Pakistan: Did democracy die along with Bhutto?

The killing of Benazir Bhutto has also laid to rest the Bush administration’s grand plans for Pakistan, said Simon Robinson in Time. Washington had engineered Bhutto’s homecoming last fall, after she spent eight years in exile, seeing her as a civilian counterweight to the increasingly unpopular military ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf. With Bhutto serving as prime minister and Musharraf as president, the White House hoped, it would look “as if it were keeping its word to spread democracy in the Muslim world while still having its man run the country.” But this tidy arrangement was doomed from the start, said Trudy Rubin in The Philadelphia Inquirer. Bhutto had no sooner returned than Musharraf got jittery over his declining popularity, declared martial law, and put her under house arrest. Now, following her assassination, on Dec. 27, the nuclear-armed Muslim country is in tumult. With many Pakistanis blaming Musharraf for Bhutto’s death, he has postponed elections scheduled for this week until next month. “If, as looks likely, the delayed elections are blatantly rigged, Pakistan could implode.”

Pinning our hopes on Bhutto was a big mistake, said William Dalrymple in The New York Times. With her Western diplomas, extensive Washington contacts, and abundant charm, she posed as a freedom-loving democrat. But she was “a natural autocrat’’ who believed that ruling Pakistan was her birthright; when she was prime minister in the 1990s, Pakistan was rife with repression, torture, and political killings. Even in death, said Rosa Brooks in the Los Angeles Times, Bhutto’s arrogant sense of entitlement continues to shape Pakistan. Her will named her 19-year-old son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, as her successor as party chair. She designated her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, as “co-chair and quasi-regent” until Bilawal graduates from Oxford. That’s a commitment to dynasty, not democracy.

Even as the U.S. searches for a new Pakistan policy, said Robin Wright in The Washington Post, Bush is clinging to the old one. He still wants to “prop up” Musharraf, believing him essential to the country’s security. So the White House is trying “to forge a new moderate center” to work with him. Why bother? said Peter Galbraith in The Boston Globe. Musharraf has shown himself to be an utterly unreliable ally. Of the billions we’ve given him to fight the war on terror, he’s squandered half of it “for use against India.” Instead of destroying Islamic militants, he’s allowed them to sink roots and proliferate, undermining Pakistan’s safety and ours alike. “The United States needs to be tough with Pakistan, not gullible.”

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Fortunately, said Amir Taheri in the New York Post, reports that Pakistan is poised to self-destruct are greatly exaggerated. Its nuclear arsenal is secure. The army is stable. And contrary to popular belief, the “Islamists are not about to seize power.” At best, their fractured parties command 11 percent or 12 percent of the vote. The best solution to Pakistan’s problems is “more, not less, democracy.”

In the short term, that means settling for half a loaf, said Charles Krauthammer in The Washington Post. It’s in our best interests to have democracies in this critical region of the globe, even if the democracy practiced in each country is a “local variant.’’ In Afghanistan, this means accepting “the power of warlords”; in Iraq, it means giving Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds autonomy in a system of decentralized federalism. “And in Pakistan, it means accepting both the enduring presence of feudal politics and the pre-eminent role of the military.” It’s not ideal, but “that is not a reason for giving up on it”—especially when you consider the alternative.