There are a lot of people to blame with this. Al Queda, Taliban, Musharraf, Bush. It's early, but let's try to sort it out.
I do not mean to coldly minimize the personal loss family and friends of Benazir Bhutto and the 20+ other victims feel after yet another senseless, zealot-driven tragedy, but this is really, really bad news for the state of democracy in the Middle East and South Asia and, consequently, the U.S. Of course, Bhutto has been "martyred" by her moderate followers (which would, theoretically, be just the kind of thing to get the few sane Pakistani leaders left serious about dealing with Islamic extremists). Unfortunately, due to the strange, triangular state of Pakistan's political climate, the end result will be the moderates (Bhutto's people) attacking the sort-of-moderates (Musharraf's people) for Bhutto's death while, ironically, the Jihadist radicals make off with the huge victory. And, as usual, we only have ourselves to blame.
The first and most obvious mistake the U.S. made was climbing into bed with a "strong man" who took military control of his country. You would think someone in Washington would wake up from his or her Bush diluted trance and say, "Wait a minute, this has never worked before." Cuba before Castro, Iran with the Shah, Saudi Arabia, Central America in several cases, Saddam, etc., etc. This is just off the top of my head. I'm sure there are dozens more in the last 50 years or so.
Basically, Bush abandoned his so-called "democracy-building" principles to support a guy who took control of his own country by force, and who has absolutely no interest in developing a real democracy. Why? The same reason the administration has completely abandoned the constitution so we can spy on our own people, torture whomever we want, and possibly falsify intelligence about a country that had nothing to do with 9-11 as an excuse to invade them: Fear.
It is Musharraf's iron grip on power that has made Washington's own policy toward Pakistan such a target of criticism. While Washington has publicly extolled the virtues of democracy and hoped that Bhutto's return to Pakistan in October would usher in a power-sharing deal with Musharraf, it was also clearly nervous about the instability if the country's strong man were to lose power entirely. Pakistan - the world's second-most-populous Muslim nation, with elements of al-Qaeda and the Taliban controlling lawless mountainous pockets in the northwest - is also the only Islamic state with a nuclear arsenal. And though Washington publicly says Pakistan's nuclear weapons are safe, there are always private concerns about their security, concerns that will only heighten in the wake of Bhutto's assassination.
—Time Magazine
Fear. Such a powerful GOP tool going into elections. But I'll get to that in a minute. It seems the Bush administration will do anything and negotiate with anyone in this so-called "War on Terror." Saudi Arabia? Sure. We can expect complete cooperation from an Islamic fundamentalist kingdom whose courts want to flog women for getting raped. Iraq? Why not? I'm sure the Sunnis will be just groovy accepting majority rule from a sect they've been at war with for 1,500 years. Pakistan? Absolutely. I wish I had the exact quote the U.S. official told Musharraf right after 9-11, but it went something to the effect of, "You are either with us or against us, and if you're against us we will bomb you back to the stone age." What's Musharraf going to say?
The problem is Musharraf has lots of Islamic fundamentalists in his government and in the military. It is no accident Bin Laden has not been caught. If Bin Laden was caught or killed his martyrdom would make Bhutto's look like a murdered prostitute in Vegas. In a way, there is a logical argument to just let him run amok, at least in Musharraf's eyes.
There is lots of blame going around about Bhutto. Here are some opinions:
But there are some who think the Bush Administration is not without blame. Hussain Haqqani, a former top aide to Bhutto and now a professor at Boston University, thinks the U.S., which has counted Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf as a key ally against terrorism since 9/11, bears some of the responsibility. "Washington will have to answer a lot of questions, especially the Administration," he says. "People like me have been making specific requests to American officials to intervene and ask for particular security arrangements be made for her, and they have been constantly just trusting the Musharraf Administration." U.S. officials said they were leery of intervening in another nation's internal affairs, and didn't want to give Bhutto Washington's imprimatur.
Haqqani is not shy about pointing fingers. He blames Musharraf himself, above all, for Bhutto's death. "It's quite clear that Musharraf does not want an election - you can quote me - he is the one who has constantly wanted anybody who can threaten him or his power, out." Haqqani told Congress in October that U.S. aid for Pakistan has for too long been tilted toward the Pakistani military. "Since 1954 almost $21 billion had been given to Pakistan in aid," he told the House Armed Services Committee. "Of this, $17.7 billion were given under military rule, and only $3.4 billion was given to Pakistan and the civilian government."
Seems to me if Bhutto was so important to Bush's "democracy-buidling" program that he would have provided security for her. Those Blackwater guys do a bang up (if sloppy) job. Evidently, Bhutto was not important enough for that. And, the fact she represented a serious threat to "strong man" Musharraf, may have been just enough incentive for the administration to just blow it off and let the inevitable happen. Naturally, Musharraf has no interest in Bhutto's continued existence.
So where does that leave us? A weird, triangular conflict between Bhutto's moderate but suddenly enraged people, Musharraf's coerced-to-be-moderate-but-corrupt government, and the lunatics.
I promised a political spin and I'll give you one. This is GOP heaven. There are 70-80 nuclear missiles in the hands of potential terrorists. We must be vigilant and hunt them down. Pakistan is in chaos. And so on and so on. Sure, this is not a good thing, but let's not jump the gun.
P.S. My respects to Benazir Bhutto and the great contributions she made toward helping her people. It took a great deal of courage for her to battle an antiquated mind-set that, unfortunately, dominates her world. She will be remembered as a crusader for freedom and democracy, and I hope she will serve as a model for young Muslim women and men that inspire toward more rational thought in the Middle East and South Asia.