In an op ed written today by Thomas Houlahan in the Middle East Times, he is astonished at Hillary's lack of basic knowledge about Pakistan's parliamentary system. Now, the Middle East Times may not be the most credible paper around (it's owned by the Unification church and its content is apparently controlled by the Egyptian Ministry of Information though it does publish stories censored by the ministry on its website), but the writer is an expert military strategist, newspaper writer and published author. He is a former Army officer, a Republican former member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives and is the director of the Military Assessment Program of the William R. Nelson Institute for Public Affairs at James Madison University in Virginia so he definitely has his bona fides.
He wonders
How credible is Hillary Clinton on Pakistan?
After doing a television interview on the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons, Mr. Houlahan returned to his office and turned on CNN where he saw Senator Clinton's interview with Wolf Blitzer. He writes
She then said something that betrayed a serious lack of knowledge about Pakistan and called her own credibility on the subject into serious question.
"If President Musharraf wishes to stand for election," she told Blitzer, "then he should abide by the same rules that every other candidate will have to follow."
My immediate reaction was: "Did I hear that correctly?"
As a Pakistan analyst, I know for a fact that Pervez Musharraf doesn't wish to stand for election any time soon.
He continues by explaining that in October, Musharraf won election as president of Pakistan and surely has no interest in running for one seat in the upcoming parliamentary elections. But he gave her the benefit of doubt by thinking perhaps she just misspoke, that not every sentence comes out the way they want it to but he still found it quite suspect.
After all, Sen. Clinton is a candidate who is running claiming big-time foreign policy knowledge and experience that she says her closest opponents in the Democratic Primary don't have.
[snip]
"C'mon," I told myself. "A candidate with all of those advisors has got to know at least the basics about Pakistan's political system."
No such luck.
On Sunday morning's interview with George Stephanopoulos, he heard, as he called it, 'this gem'.
Referring to a possible delay in the elections, Sen. Clinton said: "I think it will be very difficult to have a real election. You know, Nawaz Sharif (leader of the PML-N, an opposition party) has said he's not going to compete. The PPP is in disarray with Benazir's assassination. He (President Pervez Musharraf) could be the only person on the ballot. I don't think that's a real election."
It was then he reached this astonishing conclusion:
Sen. Clinton really didn't know that the upcoming elections were for individual seats in Pakistan's parliament. She actually believed that Bhutto, Nawaz and Musharraf would be facing off as individual candidates for leadership of the country in the upcoming elections.
Sen. Clinton didn't know that Nawaz Sharif isn't allowed to run for office in Pakistan because of a felony conviction. She didn't know that President Musharraf won't be on the ballot because he's already been elected.
Sen. Clinton, a candidate for the leadership of the free world, apparently doesn't know the first thing about the country referred to by some as "the most dangerous place on earth."
Wow. As he said, for such a self-acclaimed expert, with so many expert advisors, she sure shows a frightening lack of knowledge about the country that is such a hot spot in the world right now. Guess she and Benazir Bhutto didn't discuss politics at their little tea party.