Bhutto’s Death a Blow to U.S. Foreign Policy
December 28, 2007
Word is spreading about the role of the U.S. State Department in the proposed power-sharing arrangement between Pakistan’s former Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto, and it’s current President, Pervez Musharraf. The deal was meant to bring political stability to one of the U.S.’ key allies in the war on terror. With the assassination of Bhutto, however, Pakistan’s future (and its relationship with the West) is less certain.
According to the Washington Post, Benazir Bhutto’s return to Pakistan from her self-imposed eight-year exile was the result of negotiation between the U.S. State Department and Pakistani President Musharraf. Bhutto was forced out of her position as Prime Minister in 1996 and fled the country because of corruption charges (which she claimed were politically motivated). She, and her Pakistan Peoples Party, still maintained a wide constituency in the country. As trouble in Musharraf’s administration started becoming more evident, U.S. officials began to see Bhutto as a stabilizing force. Musharraf apparently (and reluctantly) agreed. But with Bhutto’s death, some are predicting that Musharraf’s political career cannot last – a blow to U.S. foreign policy, which has supported the Pakistani President.
In the wake of these events, and with increasing concern that Musharraf could impose emergency rule again, the U.S. is calling on the Pakistani leadership to continue with elections in January: “The way to honor her memory is to continue the democratic process in Pakistan, so that the democracy that she so hoped for will be completed,” said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
The State Department is also calling on moderates to participate in the upcoming election: “[Bhutto’s] departure from the scene is unfortunate and leaves a huge number of question marks because these parties are very personalized vehicles, but it doesn’t change our basic goal of getting all the (moderates) to agree that extremism is not the future of the country, and working toward that end,” said an unnamed State Department official (Fox News).
