Assassin Nation
Benazir Bhutto has been assassinated. Given Pakistan’s possession of nuclear arms, I’m forced to wonder what the implications of instability in that country will be for the surrounding region and, frankly, the world.
Pakistan was already in turmoil before Bhutto’s death, after all. Pervez Musharraf is locked in a vicious cycle where he tightens his grip on power in response to declining public support, which of course leads to further erosion of his popularity. His pro-U.S. stance isn’t helping him, and Al Qaeda and the Taliban are salivating for any chance they can get to influence, or worse yet, become Pakistan’s leadership. Let us not forget that India and Pakistan are still at odds over a territorial dispute.
The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was enough to touch off a World War. The assassination of Bhutto may not have such immediate or widespread ramifications, but sometimes all it takes is one falling domino to topple a hundred others.
December 29th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
It’s a bad deal no matter how you look at it. My only question is how much of a hand did Pervez Musharraf have in it? It can be argued right now that there’s no proof that he was involved and this is, even given his questionable past and present actions, unfair speculation, but it is not arguable that he at least enabled this. The woman was a former Prime Minister who was on several groups’ assignations lists. News has been coming out the last few days that he refused her any protection and that he refused to allow her some other protections that she could have provided herself.
I’ve not liked Musharraf in the least for some time now. This may be my own bias against him and nothing more, but I think at least some of her blood is on his hands. It’ll be interesting, and maybe more then a little scary, to watch this play out.