Bhutto's Assassination and the War on Terror

With the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, which deepened the current political crisis in Pakistan, and with very little hope for holding the upcoming elections, political instability in Pakistan may have serious effects in the "War on Terror" both in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Despite having a controversial (allegedly corrupt) past, Mrs. Bhutto managed to appear as a popular figure and draw a strong support from different layers of society, which could have had a serious affect, had she been able to win the elections, on the overall war against Taliban and other extremists who are currently operating, almost freely, in border areas with Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Her assassination has left a huge political vacuum at the heart of Pakistan's nuclear-armed state, which appears to be slipping gradually, and possibly intentionally, into an abyss of violence and religious extremism.

Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party was the only national political institution that had the potential to represent Pakistanis of all ethnic and religious backgrounds. In a country that is increasingly being dominated by religious hardliners, the Taliban (who also enjoy support from certain institutions within the Pakistani Government), and sectarian violence, her role was crucial in bringing stability, halting the spread of violence and most important of all, controlling the growing militancy and Talibanism that has plagued the country in the last decade.

The question of how her tragic death may affect the overall strategy of combating the growing Taliban - Al Qaida's strength in Pakistans tribal areas, seems to be very difficult to answer, especially at a moment when Bhutto herself seemed to be the only answer.

Her recent stand against the Taliban and other religious extremists, something the military government has failed to do, despite receiving enormous economic aid from Bush Administration, made her the only hope for more than one - third of the electorate who strongly oppose Musharraf's policies, army rule and religious extremism.

The deadly violence that erupted after her death will have serious consequences for both the International Community and Afghan government who are currently facing a growing insurgency. It will certainly hamper their attempts to combat affectively the Taliban insurgency, which is based in Pakistan, while it certainly strengthens the Taliban position in the region. On the other hand, this incident would surely paralyze the vital strategic relationship between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which is crucial for tackling the cross-border terrorism and Taliban in Afghanistan.

The relationship between Mr. Karzai, the Afghan President and Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani president, has at times been poisonous. The Afghan government is increasingly uncomfortable about the presence of Taliban bases in Pakistan, which is one of the main reasons behind the recent insurgency inside Afghanistan. Her death is a serious blow to Mr. Hamid Karzai, who had high hopes for establishing a better relationship between two countries as he use to see her as serious partner in the struggle against religious fundamentalism.

Now with the prospects of a fair and free election doomed after her death, the country is moving towards more unrest and instability, and it is very unlikely that a military dictatorship will be able to effectively counter the spread of Taliban and religious extremism, both in the border areas and in other major urban centers. On the other hand it is possible to predict that the terrorists will take advantage of an increasing power vacuum in Pakistan and try to spread their influence and power. This is something that makes everybody worried.

Read more reactions from HuffPost bloggers on Benazir Bhutto's assassination

Comments

[mscreant]

Fairfloss...it's inevitable. I really wish that people would stay within their grammatical boundaries when commenting....makes your whole point moot.

[Tellmethetruth]

Bhutto's brave life reminds me of Plato's Allegory of the Cave. http://faculty.knox.edu/fmcandre/platocave.html
Plato describes a people who live in a cave, chained so that they can only look in front of them, never to the side or behind. Behind them burns a fire, but because they are not allowed to look anywhere except in front, they do not see the fire. Instead they see the shadows of themselves created by the fire. The shadows, or illusions of themselves, they believe is all that exists. Behind them is a path that leads to the world above the cave and a way out, but they cannot see it. One day, one person is loosed from the chains and follows the path out to the world of the light, where color exists, vegetation, and all possiblities. After becoming accustomed the light, the individuals decides that to be truly "enlightened" he must return to the case and tell the others about the world filled with light. But upon returning to the cave, his eyes take awhile to adjust to the dim light of the single fire in the cave, and so at first is totally blind, unable to see even the shadows the cave dwellers can see. Consequently, when he describes this new world of light, but does so in a temporal state of blindness, the cave dwellers reject him. To them, this world above the cave is a world which causes blindness, not enlightenment. They choose to live in the cave.

One wonders why Bhutto returned to Pakistan. Because an authentically enlightened soul cannot allow others to live in darkness according to Plato, even knowing the ultimate result of the effort is rejection by those who worship thier own shadows.

[realitycheck7]

Greedy, Barbarous and Cruel

[RepublicanBrain]

Just because Bhutto has died doesn't mean democracy died with her. Do not underestimate the power of martyrs.

What Bhutto's party needs to do is quickly sort out what Bhutto planned, and find someone to carry on her work. That was the reason why she came back, and I can think of no more glorious monument.

[sna]

Sharifi states, "it is very unlikely that a military dictatorship will be able to effectively counter the spread of Taliban and religious extremism, both in the border areas and in other major urban centers" with reference to Pakistan. This must be the understatement to beat all understatements ever.

The military and intelligence institutions in Pakistan have consolidated their powerbase using US aid to follow a policy of dividing to conquer in the domestic arena. This establishment has used religious shenanigans since they hanged Benazir's father on trumped up charges. The coup by the cross eyed Gen Zia, aided and abetted by the USA, unleashed religious zealotry to make the country more pak, ie, pure - all in the name of countering Shia Iran. Since then there was the cold war strategem by proxy to build up the Taliban to counter the USSR, reinforcing exploitation of religion to achieve no good ends.

Well, the blowback is not going to evaporate just like that.

Benazir was no angel but very few politicians are. The USA, however, needs to look at its own policies and politicians and the politics they play. Pakistan's military-intelligence establishment will not be there once US American largesse to sustain its power and ability to undermine civic institutions is withdrawn.

Stop freaking out about its nuclear armour. when the USA has the biggest nuclear armoury in the world and is the only one which stands guilty of unleashing it on non-combatant human beings. If anything, it is the USA that needs to be forcibly defanged.

[clumberfeet]

Buddy Holly
John F. Kennedy
Robert Kennedy
Martin Luther King
Paul Wellstone
And sadly yet another 'day the music died'.

[NABNYC]

I thought that I read Bhutto was being secretly backed by the U.S., because Bush wants Musharaff out.

But it doesn't really matter. It's a shame she was killed. It's a shame the U.S. has brought about the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in the middle east each of whom, I expect, had family and friends who loved them too.

And when you can't tell who is on what team, it probably means you've got no business playing the game. The U.S. is intervening in other people's countries, trying to manipulate things and events and people, and generally just bringing about more suffering and death.

For my money, the U.S. should have bombed Saudi Arabia and stolen their oil, since it the Saudis who attacked us. And when bin Laden was given his own state in Pakistan where he has been allowed to live in peace, the U.S. should have invaded Pakistan, found bin Laden, and killed him.

Instead, we're friends with bin Laden's friend, we invaded Iraq which had nothing to do with any of this, and we're now trying to install one puppet after the next, ignoring history, and pretending that somehow we can control it all.

Get all our troops out, end the U.S. involvement in the middle east wars, stop all money going into that region in the form of aid of any sort, and let them sort it out without the U.S. financing the whole thing. We are merchants of death, and it is not going to get better until we leave.

[Fairfloss]

I do believe you and many others put to much responsibility for Peace in that region, on shoulders of one middle-aged woman.

She had a target on her back and this assassination was inedible. It was an excuse for the existing powers in that part of the world to avoid negotiations, to avoid democracy.

It is also an excuse for anarchy and riots, just enough to frighten the free world.

Benazir Bhutto was conned by everyone and now they speak of corruption in her past, as if that makes her death a little more palatable.