Clinton Wrong on Pakistan
Without wading into the fight between Obama and Clinton over Pakistan, I do want to note one aspect of Sen. Clinton’s comments at the recent MSNBC/AFL-CIO debate that troubled me a bit. In one of her responses Clinton noted:
“Well, I do not believe people running for president should engage in hypotheticals and it may well be that the strategy we have to pursue on the basis of actionable intelligence — but remember we’ve had some real difficult experience with actionable intelligence… But I think it is a very big mistake to telegraph that and to destabilize the Musharraf regime, which is fighting for its life against Islamic extremists, who are in bed with al-Qaeda and Taliban. And remember, Pakistan has nuclear weapons. The last thing we want is to have al-Qaeda like followers in charge of Pakistan and having access to nuclear weapons. So, you can think big, but remember, you shouldn’t always say everything you think if you’re running for president because it can have consequences across the world, and we don’t need that right now.”
The piece of this that worries me is the equation of “Support for Musharraf is the way to combat Islamic Fundamentalists.” In reality the support of military dictators in Pakistan always seems to lead to a spike in fundamentalism. There is no question that since the US backed Musharraf has been in power, he has blocked out the democratic parties and allowed the fundamentalists to grow in strength. That he is now “fighting back” says more about his instincts for self preservation. He still shows little sign of either giving up power or letting democratic elections go forward – something which would likely lead to the fundamentalists to be beaten at the ballot box.
Sen. Clinton’s understanding of Pakistan makes me a little worried….
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It’s true, the military should be under the control of a civil government but I must say one thing. The democratic rule in Pakistan was never democratic. The amount of freedom granted by Musharraf’s government has been more than the civil governments could even imagine. There was little said against the civil governments because there was little freedom of speech. There were only state run television on which the news were manipulated to get support for the current government.
Musharraf may have the powers of a dictator in his hands but there is no doubt that he has respected the law far more than anyone since the founder of Pakistan, Jinnah.
A recent example is his acceptance to reinstating of the Chief Justice in the Supreme Court.
Comment on August 15, 2007 @ 8:24 am
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Trackback on August 16, 2007 @ 5:37 pm