Pervez Musharraf, while he pointed his finger at Muslim extremists. The renewed instability in Pakistan came as a grim reminder that the Bush administration has been pursuing a two-front war, neither of which has been going well. Bush’s decision to put hundreds of billions of dollars into an Iraq imbroglio while slighting the effort to fight al-Qaida, rebuild Afghanistan, and move Pakistan toward democracy and a rule of law has been shown up as a desperate and unsuccessful gamble. The question is whether President Musharraf now most resembles the shah of Iran in 1978. That is, has his authority among the people collapsed irretrievably?
The Bush administration backed military dictator Musharraf to the hilt as a way of dealing with U.S. security and al-Qaida on the cheap while it poured hundreds of billions into Baghdad. George W. Bush was entirely willing to let the Pakistani judiciary, the rule of law, and any real democracy be gutted by an ambitious general. For Washington, allowing Bhutto to return to Pakistan was simply a way to shore up Musharraf’s legitimacy. Now Pakistan faces new turmoil, and Bush appears to have no Plan B. Since Pakistan is a nuclear power and al-Qaida extremists still use it as a base to plot against the West, this failure is inexcusable and threatens U.S. security in a way Iraq never did.
Bhutto, the leader of the Pakistan People’s Party, was leaning out of the sunroof of a car leaving a political rally on Thursday evening in Rawalpindi near the capital, Islamabad, when an armed assailant dressed as a policeman approached, shot her twice, and then detonated a belt bomb, killing her and some 22 other persons. When Bhutto’s death was announced, rioting broke out in Rawalpindi and her home base, the southern port city of Karachi. Many of her supporters blamed Musharraf, who, though he recently resigned from the military, came to power in a 1999 military coup and has ruled as a military dictator. The house of a senior politician from the Pakistan Muslim League (Qaid-i Azam), Musharraf’s party, was burned down by an angry mob. It is clear that many in the Pakistan People’s Party blame Musharraf and his supporters for Bhutto’s death, whether fairly or unfairly. If this sentiment becomes widespread, it is hard to see how Musharraf can survive.
The Pakistan People’s Party was expected to do well in the scheduled Jan. 8 parliamentary elections, which the Bush administration had hoped would begin a transition away from military rule. The PPP, which has an impressive grass-roots organization that has proved it can get out the vote in election after election, has been important in Pakistani politics since the 1970s. It has been in power at the federal level during 11 of the past 36 years and has particular strength in the Punjab, Pakistan’s wealthiest and most populous province. The party will hold a convention to formally elect a successor to Bhutto, but whether parliamentary elections can still be held on Jan. 8 has been cast into doubt. Bhutto’s rival, Nawaz Sharif, who heads the right-of-center Muslim League, announced that his party would boycott the elections to protest the failure of the Pakistani military to give Bhutto better security.
Bhutto’s assassination was a profound blow to Bush administration policy in South Asia. Washington looked the other way when Musharraf had himself elected “president” in a referendum in spring of 2002, wherein he had no competition. It accepted Musharraf’s interference in the fall 2002 elections, which was aimed at handicapping the two major parties, the Pakistan People’s Party and the Muslim League. All Musharraf managed to do was to throw the key northwest frontier province and Baluchistan into the hands of the Muslim fundamentalist parties, which had never before done so well in those regions, but which were left without much competition when their rivals were hobbled by the military. These Muslim fundamentalist local governments in turn ran interference for Muslim radicals, denying that there was any such thing as al-Qaida.
The combination of political ineptitude whereby Musharraf helped put the fundamentalists in power in the Pushtun regions of Pakistan and the heavy-handedness of his military interventions in the fiercely independent tribal north, helped set the stage for the greater political violence. The government’s neglect of the hardscrabble farming regions of the north also fueled discontent.
At the same time it was coddling the dictator, the United States has been attempting to do nation building in Afghanistan and to strengthen the government of Hamid Karzai, while trying to face down a resurgent Pushtun insurgency in the south of that country. In the frontier badlands of the tribal areas straddling Afghanistan and Pakistan, remnants of the Taliban and the “Arab Afghans” of al-Qaida have been hiding out and regrouping. There is some evidence that they continue to have contacts with, and even to train, Muslim militants based in Europe. The Pakistani military dislikes the Karzai government and sees the “Northern Alliance” that came to power with American help as overly friendly to India and Iran. It is suspected that some elements in the Pakistani army and its military intelligence branch, the Inter-Services Intelligence, are secretly stirring up Pushtun tribesmen against the Karzai regime in hopes that a government more friendly to Pakistan will come to power.
Paradoxically, the Pakistani military has cracked down hard on Taliban-like groups inside Pakistan itself. Troops have fought several major engagements in the rugged tribal territories of the north, and over time have captured some 700 al-Qaida operatives. But the fiercely independent tribespeople of Waziristan and its neighboring areas have fought back. Starting in September 2006 the military even attempted a truce with the tribal leaders in hopes that they would deal with the Muslim militants themselves. That truce began to break down when the military stormed the Red Mosque in the capital, Islamabad, where Pushtun and Baluch tribesmen belonging to a neo-Deobandi cult and advocating strict puritanism had established themselves and begun acting like vigilantes. Musharraf ordered his military to close the mosque, where the cultists had stored arms, resulting in a sanguinary conflict. In the aftermath, Muslim militants in Pakistan’s northeast carried out a record number of suicide bombings.
If he faced a rural crisis deriving from the fundamentalism of neglected northern farming communities, Musharraf faced an urban crisis as well. Pakistan’s good economic growth for the past six years has helped create a new middle class, numbering in the tens of millions, who are educated and connected to the world by cable television and the Internet. They depend on the rule of law to pursue their white-collar occupations, and when Musharraf attempted to fire the chief justice of the Supreme Court, the urban middle classes staged large rallies and resisted the packing of the courts. They won the first round when Musharraf, weakened by the Red Mosque fiasco, was forced to reinstate the chief justice.
Benazir Bhutto served as prime minister twice, from 1988 to 1990 and again from 1993 to 1996, and was dismissed on charges of corruption both times. She has been in political exile since 1999, the year of Musharraf’s military coup. After the Red Mosque debacle and his conflict with the country’s Supreme Court, Musharraf was so weakened that he accepted a new American plan. It provided for Bhutto to return and contest elections, such that she would likely be the next prime minister, and for Musharraf to resign from the military and become a civilian president. This plan was in danger of being derailed when the Supreme Court seemed likely to decide that Musharraf was ineligible to serve as president, and the dictator reacted by dismissing the court, packing it with his own supporters, and declaring a state of emergency. Bhutto expressed outrage at those high-handed actions and clearly feared that they would taint her own legitimacy. Under severe American pressure, Musharraf lifted the state of emergency and agreed to new elections on Jan. 8.
Pakistan’s future is now murky, and to the extent that this nation of 160 million buttresses the eastern flank of American security in the greater Middle East, its fate is profoundly intertwined with America’s own. The money for the Sept. 11 attacks was wired to Florida from banks in Pakistan, and al-Qaida used the country for transit to Afghanistan. Instability in Pakistan may well spill over into Afghanistan, as well, endangering the some 26,000 U.S. troops and a similar number of NATO troops in that country. And it is not as if Afghanistan were stable to begin with. If Pakistani politics finds its footing, if a successor to Benazir Bhutto is elected in short order by the PPP and the party can remain united, and if elections are held soon, the crisis could pass. If there is substantial and ongoing turmoil, however, Muslim radicals will certainly take advantage of it.
In order to get through this crisis, Bush must insist that the Pakistani Supreme Court, summarily dismissed and placed under house arrest by Musharraf, be reinstated. The PPP must be allowed to elect a successor to Ms. Bhutto without the interference of the military. Early elections must be held, and the country must return to civilian rule. Pakistan’s population is, contrary to the impression of many pundits in the United States, mostly moderate and uninterested in the Taliban form of Islam. But if the United States and “democracy” become associated in their minds with military dictatorship, arbitrary dismissal of judges, and political instability, they may turn to other kinds of politics, far less favorable to the United States. Musharraf may hope that the Pakistani military will stand with him even if the vast majority of people turn against him. It is a forlorn hope, and a dangerous one, as the shah of Iran discovered in 1978-79.
Juan Cole teaches Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University of Michigan. His most recent book Napoleon’s Egypt: Invading the Middle East (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007) has just been published. He has appeared widely on television, radio and on op-ed pages as a commentator on Middle East affairs, and has a regular column at Salon.com. He has written, edited, or translated 14 books and has authored 60 journal articles. His weblog on the contemporary Middle East is Informed Comment.
© 2007 Salon.com
As long as Musharraf was still in the government of pakistan in any way, there was no plan B
Our “man” in pakistan was, and still is, musharraf, regardless of whether or not Bhutto had survived and been elected.
I think we’re still on plan “A.” Does anyone thing Musharraf and Bush were NOT behind this murder? Bush’s people brokered Bhuto’s return so Musharraf’s people could kill her…seems to me.
seems like bush would be happy-she is gone….since she spilled the beans about osama binladen,in a november interview with david frost.it appears,bush may have dialed-up the terrorist hotline and lined up the ‘ghostly’ bin laden to make an announcement,soon about iraq.please america….impeach….
what was plan A? Chaos?
If so, Plan B might be: continuing chaos.
Pakistan is a f*cked up country regardless of US interference. A friend’s friend did charity work in Kashmir and Pakistani men have no respect for women. They they them like garbage.
Even without US interference it would be a cesspool.
Bush’s plan is simpple: anarchy and chaos. Money is to be made via these unrest.
Kelmer, you need to step out of the country before making opinions based on one persons view.
Psst,that was the Shrubs plan B, no more BB
What’s next after sending Benazir to her death with a big ‘Made In USA’ target on her back? Plan B? B as in Bomb. Bush and Bomb are both four letter words.
BUSH DOES NOT HAVE PLAN A. What an optimist…. to think that this person in the White House can think? Who writes this stuff for us to comment about? Lets get real with your analysis. How about not requiring to be involved with the internal politics of any foreign country. It is simply no one’s business but their own.
If the USA were not involved with oil extraction and the wars necessary for that exercise, the people who govern Pakistan would be no one’s business but their own. America has made such a mess with its foreign policy that every country and who does not move in ways that America wants has a problem. If it is not in the “national interest” the business of a country becomes the American way and not the UN sphere of influence where it should lie! its time for a different think but not even the journalists and writers are free from this mess of thinking. They all think in that American box!
Let’s not forget that Bush never talks about Pakistan having nuclear weapons, or developing them, the way that he does/did Iran/Iraq. But Pakistan is, like Saudi Arabia, our ally.
The corruption of Bhutto discussed here by her niece:
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/blog/2007/12/pakistan_the_ot.html#
The writers who are allowed to sell in the corporate government’s markets are the ones who parrot the view of the evil scum which thinks it still rules the world. The analysis in the above article is wrong and ridiculously simplified.
“At the same time it was coddling the dictator, the United States has been attempting to do nation building in Afghanistan…” - The preceding statement is indicative of an apology and expresses the ignorance, or collusion, of the author. The U.S. has never been about “nation building” but quite the opposite. That worthless scum which is the U.S.A. knows full well that they have wreaked their own country, by intentionally weakening it’s infrastructure, and that the only way forward for them is continual conflict. China is their primary target and has been for more than half a century, and another war on the border of China is what they seek so that if opportunity arises they can expand the war and strike directly at the one nation which they know they will never be able to subvert.
The worthless trash which runs the corporate governments have no moral values and so it is inevitable that they will be deposed, because if they lack people with morals then they lack the necessary people who have a conscience and that means they can only depend on those people of an inferior intellect.
i thought Bhutto was “our” man in Pakistan- one that, at least said, she would allow US troops into pakistan (to intimidate the Chinease?). I am trying to sift through all the articles and opinions, and i have the sneaking suspicion that they are all our man, that our powers-that-be will play all pakistinians off each other to ghet any advantage, and that their price in blood is of little concern. Yes, oil and weapon profits may go up, and I would like to hear more about the Shah of Iran comparison.
ike kay–your comment that Juan Cole’s analysis is fogged by his American Exceptionalism is correct, and I have pointed out this fault to him on his blog. But at least he recognizes it and has worked hard to neutralize it. But a fogged analysis isn’t necessarilly flawed. Seeing the parallel between 1978-79 Iran and 2007-08 Pakistan is very insightful and helpful. The crisis in Pakistan is also being quite helpful by providing tough questions about foreign policy to the presidential wanabes of both parties. Personally, I think the possibility for a middle-class led revolt against Mushareff to be far greater than before. But most importantly, the US/UK media cannot be trusted to provide a true picture, and thus the whole spectrum of Pakistaini media must be read to get a truer accounting of events, outcomes, and liklihoods. ATOL has an item up about this that provides evidence of the assination being an al-Qaeda operation, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/IL29Df01.html
dustinchicago,
Yesterday on CNN’s website, Senator Arlen Spect(o)r said that Bhutto was the key person in the US’s plan to help restore democracy in Pakistan. Totally befuddled, he basically was asking “now what do we do?” And you and I both know this Administration’s ability to plan is zero. Hell, they could not even plan a picnic for two people.
Ike Kay: How about not requiring to be involved with the internal politics of any foreign country. It is simply no one’s business but their own.
The US has no business in Pakistan, period. The “new world order” is: Keep your gringo nose out of other people’s business.
Bush does not need any Plan A or B. He just talks to his higher father in heaven and gets his orders for the day. That is why he never has made a mistake that he can remember.
According to NPR this AM, Bhutto had requested security assistance from Bush, and even identified the individual in Mushareff’s administration she most feared to try assassinating her; The Bush Administration responded that they did not want to get involved in Pakistan’s electoral process…….. So much for Chicken-hawks efforts to promote democracy in the middle east…..
One Nation Under God, with bush, and literally USELESS FOR ALL.
Had me up until: “In order to get through this crisis, Bush must insist…” The entire world believes El Loonitary Decider is a crazy, God-talkin, war criminal maniac who is to be either used or ignored.
He can insist on nothing… unless he’s insisting the Dems do as they are told.
On a side note: “But if the United States and “democracy” become associated in their minds with military dictatorship, arbitrary dismissal of judges, and political instability…”
Or, say, “military tribunals” which allow secret evidence, evidence gained through torture, the elimination of habeas corpus, indefinite detention, the dismissal of US Attorney Generals as part of a broad election-rigging scheme, the destruction of evidence and erasure of millions of potentially incriminating emails, the total disregard for any law ever written, the murder and maiming of millions of innocent Iraqis and Afghanis, illegal wiretapping both pre and post 9/11, the emptying of our Treasury into the pockets of a few “friends,”…
Yea, we wouldn’t want the United States and “democracy” to be associated with anything like that, no way, nuh uh, not the most God blessed homeland ever. Freedom’s happ’n here, baby!
I’d like to remind Ike Kay that Prof. Cole became THE American blog expert on the Middle East some years ago, so he doesn’t have to answer your questions (or anyone else’s.) Period.
How does he know Bush supported Bhutto? He doesn’t have to say.
How does he know what “Al Qaida” thinks? He doesn’t have to say.
Can he define “Al Qaida”? Or is that just a catch-all name for numerous Sunni groups? He won’t answer.
There are going to be lots of angry defenders of Dr. Cole, but time has shown his comments are mostly useless and not really very informed at all.
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but has anything Dr. Cole ever posted provided any real help in understanding the situation in the Middle East?
Well Golly Gee when you become a professor of middle eastern studies I’ll read your blog too. Until then I’ll read Dr. Cole.
A professor of middle eastern studies? Is that equivalent to a decider? If that is in reference to any western educated professional then it is safe to say that a moron would have as balanced an opinion. If an educated person does not display an objective point of view, then that person is a fraud. There is only one requirement for integrity, and that is honesty.
Since what’s happening now is all tied together with all things that have happened in the past and all human history is woven into a massive clusterflake. Forgive me if I look to person with a PHD to guide me in my pondering of the human condition. By far not my only scource of information but always a good read.
Yeah. Right. Like Bush is a credentialed moron, so any moron who sucks up to him must be legitimate and emulatable? Right?
Well I don’ get the Bush connection. You lost me.
Now that Pakistan has officially blamed Al Qaeda for Bhutto’s assassination, the Bush Gang can keep right on backing the tinpot dictator and his pocketful of nukes to the hilt.
And so it goes.
Gee, I DO miss Kurt Vonnegut sometimes.
Look, this is all about keeping Mush in power. He is Plan A, B, C-Z.
Bhutto was brought in to create instability. Mission accomplished. Conditions were ripe to declare Martial Law and jail the judges. Her death creates more instability and gets rid of a legitimate threat to his dictatorship.
Also, Bhutto gave an interview with David Frost claiming Omar Sheik murdered Bin Laden. Some say she mis-spoke and meant Pearl. Others say it was a Freudian slip (remember Rumsfeld saying the UA 93 was shot down, and one of the 9/11 commissioners saying the Pentagon was hit by a missile) . I personally think he lives in the White House basement and is at this moment making a video telling us he killed Bhutto, by maybe she knew better. Knowledge can be a dangerous thing.
mimics,i heard,on the news, bhutto expected to get security from blackwater and didn’t.i think she didnt get blackwater,because of that interview.
Bu$h the inferior’s PLAN A’s have sucked so bad, why wonder about PLAN B? It must at least be second worst.
Wait…Wait… I’m receiving a vision, yes, A big shiny new US Military Base in Pakistan. Lots and lots of weapons (to protect the people there.)
Bush’s Plan A–the oil
Bush’s Plan B–the oil
Cole says “Bush must insist that the Pakistani Supreme Court, summarily dismissed and placed under house arrest by Musharraf, be reinstated.”
This being the correct course of action, why would we want a war criminal such as Bush insisting such a thing?
Incredible that such an intelligent man as Cole would suggest such nonsense. He should concentrate his efforts on making it clear that Bush and Cheney are war criminals who need to be held accountable immediately. They invaded and bombed 2 countries and are responsible for the destruction of millions of lives. They did this with the complicity of the U.S. Congress.
I think our country has much bigger problems then Pakistan.
Pakistan is going to be our problem, like it or not. But we won’t be able to do much about it because stupid George Bush put Afghanistan on the back burner to concentrate on Iraq. Stupid, stupid man. So now we have a nearly broken military stuck in the wrong place at the wrong time. There is no better chance than this for religious zealots to get a nuke, especially since some of them are already in the Pakistani military and intelligence forces.
It was an Assassination of Mass Distraction
Useful as Weapon’s of Mass Destraction were
One difference between Iran in ‘78 & Pakistan now though is how united the Persian people were in their identification of the USA/shah/savak as the great satan and their mortal enemy. Thus in Tehran square they rose up like a wave.
Pakistani society has an english speaking middle class and is less unified as a whole at this time.
While, I would love for us to get our noses out of other countries, we ought “watch” Pakistan carefully. It is, unfortunately, one of the global producers of terrorists. This is not to suggest that many people in Pakistan do not want this menace out of their country, but that is the simple fact.
We did nothing to tackle terrorist activities in the late 80’s and 90’s when Pakistan (ISI) armed and supported violence in Kashmir, and helped organize and buttress the Taliban in Afghanistan. We continued to arm guerilla groups like the Mudjahideen as part of the cold war, and we are now reaping the results.
Add to all this, the US military stuck in Iraq, and we really cannot do much can we? Does anyone have a decent suggestion other than a “wait and see” approach or putting all our energy into propping up Musharraf? What else can our “decider-in-chief” do? The “Benazir Bhutto as an alternative” plan, however imperfect, is now nixed.
For once, I really sympathize with the decider’s plight. Nothing he tries appears to work.
There is always a plan B. B as in bribe. In Pak who ever comes to power can be bribed.
ThoughtShaman: Plan B? Sure: Spend all the Billions on irrigation projects, health clinics, seed & fertilizer, and hospitals. Fly a discreet american flag here and there as we do.
Pakistan is “one of the global producers of terrorrists.” Sir, countries don’t produce suicide bombers, conditions do.
Conditions created primarily by american support for terrorism (musharraf, the ISI etc…)
Can anyone still remember how indignant Washington was when Musharraf came to power through a coup? Washington’s threats? The US will prostitute itself with anyone, anywhere when it serves the purpose. Democracy or not. Now Washington can’t ‘butter him up’ enough. Hypocrites.
“Spend all the Billions on irrigation projects, health clinics, seed & fertilizer, and hospitals. Fly a discreet american flag here and there as we do.”
This is not a bad long term plan. Even if 1% of the money actually gets used as we intend it would make a difference. However, this does not address the ideological/political dimension of the overall problem.
“Sir, countries don’t produce suicide bombers, conditions do.”
Sheesh! this is like responding to “America has lost many manufacturing jobs in the last decade” with “Sir, countries don’t lose jobs, companies do.”
“Conditions created primarily by american support for terrorism (musharraf, the ISI etc…)”
All too true, all too true…we didn’t do enough to tackle the issue when it affected “only Kashmir.” Now we are paying the price.
Bush Plan B: Rationale
Republicans love military dictators. They have proven that it is the form of government they would most like to see established in the United States. They love the flags, bands, and uniforms. They love the weaponry. They expect the John Wayne rhetoric. They want to nuke somebody, anybody, provided their skin is not white. They are a racist lot capable of bending any truth to conform with their dominionist beliefs. They believe they are the chosen people of god and will try to make damn sure that everyone else understands that, and accepts it under pain of imprisonment and death. They will use genetics to improve the Nordic whiteness of their offspring. They will develop a vaccine to render non-Nordic Peoples permanently infertile. A class of people with mixed-Nordic blood will be maintained as slaves. Natural instincts will attract the pure bloods to the mix-bloods and an underground sex-slave indursty will flourish. Human vices will infect the Nordic’s and their weaknesses will lead to intrigue and assassinations. The Nordic’s, always keeping up appearances, will be overthrown by the stronger mix-bloods. A mix-blood strongman/woman will rise to power as the new military dictator. This process will repeat until the blood lust has been satisfied and some bright and courageous person dares to suggest that there might be a better way to live if people respected one another. Civilization will be reborn and the slow process of evil dominion will begin again.
If elected, Bhutto was supposed to allow for a US military base in Pakistan. One of the functions of the base was to closely watch the nukes and grab them in the event of any unrest that appeared Islamists were getting into power.
Now, Bhutto is gone to hereafter, the nukes are still there unguarded, and plans B, C, and D are being debated and designed in Washington.
Plan A written by G W Bush grandson of Prescott Bush who was banker for Adolph Hitler; son of G H W Bush who was CIA Chief oh and Prez of USA..
So Plan A is Pakisomething might have oil, Pakisit is not China or Russia so I can tell them what to do and I can get my oil out of there somehow. Might have to be one of my twin girls to do the job in the future. If somebody DOES NOT want to play this game with me and I have seen many western movies where they shoot the guys, so I get somebody to shoot. bang bang fall down hit your head, then lay there dead… oh this is so much fun writing my plans.
Plan ( what comes after A ?) anyway just check plan A
To suggest that the Bush administration honestly looked forward to a Bhutto administration in Pakistan is laughable…… Bush has paid lip service only to democracy. Democracy is ONLY a good thing if they elect someone we can work with as we found out in palestine. Bhutto was a populist……. someone not necessarily buyable, someone who would not necessarily do Bush’s business. Fascists and populists seldom see eye to eye. Bush being a fascist in every sense of the word unless he was far more stupid than I think… undoubtedly feared the rise of Bhutto……. One has only to look at Venezuela to see the hand writing on the wall. Bhutto would be no more palatible to Bush than Chavez. Let’s look at reality here……not the what they want us to believe.
Howard
BILLB — Geo the inferior shrub_in_Thief is even more complicit than you state, see:
Namaste … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Mahatma Gandhi … … … … … … … … … …
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