Pakistan, the 51st state?
NYT: Bush should run Pakistan.
[ What do you call critics of American policy in Iraq who think we’re responsible for democracy in Pakistan? ]
Everyone is entitled to an opinion. The rival Charleston Gazette had a very good editorial reaction to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, noting, “Despite this bitter toll, conscientious statesmen and people around the world mustn’t quit striving to achieve nonviolent democracy and sensible rule of law. The madness of armed extremists must be resisted to the utmost.”
The New York Times on the other hand wants to make Pakistan the 51st state:
“That leaves Mr. Bush with the principled, if unfamiliar, option of using American prestige and resources to fortify Pakistan’s badly battered democratic institutions. There is no time to waste.
“With next month’s parliamentary elections already scrambled, Washington must now call for new rules to assure a truly democratic vote.”
Oh sure, the United States should act unilaterally and go in and shove our ideals upon a people who, by and large, would prefer Osama bin Laden over any American, including Dennis Kucinich.
The Times’s rash fix-it-George suggestion makes Barack Obama’s plan to bomb Pakistan sound nearly sane by comparison.
The Times editorial board glosses over why Miss Bhutto was in Pakistan: Washington requested she go. Two times earlier, she had led Pakistan, only to be deposed amid the aura of corruption that her father had before he was executed on charges of corruption.
Wrote the Times: “The United States cannot afford to have Pakistan unravel any further. The lesson of the last six years is that authoritarian leaders — even ones backed with billions in American aid — don’t make reliable allies, and they can’t guarantee security.”
[ Ah but we can afford to let Iraq, where we’re already involved, unravel and must do so. ]
We tried that with Bhutto.
“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. Pakistan is a nation of 165 million people. The days of Washington mortgaging its interests there to one or two individuals must finally come to an end.”
But an election would likely put the Taliban in power. Perhaps the best way out is not to bomb Pakistan and not to try to install puppet governments — as the Times slyly implies — but rather to let this thing play out.
That is a novel approach to U.S. foreign policy: Trust the other guy to act in his own best interest.
By the way, no one is mentioning the obvious: Musharraf was right to crack down in November following that first attempt on his life and Miss Bhutto. Security now, elections later.
The only difference between the suggestion by Times and the snark of Ann Coulter (”We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity”) is that the Times would convert them to secular humanism.
blogs.dailymail.com
[ But if we elect Obama President, the Pakistanis will be so impressed with America putting racism behind us, everyone in Pakistan – even the jihadis who murdered Bhutto – will turn to secular democracy. Even if Obama invades Pakistan as he has said he would. ] |
