THE BHUTTO KILLING

JOSHUA HOLLAND, ALTERNET - I think it's important to understand that the U.S. had a key role in the events leading up to today's tragedy. It was becoming increasingly difficult for the Bush administration to support Musharraf while spewing the usual rhetoric about democratization and the rule of law and all that, so they played a very active role in brokering the deal between Musharraf and Bhutto that led to her return from exile and brought her to this unhappy end. The idea was that as long as Musharraf was unlikely to cede real power, Bhutto's presence would help legitimize the Pakistani regime. But the administration seriously overestimated the degree of popular support Bhutto had. Essentially, we pushed Bhutto into the mix, and, as Tom Daschle noted in testimony before Congress last week Musharraf, who was pushed to hold elections by Congress (which threatened and then did put conditions on U.S. aid to Pakistan), did exactly nothing to create a secure environment in which the process could take place.

It's a pretty typical U.S. foreign policy clusterfuck: support an illegitimate dictator because he's "our" dictator, ignore his abuses until they become too embarrassing to ignore, then get together some State Department staff to start mucking around in the domestic politics of a country even if they don't have a really firm handle on the nuances of its political culture and, while the specific chain of events may come as a surprise, the fact that the outcome will be bad is entirely predictable. Wash, rinse and repeat.