Most Dangerous Trouble Spot In The World Update

Tim Johnson and some others at McClatchy Newspapers have been telling a little story over the last week or so about Pakistan, the state of things in the unsteady tribal regions, and the upcoming elections. It's some great in-depth reporting, and it reveals just what a state that country is in.

First of all, this upcoming election is a joke. The government has banned international observers from conducting exit polls of the vote count, in defiance of Bush Administration requests. In most countries, the exit poll is a key tool for observers to determine the adequacy of the vote (but not here; of course, since we have no federal standard, most international observers wouldn't even monitor a national election in the United States). The courts will have no jurisdiction over electoral disputes; instead a handpicked Federal Election Commission will be the ruling body. Of course, there is no real independent judiciary in Pakistan anymore as it is. And the Bush Administration isn't likely to push for one, either.

The Bush administration has signaled that it will continue to tolerate Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's crackdown on his country's judiciary at least until after a Feb. 18 national election.

Calling Musharraf an indispensable ally, U.S. officials have largely declined to criticize his ouster of top judges and said that questions about restoring the courts' independence should be put on hold until after the election.

Pakistani analysts said that muzzling the courts might help the embattled and increasingly unpopular leader remain in power, and administration officials told Congress this week that nothing should be done to press Musharraf on the judiciary until after the election.

"They need to have an independent judiciary, but I can't see them doing it till after the election, with all the players, including the new players," said Assistant Secretary Richard Boucher, the State Department's point man on Pakistan.

Asked if he considered Musharraf indispensable to the United States, Boucher replied, "I do."

This is of course perfectly consistent, since the Administration doesn't have much use or desire for an independent judiciary in this country. Musharraf, in the meantime, is running what amounts to a political campaign to discredit the former Supreme Court chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, whose ouster sparked the reformer movement and prefigured the imposition of martial law:

Meanwhile, the vendetta between Musharraf and Chaudhry is intensifying. Aides who accompanied Musharraf on a trip to Europe gave journalists a seven-page dossier that charged that Chaudhry displayed "bizarre behavior" on the bench, demanded luxury cars with police escorts, humiliated underlings, denied a guest the use of a bathroom and submitted dubious medical claims.

Among those medical claims, the dossier said, were charges for "a gadget to test diabetes, contact lens solution, face masks, creams, toothpaste (and) acne lotions."

This is what Musharraf is spending his time with, while in the meantime, the Pakistani factions of the Taliban are growing stronger. They've moved out of the border regions and into Peshawar.

A disparate group of tribal armed militant groups, some of them linked to al Qaida, announced the formation of an alliance last month called The Taliban Movement of Pakistan. The 40-man leadership is from seven tribal agencies and eight bordering districts, underscoring the movement's reach. The group is thought to have 5,000 to 10,000 fighters and is growing steadily as it gains momentum.

U.S. officials are deeply concerned that the insurgency is becoming bolder and expanding faster than had been anticipated, a State Department official said.

"The feeling is that we are not dealing with a terrorist group here, but an insurrectionist movement," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. "That's an elevation without question from what we've been dealing with."

There are now ties between the leadership of this insurrection and the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. This new leader, Baitullah Mehsud, is apparently consolidating forces and creating a movement in the border areas. There's a bit more here.

Could this be why we suddenly took out yet another #3 of Al Qaeda in Pakistan? (By the way, it's extremely interesting that happened just after Pervez Musharraf appeared to rebuff US appeals for a greater CIA presence in the country. Perhaps Musharraf gave up some intelligence and allowed a drone plane over as a make-good). Is this to send a message to Mehsud as much as trying to stop someone who is accused of promoting attacks on Pakistan's neighbor, Afghanistan?

Of course, we know that Afghanistan is starting to spin out of control, and no, this isn't proof that the Taliban has lost. Usually, when the country becomes a failed state, it kind of means the opposite.

The independent study finds that the Taliban, which two years ago was largely viewed as a defeated movement, has been able to infiltrate and control sizable parts of southern and southeastern Afghanistan, leading to widespread disillusionment among Afghans with the mission.

"The prospect of again losing significant parts of Afghanistan to the forces of Islamic extremists has moved from the improbable to the possible," the study says, warning that Afghanistan could revert to a "failed state."

The report is critical of nearly every governmental and international organization involved in Afghanistan, including the Bush administration, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, calling their efforts inadequate, poorly coordinated and occasionally self-defeating.

So we're losing ground in the entire region, actually, with allies who are both undemocratic and incompetent, and enemies who are gaining ground.

Welcome to foreign policy in the Age of Bush.

Forgotten Wars Update

When you combine Robert Gates calling for an additional 3,000 Marines in Afghanistan to this suicide bombing at a Kabul luxury hotel (which targeted the Norwegian foreign minister), I think it's fair to say that things are slipping for American interests in South Asia. I could add in the continued attacks in Pakistan, as well as new evidence about the assassination of Benazir Bhutto that makes it look like a coordinated plot which the Musharraf government may have known more about than they have let on. The next President really has a mess on his hands in that part of the world, almost to the extent that you can trick yourself into thinking Bush is setting deliberate booby traps to ensure that the next leader is disliked almost as much as he is.

Busharraf

Dick Cheney's man in Islamabad on Benazir Bhutto's death:

The night of the assassination, Musharraf believes Bhutto broke a basic rule of security in a crowded charged political rally: to be particularly careful when leaving.

"She should have just gone and moved fast, gone and waved, yes. But if you're standing and -- because you are vulnerable. You're vulnerable and people are charging," Musharraf says. "And all the film that you see, people are charging. Now, when people are there by the hundreds swarming around you, this man is one of them. Who can check these people at that stage?"

"And the mistake she made, if I understand you correctly, was stopping?" Logan asks.

"Yes. But then the mistake was not that," Musharraf says. "I mean, God was kind -- she went into the car in spite of the fact that she was waving and all that. She did go into the car. Now is the point. Why did she stand outside the car?"

"Why did she stand up in the hatch?" Logan asks.

"Entirely. Who's to blame?" Musharraf replies.

Asked who is to blame, Musharraf says, "Only she."

"So Benazir Bhutto, in your words, should bear some responsibility for what took place for her own death?" Logan asks.

"For standing up outside the car, I think it was she to blame alone. Nobody else. Responsibility is hers," Musharraf says.

"Don't you think it will make her supporters crazy to hear you say that?" Logan asks.

"Well, I don't think so. I mean, that's the fact. She shouldn't have stood up," Musharraf says.

It's all her fault, I guess, for getting in the way of that gunman's bullet and that bomb. She clearly didn't listen to her betters.

Why does this remind me of nothing so much as this?

In the week before [Karla Faye Tucker's] execution, Bush says, Bianca Jagger and a number of other protesters came to Austin to demand clemency for Tucker. "Did you meet with any of them?" I ask.

Bush whips around and stares at me. "No, I didn't meet with any of them," he snaps, as though I've just asked the dumbest, most offensive question ever posed. "I didn't meet with Larry King either when he came down for it. I watched his interview with [Tucker], though. He asked her real difficult questions, like 'What would you say to Governor Bush?' "

"What was her answer?" I wonder.

"Please," Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, "don't kill me."

Man, do these authoritarians have a lot in common. I guess this is why we just sent Pakistan 18 new F-16s.

Also, in addition to the coldness and the cruelty, neither of them can find Osama bin Laden.

(By the way, don't be surprised if Fourthbranch takes advantage of the chaos to get the CIA into Waziristan. I don't know if this is because of legacy or a 2008 strategy or what, but it's about 7 years too late.)

Bhutto Defeats Truman

Yeah, this was a really insane moment of my Sunday morning:

I’m here to report that when I brought in the local paper from the front porch this morning, I found that the cover story on this week’s Parade was all about Benazir Bhutto. (Parade, for those of you who don’t get the thing, is the standard Sunday supplement in run-of-the-mill newspapers in the deep interior of my continent.) The cover asks, “Is Benazir Bhutto America’s best hope against al-Qaeda?” This struck me as a somewhat strange question, and not simply because of the recent tendency in these parts to treat Bhutto as Pakistan’s Greatest Democrat Ever. The story itself begins on page six, under the headline “A Wrong Must Be Righted – As Benazir Bhutto seeks a return to power, Tuesday’s election in Pakistan could profoundly affect the fight against terrorism.” Well, I was going to say, I hope you people in other countries will stop complaining about how American news media don’t cover foreign things from far away! But, of course, Parade’s web site is a bit more current:

Editor’s note: The assassination of Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto on Dec. 27 occurred after PARADE’s Jan. 6 issue went to press.

Oooo-kay, but it seems to me you could have pulled it from the Sunday editions, no? I mean, considering that there was a two-week head start and all.

UPDATE: Just to make this nominally about Pakistan, the sale of 18 new F-16s to them at a time of utter turmoil seems to me like a bad idea.

Having an interview from someone who's been dead two weeks and acting like she's alive seems like a gaffe you really don't want in your paper, at least to me.

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.

Run For Your Lives!

I know Samuel Johnson said that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, but I think he meant to replace "patriotism" with "Rudy Giuliani's New Hampshire ad." He just wasn't alive to see it. (Also, he wouldn't have had a chance unless he was living on the island of Guam, which I believe is central to Rudy's new "Win Guam and race to the nomination!" strategy.)

Never mind the fact that all of these challenges have grown worse under the tenure of George W. Bush, whose warmongering, imperialist foreign policy matches up best with Rudy's blood-red neocon vision. Never mind that the part where Osama bin Laden shows up only reminds you of the fact that he's still alive. But the ultimate chutzpah is that somehow, New York City's mayor is the guy who's "tested" and "ready" to deal with such a thing. Happening to be in a particular city on 9/11 does not a foreign policy résumé make, as the public is beginning to figure out.

Josh Marshall is thankful that Rudy's tanking in the polls is almost complete, and I agree with him. A country with this 30-second spot as the template for foreign policy is almost too horrific to contemplate, particularly when you consider the advisers (hello, Norman Podhoretz) ready to realize this nightmare. Apparently, you have to promise to exterminate the brutes in a nicer, more maverick-y way, like John McCain (who I agree is most likely to win by default at this point).

...oh, and just to comment on these new favorability ratings on St. McCain, he was lucky enough to be pummeled into dust early on, which means he hasn't had to withstand the same attacks and scrutiny recently as the rest of the GOP field. Plus the media has a hard-on for him. But there's still a year to the election, and plenty of time to recall "Bomb Bomb Iran" and hugging George Bush and all these ties to K Street, etc. Favorables have a way of fluctuating.

Pakistan Update

The crisis in Pakistan has practically shut down the country. Internal unrest has resulted in upwards of 40 deaths, and the government appears to be closing ranks. They have rejected international help in the probe into Benazir Bhutto's assassination, instead going with their official story that her death was the work of Al Qaeda. They declined to do an autopsy on Bhutto's body, yet changed their story on how she died, from a gunshot wound to shrapnel to hitting her head on the sunroof of her vehicle. But on the scene reports tell a different story (including the fact that the police abandoned their posts protecting Bhutto shortly before the attack), new video images have resulted in even more questions:

The new images of the men who appear to have been Ms. Bhutto’s assassins showed one dressed in a sleeveless black waistcoat and rimless sunglasses, and holding aloft what appeared to be a gun. He had a short haircut and wore the kind of attire reminiscent of plainclothes intelligence officials, though Al Qaeda and other militants have also been known to dress attackers in Western-style clothing in order to disguise them.

That man is seen standing in front of another whose head is covered in a shawl in the style of Pashtun men from the Pakistan’s tribal areas, where Al Qaeda has regrouped in the past year. He is described in the newspaper Dawn as the suicide bomber.

Mr. Minallah, the hospital board member, said Ms. Bhutto’s doctors raised the likelihood of a bullet killing her in their report, when they wrote, “Two to three tiny radio-densities underneath fracture segment are observed on both projections.”

The report said the doctors tried for 41 minutes to revive her. It said “the patient was pulseless and was not breathing,” when she arrived at the hospital. “A wound was present on the right temporoparietal region, through which blood was trickling down and whitish material which looked like brain matter was visible in the wound,” it said.

Ms. Bhutto’s colleagues who were in the vehicle with her said the interior was covered in blood, and the doctors wrote that “her clothes were soaked with blood.”

I don't know how you get that bloodied by hitting a sunroof.

The questions of the circumstances of her death are mirrored by questions over the fate of Parliamentary elections. After initially calling for a boycott, opposition parties have vowed to contest them. Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party will be led by Bhutto's husband and her Oxford-matriculating 19 year-old son, which sounds almost like a feudal line of succession. But the real question is when these elections will actually be scheduled.

Parliamentary elections seen as key to restoring democracy are set to be postponed for weeks in the wake of Benazir Bhutto's assassination, Pakistani officials said Monday.

A senior government official said that he expected a six-week delay in the elections now slated for Jan. 8, despite calls from Bhutto's party, other opposition politicians and world leaders for the polls to be held on time. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose the information.

Election Commission Secretary Kanwar Dilashad told reporters that a decision on the timing would be announced on Tuesday, but a recommendation "has been sent to the government for a delay." The opposition has accused the commission of favoring President Pervez Musharraf's backers.

Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, the country's most prominent opposition leader, threatened street protests if the vote was delayed.

"We will agitate," he told The Associated Press in an interview. "We will not accept this postponement."

Holding elections in a week during a time of turmoil is probably unsound, but there are larger questions here. Pakistan does not have an independent judiciary right now. It does not have a free media. Pervez Musharraf is hated within his own country and the suspicions of his complicity in Bhutto's death are growing. Juan Cole is right on here.

6. The US must keep the pressure on Pervez Musharraf to hold free and fair, early elections in Pakistan. The elections probably cannot be held on Jan. 8, as planned, because of the extensive turmoil and destruction of polling stations and ballots during the past few days. But they should not be postponed past March 1. Musharraf's own legitimacy has collapsed, and he is in danger of becoming a Shah of Iran figure, hated by his own people and driven from office. Such a scenario could be very bad for the United States. That is why Joe Biden is right and John McCain is wrong when the latter warns against dumping Musharraf. Why cannot the American Right learn that backing the wrong horse is often worse than not having a horse in the first place?

It's important that we don't posthumously laud Benazir Bhutto as the savior of her country. She stole billions from the Pakistani treasury when she was Prime Minister, and on her watch Pakistani links to the Taliban grew, and A.Q. Khan sold nuclear technology all over the world. And her family is still in control of this political party which is supposedly the last best hope for democracy.

Poor Pakistan. Poor People's Party supporters. Both deserve better than this disgusting, medieval charade.

Benazir's last decision was in the same autocratic mode as its predecessors, an approach that would cost her – tragically – her own life. Had she heeded the advice of some party leaders and not agreed to the Washington-brokered deal with Pervez Musharraf or, even later, decided to boycott his parliamentary election she might still have been alive. Her last gift to the country does not augur well for its future.

How can Western-backed politicians be taken seriously if they treat their party as a fiefdom and their supporters as serfs, while their courtiers abroad mouth sycophantic niceties concerning the young prince and his future.

That most of the PPP inner circle consists of spineless timeservers leading frustrated and melancholy lives is no excuse. All this could be transformed if inner-party democracy was implemented. There is a tiny layer of incorruptible and principled politicians inside the party, but they have been sidelined. Dynastic politics is a sign of weakness, not strength. Benazir was fond of comparing her family to the Kennedys, but chose to ignore that the Democratic Party, despite an addiction to big money, was not the instrument of any one family.

(Dynastic politics as a sign of weakness... Hmm, who were our last three Presidents, and who might be the next one...)

However, blind acceptance of a despot like Musharraf is certainly not the answer. Immediate reinstatement of the Supreme Court and a unity caretaker government to prepare for actual elections that are fair and free ought to be demanded, as well as a legitimate investigation into Bhutto's death. A Musharraf who is weakened or overthrown would have negative consequences for the region. We should probably stay the hell out of this and not try to install some other kingly figure without the consent of the Pakistani people. But the encouragement should be toward an end to despotism. If that happens with Musharraf or without ought to be of no consequence.

Like In Brewster's Millions

As for the Republican side, I am more and more convinced every day that None Of The Above is poised for a landslide victory. As you know, I've been following the GOP race fairly closely at one of my other haunts, The Right's Field, and the sense you get when you pay attention is that Republican voters are sick to their stomachs from each and every one of them. That's why they simply can't decide which maroon to keep for the next year.

Dig beneath the surface of the raucous Republican presidential race and you will find even deeper turmoil: Four in 10 GOP voters have switched candidates in the past month alone, and nearly two-thirds say they may change their minds again.

This explains the meteoric rise of Mike Huckabee, and may just as much explain his fall once Republicans got a look at him (I've seen polls today showing Romney back in front). Every candidate in this GOP race has been at a high when voters didn't know crap about them, followed by a gradual decline. Therefore, the ultimate Republican candidate this cycle would be a jar of air. "Looks good from here; is it pro-life?"

I mean, as much as Drop Dead Fred Thompson revealed his own sexism in reacting to the situation in Pakistan, Huckabee made 1999-era George Bush look like Juan Cole.

This morning on MSNBC, Huckabee said that Musharraf was unable to control Pakistan’s “eastern borders” with Afghanistan:

What we’ve seen happen is that in the Musharraf government, he has told us that he really does not have enough control of those eastern borders near Afghanistan to be able go after the terrorists. But on the other hand, he doesn’t want us going in because it violates his sovereignty.

Note to Huckabee: Pakistan shares its “eastern border” with India, not Afghanistan [...]

Also yesterday, Huckabee addressed Bhutto’s death after “[striding] out to the strains of ‘Right Now’ by Van Halen.” He said the U.S. should weigh the impact Bhutto’s death would have on Pakistan’s “continued” martial law. But President Pervez Musharraf formally lifted the emergency rule in Pakistan on December 15th, nearly two weeks ago.

And when they asked a senior Huckabee aide about this (translation: some guy in Arkansas who had a clean enough suit), he admitted that his candidate had "no foreign policy credentials".

Mike Huckabee: No Foreign Policy Credentials. For America.

And I am not buying the Rudy Giuliani "don't win anything and become the nominee" strategy, or the John "I Am Legend" McCain comeback, or Mitt "My father guest-rapped on Planet Rock with Afrika Baambaataa" Romney, or the lot of them. In fact, they'd all better watch out or the guy diametrically opposed to their foreign policy beliefs might sneak in an grab a bunch of delegates.

Ron Paul -- Rival campaigns are beginning to nervously speculate that Paul will finish in the top three on January 3. Paul broke double digits in at least two polls for the first time this week and he seems particularly strong in areas of the state where the media has less of an impact on political deliberations -- especially in rural northwest and southern Iowa. Check out a Ron Paul supporters' websites and you'll see detailed discussions about caucus rules and strategy. The Paulites are more ready for caucus night than most observers realize.

Really, if you just quietly put the name "N.Oftheabove" onto the primary ballot all over the place, threw up a couple posts at Redstate saying how "This guy's a true conservative. And he hates Muslims," I'm thinking he could pull off the victory.

UPDATE: This is why all the GOP candidates are bringing the negative attacks, and I'm sure the whisper campaigns we haven't heard about are even worse. By the way, can we stop with the CW talking point that "Iowans don't like negative attacks"? Wasn't this one of only three states to switch parties in 2004, going for George W. Bush and one of the nastiest campaigns in recent memory, Swift Boaters and all?

Theories of Iowa - And Progressive Change

Well, I suppose that with the Iowa caucuses just 5 days away, it's time to pay some attention to it. First of all, I totally agree that, while it's exciting to have a race on the Democratic side that's a three-way dead heat, I hope this is the end of the Iowa primacy, once and for all. On its best day (and I think Thursday will be record turnout, actually), you have 10% of the electorate participating. With the three-way split, that means something like 35,000 people will be practically choosing the nominee for a country of 300 million. That's out of balance. And I think the taking of an entrance poll, which the media won't be able to help themselves from reporting on, but which could diverge wildly from the final results, could put a fork in it.

Imagine if the networks spend the night reporting that a plurality of Iowans decided to vote for Barack Obama. They report the win, there's much talk of what it means, everyone gets all excited. Then, Bill Richardson fails to make the 15% threshhold for viability and releases his caucusgoers to Clinton. Meanwhile, John Edwards, who's been amassing support in the disproportionately influential rural counties -- 25 caucusgoers in a small precinct have the same influence as 2,500 in a big one -- sees his strategy achieve terrific results. So Clinton comes in first, Edwards second, and Obama ends up in third -- even though a plurality meant to vote for him.

If there ever was an election that reveal the inequities and the arbitrary nature of Iowa's system, it would be this one. And traditionally, the Democrats have forced changes in the primary system (if it were up to the Republicans there probably would still be smoke-filled rooms). So I do think this is the end of small rural ethnically homogeneous states having all this undue impact. Not that Iowa and New Hampshire won't fight tooth and nail to keep the millions and millions of dollars flowing into their state.

But of course, you go to the polls with the election you have. I do think Obama will be hurt by what David Axelrod said about the Bhutto assassination, not a lot, but enough in such a close race to make an impact. Of course, Clinton's surrogate Evan Bayh said something just as stupid, saying that Bhutto's death shows we have to elect Clinton because OTHERWISE REPUBLICANS WOULD SAY WE'RE WEAK, once again showing the "don't make trouble" approach to politics. But Axelrod's quote was amplified far wider, and skillfully used by the Clinton camp to make it look like he said Hillary was somehow responsible for Bhutto's death. I think Edwards actually talking to Musharraf was notable, but didn't get a whole lot of attention.

Since you didn't ask, I'm pulling for Edwards, and I've explained why at my site. But I think the real reason I've been pulled in that direction is best explained by this post from Chris Bowers. Years after blogs and progressive movement media made their splash on the political scene, Democratic leaders are still not leveraging them for mass action. We still exist basically in the wilderness, typing away and giving voice to the frustrations I feel a majority of Americans have, yet it isn't being represented at all:

As Peter Daou predicted, when progressive media and prominent Democrats are on the same page, victories seem to happen pretty often. As Peter Daou lamented, when progressive media and prominent Democrats are not on the same page, victory seems to pretty much never happen. Without prominent Democratic validaters, we in the progressive grassroots and progressive media can't win these fights on our own. Without progressive media, prominent Democrats have virtually no hope of winning any conventional wisdom formation fights against Republicans.

...unless a new Democratic President is willing to bring new progressive media into the strategizing for the fights they will face, I doubt they will get much done. A Democratic administration that maintains a stand-offish, managed, one-way decision making approach to communication strategy will, in the end, find itself taking pretty much the same beatings the first Clinton administration faced from 1993-1994. Even with a solid electoral victory and large congressional majorities, the new President will lose almost every single fight for progressive legislation s/he will face, because the triangle of single narrative of convention wisdom will be closed against him or her. In other words, the new Democratic President will succeed in passing conservative favorites like NAFTA, but fail to pass progressive favorites like Health Care reform.

Of the major candidates, I believe that John Edwards offers the best opportunity to "close Daou's triangle" and at least give progressive media a chance to be part of the lever for change. I think Edwards' "theory of change" most closely mirrors the theory most accepted by the netroots, to forget the middle ground and take the fight to both the Republicans and the special interest. Edwards has said that his idea of change involves using the bully pulpit of the Presidency and mass popular support. That is a tailor-made strategy to involve progressive media, and Edwards has at least adopted the language of a politics of contrast and confrontation (as far as working with progressive media, I hope frequent blog reader Elizabeth Edwards will move a potential Administration in this direction).

Partisanship has, contrary to Beltway opinion, been a good thing for democracy, has engaged and energized people like little else in the past three decades. I also can't help but favor Edwards because traditional media and the Beltway establishment seems to hate him so much, and for precisely this reason. This is from Chip Reid at CBS News:

I’m a bit unhappy with John Edwards. I’ve been covering his campaign for 10 days and he hasn't made a lot of news. Let’s face it – a lot of what political reporters report on is mistakes. The campaign trail is one long minefield, covered with Iowa cow pies, and when they step in one – we leap.

I’ve done very little leaping – and I blame Edwards. While other candidates misspeak, over-speak, and double-speak, Edwards (at least in these 10 days) has made so few mistakes that I end up being transported -- newsless -- from town to town like a sack of Iowa corn.

He has a remarkable ability to stay on message. Not just in “the speech,” but even in Q and A. Nothing throws him off. He turns nearly every question into another opportunity to repeat his central theme. Global warming? We need to fight big oil. Health care? Fight the big drug and insurance companies. Iowa farmers’ problems? Blame those monster farm conglomerates. And the Iowa populists eat it up. We'll see how well it works in other states.

Note how the "Iowa populists" aren't real people, just rubes falling for the Music Man. And notice how depressed Reid is for not catching a "gotcha" moment, which he appears to think what political reporting is about. The truth is that Edwards' rhetoric, about rewarding work over wealth, about improving social mobility, about a common purpose and equal opportunity, is directly opposite to the way the world works for political journalists.

That's my $.02, anyway. Feel freer than free to disagree.

Still Playing The Great Game

The major news accounts of Benazir Bhutto's death are numerous, but I really like this account of how US policy was so staked on Bhutto's return to Pakistan.

For Benazir Bhutto, the decision to return to Pakistan was sealed during a telephone call from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice just a week before Bhutto flew home in October. The call culminated more than a year of secret diplomacy -- and came only when it became clear that the heir to Pakistan's most powerful political dynasty was the only one who could bail out Washington's key ally in the battle against terrorism [...]

"The U.S. came to understand that Bhutto was not a threat to stability, but was instead the only possible way that we could guarantee stability and keep the presidency of Musharraf intact," said Mark Siegel, who lobbied for Bhutto in Washington and witnessed much of the behind-the-scenes diplomacy.

But the diplomacy that ended abruptly with Bhutto's assassination yesterday was always an enormous gamble, according to current and former U.S. policymakers, intelligence officials and outside analysts. By entering into the legendary "Great Game" of South Asia, the United States also made its goals and allies more vulnerable -- in a country in which more than 70 percent of the population already looked unfavorably upon Washington.

Don't worry, though, we've got a plan B: that other former Prime Minister who was almost killed yesterday:

On Thursday, officials at the American Embassy in Islamabad reached out to members of the political party of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, according to a senior administration official. The very fact that officials are even talking to backers of Mr. Sharif, who they believe has too many ties to Islamists, suggests how hard it will be to find a partner the United States fully trusts [...]

The administration official said American Embassy officials were trying to reach out to Pakistani political players across the board in the aftermath of the Bhutto assassination.

“Look, most of the people in Musharraf’s party came out of Nawaz’s party,” the official said, referring to Mr. Sharif and speaking on condition of anonymity because of diplomatic sensitivities. While he acknowledged that an alliance between Mr. Sharif and Mr. Musharraf was unlikely given the long enmity between the men, he added, “I wouldn’t predict anything in politics.”

Of course, the big question is who is that senior Administration official? Does he perhaps believe he exists in a fourth branch of government?

The idea that we can find someone, anyone, acceptable to Musharraf to put an imprimatur on democracy there is, in the words of this Pakistan analyst:

“...insane,” said Teresita Schaffer, a Pakistan expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, of the proposed alliance. “I don’t think Musharraf ever wanted to share power.”

Elections weren't likely to be all that fair anyway, given that the entire judiciary was installed by the dictator. I think a military coup is likelier than just sliding over to some other national politician and expecting democracy to flourish.

The answer to that depends in part on his successor as army chief, Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who, although a protege of the president, must consider whether his mentor has become an impediment to stability.

"He will listen carefully to what Musharraf has to say, but his decision will be geared to security interests of the army, and the country," (analyst Faranza) Shaikh said.

We're not going to be able to snap our fingers and come up with a magic solution in a country of 164 million where our presence is increasingly reviled.

Was Moe Green Hit At The Tropicana Too?

I had seen this earlier in the day, and forgot about it, and then a Kos diarist reminded me that Benazir Bhutto wasn't the only former Pakistani Prime Minister marked for death today.

At least four supporters of former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif were killed Thursday when unidentified gunmen fired at his party's procession in the outskirts of Islamabad, local press reports said.

Sharif, leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N), was due to address election rallies in the eastern Pakistani city of Rawalpindi, some 30 kms south from Islamabad.

A procession was taken out to welcome Sharif when unidentified gunmen opened fire from a house at Karal Chowk on the main Islamabad airport road, the PML-N said.

Let's add these facts into the mix as well:

• In an email that was only revealed after her death, Bhutto blamed the Pakistani government for their failure to adequately protect her on the campaign trail, going so far as to say she would hold Musharraf responsible for anything that happened to her.

• Nawaz Sharif said the same thing.

• The Bhutto attack occurred in Rawalpindi, home of a large military garrison, described by Peter Bergen today as akin to having an assassination occur right next to the Pentagon.

• The ties between the Pakistani military, the ISI (intelligence services) and radical Islamist groups like the Taliban are legion.

• Obviously, knocking off the top opposition leaders makes it easier to consolidate rule, as does a terror attack that could postpone elections or lead to a restoration of martial law.

So, while you can't exactly say Musharraf pulled the trigger on Bhutto, you might be able to make a case that he was at a family baptism at the time and may have smiled a bit hearing the news from Tom Hagen.

This, by the way, is our major ally in South Asia in the war on terror, someone who stood to benefit this much from a terrorist attack.

Lighten Up, Francis

I can almost hear the political consultants throughout Iowa reacting to the news of Benazir Bhutto's death with admonitions that their candidate has to "own it." But there's something rather unseemly about using it as some sort of club to bash their opponents with. The media isn't solely to blame for the politicization of absolutely everything; the candidates themselves can shoulder some of it.

Mind you, I'd much rather have candidates argue over US policy in Pakistan than, say, which candidate wrote what essay in kindergarten or did drugs or got a haircut or wore a low-cut top. But shouldn't that argument have something to do with the ACTUAL US POLICY in Pakistan and not this crystal ball formulation of how Bhutto's death reflects on various election messages and themes?

P.S. The real coup de grace of this comes from Slummy Joe Lieberman, whose campaign email for St. McCain is nicely deconstructed by Matt Yglesias. Shorter Joementum: "Bush-Cheney caused a lot of problems. That's why we need John McCain to use the same policies to fix them!"

UPDATE: Krugman:

If you’re a tough guy (or gal) who believes in exerting US power — never mind, there are just too many heavily armed people in Pakistan for anyone but Norman Podhoretz to believe that we could throw our weight around. If you believe you can bring new understanding to the world through your enlightened outlook — sorry, there are too many people in Pakistan who don’t want to be enlightened. If you believe that we’d have more influence in the world if we hadn’t squandered our resources and good will in Iraq (which I do) — well, sorry, that influence wouldn’t extend to being able to bring peace and light to Pakistan.

Throwing Money At The Problem

You're likely to see a lot of Republican commentators today saying that the death of Benazir Bhutto shows how radical Islam represents a dire threat, and how we must intervene in several more countries in an effort to stop this from spreading. An example:

No good answers to any of that yet. I have a very bad feeling about all of this. The potential for critically destablizing a flank that was difficult enough as it was, is huge. I’d feel slightly better if Rumsfeld had doubled the size of the Army, and wish Bush and Congress would crank that up. This war is far from over. This war is no artificial Bush creation or figment of anyone’s imagination, and should still be very much part of our own election, wishful thinking notwithstanding.

It's critical to understand how this plays out in practice rather in the abstract theories of "promote democracy and kill the terrorists!", which in the case of Pakistan at least the Cheney Administration has done the exact opposite. Here is a very important story of how "protecting freedom and democracy" actually works.

More outrageous tales from the State Department car dealership: it turns out that contractor DynCorp didn't have to even prove that it in fact purchased dozens of SUVs for which it charged the government. Try to follow the money on this one.

[O]ne Civilian Police task order [on which DynCorp is the contractor] included a requirement for 68 armored Ford Excursions at a fixed price of $113,064. The [State] Department was billed for 68 "armored vehicles" at a unit cost of $123,327. The property list contained 61 Ford Excursions, of which some were described as armored, others uparmored, and others had no notation of armoring. The costs shown on the property list for these 61 Ford Excursions ranged from $43,990 to $150,000 with nine at $122,190, seven with higher costs, and the remaining 45 with costs of $77,000 and below. Thus, OIG could not conclude that the 68 "armored vehicles" in the vouchers were the 68 armored Ford Excursions specified in the task order.

Let's just assume for a minute that they are. To do the math: 68 Excursions at the State Department contract's fixed unit price works out to $7,688,352. But 68 Excursions at the price DynCorp billed the department is $8,386,236. So that's an overcharge of almost $698,000. Nice.

But what the report's saying is that it has no way of knowing if DynCorp really spent the $8,386,236.

This is part of a series of reports obtained by Spencer Ackerman as part of an FOIA request. The sad truth is that our government continues to use the spectre of terrorism to throw enormous amounts of money at defense contractors and corrupt foreign entities in a completely unaccountable way, indirectly profiting major benefactors to campaigns across the country. This is how Iraq has been "won" in 2007 (actually, as Juan Cole will tell you, it hasn't) - by paying off Sunni tribal leaders and former insurgents to form these Awakening groups. The war on terror is the stamp on top of which a giant war machine slush fund operates.

There are certainly ways to get serious about terrorism, like declining to support dictators who work in a practical alliance with radical Islamists, for example, that don't involve blindly filling the coffers of defense contractors. But that isn't the American way, I guess.

Better For Republicans

It always is. And now they're getting specific. Apparently the death of Pakistan's opposition leader is good news for Rudy Giuliani.

Let's start by remarking how pathetic it is to veer from an international incident into the horse race. Joe Scarborough probably can't locate Pakistan on a map, yet he knows implicitly which Presidential candidate chaos there would reward. And why Giuliani? Because he happened to be coincidentally in the city of record on 9/11, while he proved himself a fool in emergency management by placing the command center in the same building hit by terrorists eight years earlier and providing faulty radios to firefighters?

I think it'd take about a minute and a half to come up with a reasonable (for cable news) argument for any candidate to benefit from the assassination of Bhutto. "It'll help McCain because of his foreign policy experience!" "It'll help Ron Paul because he wants to isolate us from a dangerous world!" "It'll help Mitt Romney because of his managerial steady hand in a time of crisis!" "It'll help Mike Huckabee because he can appeal to a higher power in these dangerous times!" "It'll help Fred Thompson because he'll sleep through it!"

None of these statements have much basis in fact. That's why they are reasonable cable news opinions.

P.S. Just in case you think this kind of instantly insipid analysis is confined to cable news, Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post wrote pretty much the same thing.


UPDATE: It should be noted that Giuliani sent a press release out to this effect before the palace courtiers started reporting on it as if it were fact. So this wasn't only a stupid thought, it was an UNORIGINAL stupid thought.

RIP Benazir Bhutto

I actually write quite a bit about Pakistan, usually with the headline "Most Dangerous Trouble Spot In The World Update." This is why.

Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated Thursday in a suicide attack at a campaign rally that also killed at least 20 others, aides said.

Bhutto's supporters erupted in anger and grief after her death, attacking police and burning tires and election campaign posters in several cities. At the hospital where she died, some smashed glass and wailed, chanting slogans against President Pervez Musharraf.

The death of the charismatic 54-year-old former prime minister threw the campaign for the Jan. 8 parliamentary elections into chaos and created fears of mass protests and violence across the nuclear-armed nation, an important U.S. ally in the war on terrorism.

I literally just woke up and don't know what the speculation is about who pulled off this attack, but just like in this country, the fallout will certainly tend toward autocracy. I don't expect there will be parliamentary elections now, or a return to normalcy with restoring independent media or the judiciary. I just heard a Pakistani professor on NPR say "there are people who support the dictatorship and don't like her, and (Pervez) Musharraf will not be able to escape complicity," and I'm really glad that was said. Let's remember that Musharraf instituted the state of emergency to stop just this type of violence, and lifted it because he thought there was relative safety. Musharraf has a long history of standing by idly while politicians are killed, including at least a few by his own security forces. After the assassination attempt on Bhutto earlier this year, Musharraf claimed that he would take control of the security detail.

Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif are seen in this country as popular opposition leaders more than in Pakistan, where their corruption problems were well-known. But clearly, somebody perceived her as a threat. And now a real democracy movement may rise to break the dictatorship.

There are riots throughout the country and the police is out in force. This is very bad.

UPDATE: Submitted without comment:

U.S. Troops to Head to Pakistan
Beginning early next year, U.S. Special Forces are expected to vastly expand their presence in Pakistan, as part of an effort to train and support indigenous counter-insurgency forces and clandestine counterterrorism units, according to defense officials involved with the planning.

These Pakistan-centric operations will mark a shift for the U.S. military and for U.S. Pakistan relations. In the aftermath of Sept. 11, the U.S. used Pakistani bases to stage movements into Afghanistan. Yet once the U.S. deposed the Taliban government and established its main operating base at Bagram, north of Kabul, U.S. forces left Pakistan almost entirely. Since then, Pakistan has restricted U.S. involvement in cross-border military operations as well as paramilitary operations on its soil.

But the Pentagon has been frustrated by the inability of Pakistani national forces to control the borders or the frontier area. And Pakistan's political instability has heightened U.S. concern about Islamic extremists there.

I Feel Their Pain

A public opinion poll in the world's most dangerous trouble spot, Pakistan, shows that most people want Pervez Musharraf to resign, and practically everyone expects massive vote rigging.

And yet, Musharraf is still President, and the election will be held, and that will be that.

The only difference between the despair in Pakistan and the despair stateside is that the Pakistanis might actually act on it.

Pakistan’s two main opposition leaders, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, each a former prime minister, are already accusing Mr. Musharraf of fixing the vote in advance and vowing protests if he prevails.

“If elections are rigged, we are going to need to be in a position like the people of Ukraine were, to protest those elections,” Ms. Bhutto said at a news conference last week. “A plan is under way to rig the elections, and to stop progress towards democracy.”

Most Dangerous Trouble Spot In The World Update

Pervez Musharraf gave up his uniform today, setting the stage to become a civilian President. But if the country is still under martial law, what is the meaning of "civilian President"? And if a handpicked Musharraf loyalist runs the Army, is the government really all that separate?

Meanwhile, opposition leader Nawaz Sharif is back, and he doesn't sound too thrilled with the prospect of serving under Musharraf:

Mr. Sharif, a former prime minister who was tossed out of power by General Musharraf in a 1999 coup, condemned his old nemesis for imposing emergency rule on Nov. 3. He said he would not serve as prime minister under a Musharraf presidency, demanded an end to the state of emergency and called for the reinstatement of fired Supreme Court justices.

Such a forceful stand contrasts in many respects to Mr. Sharif’s own time as prime minister. He is best remembered here and in Washington as the leader who brought the world a nuclear Pakistan, flirted with war with India and forged strong ties with religious conservatives. His tenure was marred by charges of rampant corruption and by confrontations with the courts and the media as well.

Sharif is a more religious leader, in contrast to the secular Benazir Bhutto. But neither of them are publicly agreeing to serve under Musharraf. Behind the scenes and through back channels, they may be fighting one another to make a deal. The idea that you can have a legitimate election with the judiciary in jail, opposition rallies broken up and the Constitution suspended is lunacy. I think both of them are prepared to either grudgingly serve in the government or cry fraud when they lose. Either way, the end result will still leave a fairly powerful opposition on the streets, with Islamists lurking in the background willing to lend a hand.

UPDATE: Funny:

Pervez Musharraf has stepped down as head of the Pakistani army. Now he's merely a civilian dictator.

The New Pakistan

How will we reverse-Midas-touch the next leader of Pakistan and move the nuclear-armed country even closer to Islamic rule?

Almost two weeks into Pakistan’s political crisis, Bush administration officials are losing faith that the Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, can survive in office and have begun discussing what might come next, according to senior administration officials.

In meetings on Wednesday, officials at the White House, State Department and the Pentagon huddled to decide what message Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte would deliver to General Musharraf — and perhaps more important, to Pakistan’s generals — when he arrives in Islamabad on Friday.

Administration officials say they still hope that Mr. Negroponte can salvage the fractured arranged marriage between General Musharraf and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. But in Pakistan, foreign diplomats and aides to both leaders said the chances of a deal between the leaders were evaporating 11 days after General Musharraf declared de facto martial law.

Several senior administration officials said that with each day that passed, more administration officials were coming around to the belief that General Musharraf’s days in power were numbered and that the United States should begin considering contingency plans, including reaching out to Pakistan’s generals.

The Army is powerful in Pakistan, and an Islamic takeover is indeed remote. But the country is crying out for democracy right now, and replacing one general with another general will just perpetuate the belief that the US is arming dictators to oppress the Pakistani people. That's the ONLY thing that would bring pro-democracy forces into an uneasy alliance with the Taliban-like Islamist parties, and once that reaches the election stage, there's no telling the outcome.

The option should be cutting off aid until the Pakistanis are allowed full self-determination and a functioning legal system. That's the only way in which the military would break from Musharraf and the parliamentary system would be restored.

Then there's this moment of clarity from the Bushies:

Senior administration officials in Washington said they were concerned that the longer the constitutional crisis in Pakistan continued, the more diverted Pakistan’s army would be from the mission the United States wants it focused on: fighting terrorism in the country’s border areas.

The officials said there was growing worry in Washington that the situation unfolding in the mountainous region of Swat, where Islamic militants sympathetic to the Taliban and Al Qaeda are battling Pakistan’s Army, was a sign that General Musharraf — and the Pakistani Army — might be too busy jailing political opponents to fight militants.

Ya think?

Most Dangerous Trouble Spot In The World Update

Pervez Musharraf says he'll quit the Army this month but remain as President. Of course, the courts were to rule on whether he was allowed to run for President while being chief of staff of the Army. And he's continuing to arrest opposition leaders and outlaw political rallies, even while he's calling for ELECTIONS. And he's blaming his opponents for the house arrests he's carrying out on them.

In an interview with The Associated Press, he accused former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, currently under house arrest, of fueling political turmoil and rejected Western pressure to quickly lift emergency rule, which he indicated was likely to continue through the January elections.

"All those who are blunt enough to tell me to my face what the reality is, all of them think, yes, it will lead the country to chaos if I do not handle the political environment now with me remaining as the president," he said at his army office.

And more leaders have been arrested.

This is the worst of all possible worlds, with a defiant and unpopular leader alienating every facet of civil society, and a radical Islamist movement allowed to roam free. The elements are all there for revolution.

One Of Those "Oh-Shit" Days

Turkish helicopters have struck inside Iraq, a possible prelude to larger cross-border action despite pleading from American and Iraqi officials that they would internally deal with PKK rebels. Four Turkish groups were killed by rebels today. The Turks will not wait forever.

Benazir Bhutto has now broken completely with Pervez Musharraf after being put under house arrest for the second time. The preferred American solution was to have Musharraf and Bhutto in a power-sharing agreement. That's not going to happen anymore. John Negroponte has been sent to Pakistan to try and relieve tensions. But now, even the Bhutto factions are becoming violent. This is Iran 1979 all over again.

In the southern city of Karachi, Bhutto supporters fired on two police stations in a poor district where her party is popular, and police used tear gas to disperse demonstrators, senior police officer Fayyaz Khan said. A 9-year-old boy and a 22-year-old woman were wounded in crossfire between demonstrators and police, witnesses said.

And there was an explosion in the Phillippine legislature today, killing 1.

It's going to be a bumpy ride, so buckle up...