Pakistan Update

Before I go all Iowa caucus all the time, I do want to look at the situation in Pakistan, where things are getting so bad that refugees are fleeing to... Afghanistan. Talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire.

The government has quit with the fiction that Benazir Bhutto died from hitting the sunroof of her car, after video evidence emerged to totally contradict that. They even brought in Scotland Yard to help with the investigation (which is still being run out of Pakistan and is not independent). But they did, as expected, delay the election for at least six weeks, a move that angered opposition party leaders.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The main opposition parties denounced the government’s decision on Wednesday to postpone parliamentary elections for six weeks after the assassination of the opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, but they said they would abide by the ruling.

The Election Commission set Feb. 18 as the date for the elections, citing the time needed to recover from the violence that followed Ms. Bhutto’s death last week. Nearly 60 people were killed, election offices were damaged and parts of Ms. Bhutto’s home province, Sindh, were paralyzed.

“It is risky,” said one Western diplomat, who would speak only anonymously, following diplomatic protocols. “Anything could happen, because any straw or incident could ignite more violence or reaction against the government.”

Nawaz Sharif has called on President Musharraf to resign and a caretaker government to be installed. And The Washington Post has more about possible street actions that may be taken as a result of this decision. Obviously things could go from bad to worse at any moment. And if this is true, they will:

The day she was assassinated last Thursday, Benazir Bhutto had planned to reveal new evidence alleging the involvement of Pakistan's intelligence agencies in rigging the country's upcoming elections, an aide said Monday.

Bhutto had been due to meet U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., to hand over a report charging that the military Inter-Services Intelligence agency was planning to fix the polls in the favor of President Pervez Musharraf.

Safraz Khan Lashari, a member of the Pakistan People's Party election monitoring unit, said the report was "very sensitive" and that the party wanted to initially share it with trusted American politicians rather than the Bush administration, which is seen here as strongly backing Musharraf.

It's clear that this focus on elections is misplaced. Without an independent judiciary and a free press there is simply too many ways for the Musharraf government to cheat. They don't want a fair election. And the fact that Bhutto felt like she had to hide the information from the Bush Administration because they're not honest brokers is amazingly sad.

The must-read on all of this is from Barnett Rubin.

I called a friend in Lahore this morning. The obstacles are not just that electoral materials (possibly including those prepared for rigging) were destroyed in the rioting. The country's infrastructure is under severe stress. In Lahore there are only 7 hours of electricity a day, and water pressure is also reported to be unreliable (I know those of you in Kabul may not feel their pain). Optic fiber lines were cut in Sindh, blacking out telecommunications for a while. The front page of Dawn online yields the following: There has been massive damage to the country's rail network. Fuel is in short supply, and the shortages are likely to get worse. The stock market and the currency are both crashing. Government ministers are charging "foreign elements" (i.e. India) with organizing the riots, a useful excuse for martial law.

In Pakistan there is a massive outburst of rage against Musharraf and everything associated with his government, including the government's claim that it has evidence that the Pakistani Taliban, led by Baitullah Mahsud, carried out the assassination. I still lean toward the hypothesis that the operation was carried out by organizations connected to al-Qaida. Given the relationship of the Pakistani military to jihadi organizations that by no means absolves the Musharraf regime of responsibility.

But what recent events demonstrate even more clearly is that the Bush administration's policy of relying on a personal relationship with a megalomaniac manipulator like Musharraf to fight al-Qaida has strengthened that organization immeasurably and perhaps fatally damaged the U.S.'s ability to form the coalition it needs to isolate and destroy that organization.

We make the mistake in this country of creating a linear line of opposition, where there are "moderates" and "terrorists" in Pakistan. In that scenario, Musharraf is a "moderate" and therefore on our side. But that is not how he's perceived in the country, and it's frankly offensive that we label every foreign entity based on how we think they perceive us. The "pro-American" forces don't want to work together; indeed, they're competing for power. It's worth reading Rubin's entire piece.