Reshaping Campaign ‘08

28 December 2007 |permalink | email article

Benazir Bhutto’s assassination has major political consequences as Americans to begin to select their next president. These include:

1) Forcing a reassessment of the relationship between the U.S. and President Pervez Musharraf in fighting the cross-border activity involving suicide bombers and militancy in Pakistan’s tribal areas and incursions by pro-Taliban militants into Afghanistan.

2) Reviving speculation about Pakistani madman Abdul Qadeer Khan, known as “the father of the Islamic bomb,” after pressure on Musharraf by Washington to put him under house arrest in 1994 as Al Qaeda schemes to get its hands on nuclear weapons. 

3) Reigniting a U.S. debate on foreign policy and the war against Islamic terrorism as a front burner issue and the reality of an untrustworthy Musharraf as the only force standing between dealing with militants, chaos and civil war.

The death of Bhutto for democracy was thinkable. She said recently that if anything happened to her the world should hold Musharraf responsible. On arriving back in Pakistan she send him a hand-delivered letter warning that if she was killed he should investigate senior officials in his government.

Bhutto supporters recently chanted “Musharraf, you dog"as rioting broke out recently across the country, suggesting concern that his questionable leadership extends, by implication, to President Bush who’s pumped a billion a year into controversial aid programs with little accountability.

A recent Los Angeles Times opinion piece by Daniel Kurtz-Phelan, a senior editor at Foreign Affairs magazine, dealt with Kahn, the bomb and past missed opportunities by former presidents to end the nuclear proliferation threat.

“The Pakistani government, even as it pardoned Khan and continued to celebrate him as a national hero, was careful to portray this nuclear bazaar as a one man operation unknown to all but a handful of officials.”

The initial reaction from U.S. presidential hopefuls was largely uninformed, especially among Republicans. John McCain made the best cogent observations. Democratic frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were worlds apart in addressing the crucial issue.

Recalling Bhutto’s visit to the Clinton White House, Hillary argued, without hard resume specifics, her experience makes her best prepared to lead the nation in troubled times. Surrogate Evan Bayh calls it electing a president “with seasoning.”

In sharp contrast Obama, citing her Iraq war vote as misguided, reprised his much harder line in dealing with Pakistan and broadening the search for Osama bin Laden. He has argued that as president he would violate Pakistani sovereignty if necessary to prevent terrorists from seeking weapons of mass destruction.

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