Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

This is really good commentary, TPMB. Pithy and convincing.

"Bhutto, despite our mythologizing of her past rule and future potential, was not going to fix Pakistan. As such, her passing matters only to the extent it creates short-term instability. But, in the end, I don't expect to change much about the correlation of forces right now in Pakistan."

Probably right, in my (limited) opinion. It's also another example of what happens when one focuses more on personalities than on the context in which they operate. Bhutto or Musharraf, the U.S. has too great a tendency to focus on "great" individuals. I suppose it's built into the context in which _we_ operate.

I dunno. Just guessing, Musharraf entered into this deal with Bhutto because he thought it was necessary. Now that she's dead and her supporters are rioting, he may want to rethink a deal with Sharif.

What I'm curious to see will be the (public) response of Bhutto's husband and children. Will they decide to take over the PPP? If so, will they try to get the same deal Benazir got (plus decent security), back a Sharif/Musharraf deal (increases the likelihood of getting security) or settle for general hell-raising and rabble-rousing?

If they don't decide to enter politics, they may want to get out of Pakistan-- fast. Having a political party that's no longer run as a family possession might be a good thing Pakistan in the long run, though.

The Bhutto pill was to keep the ailing patient (Musharraf) going for a bit longer.You are spot on about her intrinsic value outside of this role.
.Most people are shocked in Pakistan regardless of their take on her politically. Mobile networks are down and there is a general lock down in the country.But people have been there before ( Zia , Bhutto senior ) so they all know the score.......a few riots , burnings ,
then back to 'normal' after a few months.Sharif's party might get some blowback so he might be happier for a postponement that would save him some face in an election but still be able blame Mush for having a hidden agenda to derail democracy.
Governing Pakistan is an impossible job.( it has to be one step forward and a random numbers of steps backward)Ironic that Islamism would be the pill that slowly unravels a secular Muslims dream ( Jinnah) .

One thing I will not do is engage in a political discussion on the same day that a political leaders life was taken through assassination, while the blood and gore is still warm in the streets. This is a time for grieving, and a time for showing respect.

I condemn anyone who uses the occasion of assassination as a rhetorical political tool to further their own agenda as I see a number of political candidates and media pundits doing. To those that do so I say, for shame, have you no sense of decency?

My condolences and regrets to Mrs. Bhutto's family, may they take comfort in the knowledge that she gave her life in the service of Pakistan.

I'm having trouble getting "the Musharraf function", or seeing it as useful: acting tough militarily on the FATA while preventing a more liberal civil society evolving. I good link is perhaps Ahmed Rashid's article on Afghanistan and the Taliban's use of Pakistan in the New York Review of Books from 2006:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19098

I guess the main positive point about Musharraf is that he stops the army from coming completely unhinged by the fundamentalists in its ranks. The trouble is that this is a short-term strategy at best. As far as I can see, it is not going to lead to "broadband economic connectivity" for the people of the FATA, and it only helps extremism spread further into the central part of Pakistan.

Dan McIntosh's point about US concentration on personalities is well taken. It takes institutions (press, courts, laws, civil society) to make democracy work, as well as election candidates.

Great point about personalization, Mr. McIntosh. I think that a big part of the problem here is simply that Musharraf is trying to hang onto personal power by claiming to be the only guy capable of fighting terrorists, and he is making a mess of things in the process. It is important not to buy into the notion that we "need" Musharraf to fight terrorism. What we need is (1) somebody who is willing to transform the Pakistani military to get it into the counterinsurgency business, and Musharraf is not likely to take on entrenched interests in the military, and (2) somebody who can harness popular support from the Pakistani middle class for anti-terrorist warfare, and when Musharraf does stuff like attacking the legal establishment (which he did for the sole purpose of trying to hang onto personal power), he hardly endeared himself to the business class.

The problem with the middle classes in Pakistan is that they are knee
deep in the corruption that has weakened Pakistan over the past.
The legal system is part and parcel of that strata of middle classes who do very well for themselves first .
An expansion of the middle classes is the key to Pakistan moving away its present troubles through a stronger more broadly based economy.
Nepotism is rife everywhere and the middle classes have to take good parcel of blame for the weakness of the country.
The civil service hate Musharraf because of the oversight he introduced .( Army officers watching over Government departments to deter corruption).
Musharraf is still the least worst of a really bad bunch of options for everyone.

Bhuttos husband is known as the 10% man. She is known for having her husband kill her own brother. Ive been told it is insulting that the West seem to love her because of going to a Western school and being a woman while not looking at her behavior. Why she didnt have more security I do not know, the writing was on the wall.

Stuart, does the 'somebody' you're talking about have to be a single person?

Michael, I'm sure not. Not a very well thought-out comment on my part. What is more important is to have the institutions that will push Pakistan in the directions I'm suggesting. Using the word "somebody" suggests that we should be looking for a hero to save the day, when the real point is that this is exactly the kind of thinking that's making the problem worse by personalizing everything in terms of Musharraf and Bhutto.
On a side point, I never realized that both Bhutto and Jinnah came from Shiite families. I don't know if that is significant, but I thought it was interesting.

Killing of Bhutto proves factions within Islam that only means one thing that the two nation theory now reverts to four nation theory. Four nation theory means Hindus have one nation in India, Moslems in Pakistan as second nation, Moslems in Bengla Desh as the third, and as add on, now the fourth nation of Moslems who are fanatic and militant. Jinah probably never realized this in his dream !!!

Why should NOT the Moslems in Pakistan pronounce their roots in the mother country India and declare falacy of the two nation and become merged with India beats me today as 60 years of independence can not give any peace in Pakistan.

Great comments.

Thanks for the thoughtfulness. Very impressive.

A lot of unknowns on the table. Having read more than one Al-Qaedah manual, it doesn't really have that kind of a scent on it in my mind. Although their manuals address surveillance, kidnapping and assassinations, it is not their strong suit operationally.

Prime Minister Bhutto's death is a mark on world history showing the true feelings and disrespect for women in muslim culture. How sad!

Whenever I read about the Ebola virus and how its own terrible virulence causes its own demise , I always think of AQ.

AQ is essentially and will always remain a media outfit ....using fear as the main campaigning tool( a favourable bang to bucks ratio) like some cranky advertsisng execs fixated and bloated by the success of this one trick pony startegy... they think that if they just keep doing more and bigger...it will surely all come good.
Unfortunately for them...it works.
Instead the consumers are behaving irrationally and not fleeing and leaving aside a geopolitical space for some whacky fantastical pan-Islamist super state.
Instead their sucess is the very seed for their failure.
911 succeeded so well......that the US became so overcome with shock....that they could'nt flee, negotiate nor accomodate.They reached that point as the towers fell.
Iraqis have reached that point now.AQ has created such disgust amonsgt their allies that they too have consumed too much of the great AQ campaign.
Pakistan needs to reach that point now.
But whether Pakistan reaches that point depends on Mush doing more than what he's doing now...his bumbling could make people believe that he's got a hand ( or equally damaging ... an interest) in the assasination.He needs to pull his media savvy thumb out of his mouth .
The story form the government about Bhutto being killed by a sunroof latch was truly pointless and stupid.Even if they believed it...what good was going to come of saying it now.And if its not true.?...either way.... Mush has lost his touch.

Nice to see these comments , plus the main web log about an event that has really projected Pakistan's fractured soul to the public in general.

Musharaff has lost alot of his worth since the fiasco over the lawyers and the judges. No one over here (Pakistan) really trusts him, especially after this tragic event.

Benazir couldn t have fixed things for the country, but she was one in the eye for the maulvis.

To marginalize Mme. Bhutto's role in Pakistani history would be a mistake. In our effort to keep matters contextualized and keep a grasp of the "bigger picture" we forget that the great movements in history have always been attached to a single person or perhaps a small group of people even though those few or those individuals could not possibly have made the movements by themselves. The hope that Mme. Bhutto provided millions of people (Pakistani and otherwise) might have been purely symbolic, but that symbolism shouldn't be synonymous with pure superficiality. It was very meaningful, and that meaning is being expressed right now on the streets of Karachi and other cities and it will be expressed far into the future.

The majority of Pakistanis were tired of Musharraf but had no overwhelming desire for the incompetence of either Sharif or Benazir.
A bit unseemly in these times to use Stars Wars as an analogy but I can't resisit...
When Alec Guiness falls to Darth Vaders sword....with the words..( i think)..." i will become stronger in death than you can ever imagine"..
seems to have come true of Benazir.
Her party will sweep the country now....no need for coalitions here...
but before her death...she was seen for what she really was....some one who had presided over corruption and stagnation.She really needed to do deals with Mush before...now the PPP is king.
Could turn out to a be good thing.
If they have learnt from the past mistakes.
Heres hoping.

Assasinating Binazir Bhutto doesn't make any difference..it just make it worst.

"Ironic that Islamism would be the pill that slowly unravels a secular Muslim's dream". Perhaps inevitable? It is still far from clear that Islam can bring itself to permit secular rule. And the slippery slope from Islamic dominance to Islamist absolutism is very steep indeed.