The neo-cons are so obsessed with spreading "democracy" around the world, they often forget that the means can copy the means instead of achieving the ends. With Pakistan falling into chaos yesterday George Bush's White House is in crisis mode, as a nuclear country just went nuclear politically speaking. The Bush Administration is in part responsible for propping Musharraf's dictatorship up and now it coming back to haunt them.
An Op-Ed in the New York Times highlights just how bad it is, for Pakistan and the Bush Administration:
Teresita Schaffer, an expert on Pakistan at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, called General Musharraf’s action “a big embarrassment” for the administration. But she said there was not much the United States could do.
“There’s going to be a lot of visible wringing of hands, and urging Musharraf to declare his intentions,” she said. “But I don’t really see any alternative to continuing to work with him. They can’t just decide they’re going to blow off the whole country of Pakistan, because it sits right next to Afghanistan, where there are some 26,000 U.S. and NATO troops.”
The hand-wringing began even before General Musharraf imposed military rule. Ms. Rice said she has had several conversations with General Musharraf in the past few weeks — the last one two days ago — in which she appealed to him not to declare emergency powers. The American ambassador to Pakistan, Anne W. Patterson, had also been exhorting General Musharraf and his top deputies against making that step, Ms. Rice said.
“We were clear that we did not support it,” Ms. Rice said, speaking to reporters aboard a flight from Istanbul to Israel, where she is traveling for regional talks. “We were clear that we didn’t support it because it would take Pakistan away from the path of democratic rule.”
But even as she criticized General Musharraf’s power grab, Ms. Rice stopped short of outright condemnation of General Musharraf himself, even going so far as to credit him for doing “a lot” — in the past — toward preparing Pakistan for what she called a “path to democratic rule.”
That seeming contradiction highlights the quandary in which the Bush administration now finds itself.
It will be interesting to see how Pakistan develops over the coming days and weeks, especially if an election can be held, if it all. Not to put it lightly of course, especially with armed fundamentalists in the country's hinterlands who would love to take over the nuclear arsenal. That would be the worst scenario and hopefully unlikely to occur. Nevertheless, we are left with a Pakistan that has seriously veered of course on the democratic road....something anyone could have seen coming years ago.
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