Pakistan: Disbelief is Restored from Suspension

I have long argued in chats on foreign policy themes that, if one is looking for a new object of concern about international security, Pakistan is a much more valid choice than Iran. Just two points should make the case:

1) Whatever the probabilities of various nuclear proliferation fears being realized in Iran (and I'd say they are high--50% or more--with our current policy arc, though remote in time), in Pakistan they are 100% proven. With regard to both domestic development and spreading capabilities beyond their borders, which is what the Bomb Iran Now! crowd suggests might happen in the worst-case scenario.

2) Control over Pakistan--under any regime, but especially under this one--is guaranteed to be much more unstable than Iran's has been under the mullahs or likely will be.

I do not argue that Musharraf has not been friend to US; his failures have been due to the limitations of his power rather than his intent. The limitations of the policies he chooses are pretty severe, though, when his own intelligence agency deliberately undercuts them, as with the Taliban.

Benazir Bhutto has made impressive efforts to take on Musharraf: first by daring to trust him, then by staying when her arrival (and the suicide bombing ensuing) demonstrated that he would not or could not protect her, and now by challenging his emergency rule.

Musharraf's recent moves are a good example of the slow-motion train wreck approach to government. He had boxed himself into a position where he had to take the self-destructive course. It reminds me somewhat of Indira Gandhi's emergency rule in India in 1969, and the outcome will be similar: some day he will allow an election, and then in that initial election, the Pakistani majority vote will be for the party that most thoroughly repudiates Musharraf before finding a new balance. Bhutto is positioning herself well for that day, whether it come sooner or later.