By Arun Kumar, IANS
Washington : As the carefully scripted US plans to give a democratic face to a key military ally went awry with the assassination of former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto, Washington was hard put to find new policy options.
Bhutto was a key element in US efforts to put Pakistan on the road to democracy even as it looked at military president Pervez Musharraf as an “indispensable” ally in the war on terror since the then-general cast his lot with Washington after the Sep 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
It was at the behest of US envoys that Bhutto returned to Pakistan after striking an uneasy political deal with Musharraf. And it was again at Washington’s bidding that Musharraf, who had seized power in a coup in 1999, shed his uniform and set a timetable for elections.
President George W. Bush, vacationing at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, condemned Bhutto’s assassination as a “cowardly act by murderous extremists” trying to undermine Pakistan’s democracy. Within hours of the attack, he called Musharraf to express US support for the democratic transition and upcoming elections.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice too appealed to Pakistanis to remain calm and to continue to try and build a “moderate” democracy. Washington also signalled that the elections should go forward without delay, arguing that any postponement would only reward Bhutto’s killers.
Rice telephoned Bhutto’s husband as well as Makhdoom Amin Fahim, a deputy leader of Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party, to urge them to continue participating in the election, officials said.
“US policy has always been based on promoting a peaceful, democratic development of Pakistan, to see Pakistan emerge as a moderate modern Islamic country,” State Department spokesman Tom Casey told reporters.
“Our efforts have not been focussed on any individuals but on efforts to achieve that goal, and on making sure that in doing so that we have good partners for the United States and the broader international community in the war on terror,” he said.
“So we are going to continue to work with President Musharraf. We’re also going to continue to work with the Pakistan Peoples Party and other moderate democratic elements in Pakistan to try and bring us all together to achieve those common goals,” Casey said suggesting no apparent change in Washington’s policy.
White House spokesman Scott Stanzel also indicated as much. “Pakistan has been an ally in the war on terror. President Musharraf, himself, has faced numerous assassination attempts, numerous attempts on his life, so he is familiar with the threat from extremists,” he said.
He said the Bush administration was also “reaching out” to new Pakistan army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. “We have an open dialogue with General Kayani, we have strong lines of communication with him.”
“…I’m not aware that the White House is reaching out to him directly. But certainly the State Department, Defence Department and other officials throughout the government do have a relationship with General Kayani,” Stanzel said.
Asked why the administration was doing so, the spokesman said: “Well, obviously security and stability is important. And in the wake of this tragedy, we want to talk with officials in Pakistan to make sure that we are providing our advice as they need it or want it.
“Certainly General Kayani has a responsibility for stability in the country, as the leader of the army. And those are conversations that would be natural, I think,” he said.
Meanwhile the New York Times in an editorial Friday said: “Bhutto’s death leaves the Bush administration with no visible strategy for extricating Pakistan from its crisis or rooting out Al Qaeda and the Taliban, which have made the country their most important rear base.”
Betting America’s security (and Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal) on an unaccountable military dictator did not work, it said, and “betting it on a back-room alliance between that dictator and Bhutto, who had hoped to win a third term as prime minister next month, is no longer possible.”
“American policy must now be directed at building a strong democracy in Pakistan that has the respect and the support of its own citizens and the will and the means to fight Al Qaeda and the Taliban,” the Times said as “the days of Washington mortgaging its interests there to one or two individuals must finally come to an end.”
The Washington Post too described Bhutto’s assassination as “a major blow to the US goal of stabilising Pakistan, a volatile ally with nuclear weapons that has served as a frontline against extremism since the Sep 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.”
Daniel Markey of the Council on Foreign Relations, a US think tank, said: “More broadly, this is a major loss because the elections scheduled for early January had the potential to move the country forward.”
“Despite her past failures, she was still a legitimate leader who could have worked with Musharraf and the army to have an accommodation in Islamabad,” he said.
“Washington has seen Bhutto as the bridge to civilian democratic government and now that she’s been removed, the administration will have to reassess how it deals with a very uncertain future for Pakistan,” said Karl F. Inderfurth, former assistant secretary of state for South Asia.
South Asia expert Stephen Cohen of the Brookings Institution called Bhutto’s death a “blow to the idea of a liberal, moderate Pakistan” that made him fear for that country. “Its further decay will affect all of its neighbours, Europe, and the United States in unpredictable and unpleasant ways,” he wrote in an essay.
Now, Washington faces “a disaster on every account”, from dimmed hopes of a democratic transition to the risk of more attacks by emboldened radicals, said Frederic Grare, a South Asia expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Anthony Cordesman, security analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Bhutto’s death made a very unstable political situation much worse.
Bruce Riedel, a former CIA official and key South Asia policymaker in the 1990s, said he believes Bhutto’s assassination “was almost certainly the work of Al Qaeda or Al Qaeda’s Pakistani allies”.
“Her death brutally exposes how little success Pervez Musharraf has had in cracking down on the jihadists,” said CFR Senior Fellow Max Boot. “They have only grown stronger on his watch.”
(Arun Kumar can be contacted at [email protected])