BHUTTO DEAD
PAKISTAN IN TROUBLE
American Foreign Policy
Gone Wrong Again
By Zain Deane

Just before I left for Pakistan at the beginning of December, my friend showed me a Newsweek Magazine in which the cover story was all about how Pakistan was the most dangerous country in the world. I dismissed the article, attributing it to conjecture and ignorance. I was wrong; the article was right.

On December 27, Pakistan was shaken to its core by the assassination of Prime Ministerial candidate Benazir Bhutto. Following her death (the cause of which remains a mystery, with new theories emerging practically on a weekly basis), the country was plunged into a civil upheaval of such magnitude that President Parvez Musharraf recently claimed it had undone seven years of development. Imagine that; seven years’ worth of progress destroyed in three days. Shocking, saddening, and humiliating.

The mass uprising—and the destructive nature of the mob—was as unexpected as it was unnerving. For three days, I, along with most of Karachi, remained holed up in our homes, riding out the storm. The city was on fire; food, water, medicine, and basic necessities became scarce for much of the population, as stores remained closed and people couldn’t go to work. Chaos reigned until the army was finally called in with “shoot-to-kill” orders to quell the situation.

In the immediate aftermath of the uprising, rival politicians rushed to condemn Musharraf for faulty security. But the real blame here lies not with Pakistan’s president. It doesn’t even lie with Bhutto, who was warned repeatedly that she would be hunted and killed, and who didn’t leave the country even after a bomb almost ended her life the day she landed. No: the fault here lies with the country that brought this series of events to pass: the U.S.

As I watched Benazir become a martyr on the local and global news, I couldn’t help feeling enraged at what American foreign policy had once again engineered. It was the U.S. which supported Bhutto’s return, forcing Musharraf’s hand and ignoring the many claims of corruption and theft that plagued her administration when she was the nation’s prime minister. Benazir had effectively been banished from Pakistan, until Washington decided that she was the right leader to push forward the democratic process in the country.

We had our reasons for supporting Bhutto: we had grown weary of Musharraf, who had recently made a series of political missteps which had angered Washington; we needed new blood, a pro-democracy, pro-U.S. candidate for the foreseeable future to help secure Pakistan’s long-term alliance; and we wanted greater access to the country, especially to the hostile interior which we have long suspected (accurately) is an Al Qaida stronghold.

Bhutto said all the right things. She spoke openly about enlisting American aid in driving out the terrorists from Pakistan’s dangerous Northwest Frontier Province. She was a Harvard- and Oxford-educated scholar, a literate, educated woman who had once held the reins in Pakistan (never mind how shakily or incompetently). She would bring Pakistan to the Promised Land of Democracy. And so she became the U.S. candidate of choice.

Of course, once in Pakistan, these overtures disappeared. Bhutto, after all, had to appear purely “Pakistani” to her people; she had to rebuff the Americans in public (as she did in her speeches around the country) and welcome them in private. She needed them, and they needed her.

It was no different from American support of the notoriously corrupt Shah of Iran in the 1970s, or of trigger-happy and brutal Saddam Hussein in the 1980s. We are so myopic in our pursuit of global democracy that we tend to develop two dangerous and often devastating habits:

1.    The complete lack of consideration that the democratic process may not be the best solution for a particular nation in its current state.
2.    The eager willingness  to back any candidate or party who speaks in favor of democracy, regardless of his or her prior history, past crimes, or potential for damaging the nation they want to represent.

In Iran, our support led to the revolution, to Ayatollah Khomeini and to the Iran-Iraq war.  We know what giving Saddam the weapons he needed to fight the Iranis has wrought. We helped train and arm the people who later became the Taliban. And now this: Pakistan stands on the precarious brink of civil unrest for years to come, because we backed the wrong horse. Again. Does this mean we’ll come to Pakistan as well, with guns blazing, to restore “peace” and “freedom” to its oppressed people? Will Karachi be the next Kabul? Will Islamabad be the next Baghdad?

Even as we speak, the vultures are circling around this country. The people of this nation wait with bated breath for the results of the election, now postponed until February 18, to see who will emerge as Pakistan’s new prime minister. Many call for Musharraf to step down. Who will the U.S. call on to step up? Surely, it will be a champion of democracy. Again.