The Pakistan Dilemma

The Bush administration has screwed a lot of stuff up through malice, mendacity, or just plain incompetence. On a question like Pakistan, though, I think you do need to concede that the issue is genuinely difficult. On the other hand, years after 9/11 I think it's clear that what we're doing isn't working: "The United States is continuing to make large payments of roughly $1 billion a year to Pakistan for what it calls reimbursements to the country’s military for conducting counterterrorism efforts along the border with Afghanistan, even though Pakistan’s president decided eight months ago to slash patrols through the area where Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters are most active."

For a long time, though, I agreed with people who thought there was no real alternative to propping up Musharraf and sort of hoping for the best. This Blake Hounshell article from a while back convinced me that was wrong.

Comments

Let's assume for a moment it's true that if Busharraf falls, he will be replaced not by an islamist coalition, but by one of the plutocratic and corrupt factions waiting in the wings for another semi-democratic interregnum (say, Butto or Sharif). Do we really think one of them is going to be more helpful to us than Musharraf is? I think the answer is certainly no.

Posted by dj moonbat | May 20, 2007 1:33 PM

I saw Benazir Bhutto speak about 10 years ago. My vague recollection suggests that she'd be pretty favorable to the United States.

Regarding the Bush Administration's mistakes, I think that many of the global issues that we face are very difficult, and aren't susceptible to an obvious easy solution. (It's not just the Pakistan situation to which this applies.) But that's what has been, to me, so frustrating and discouraging about the Bush approach to problems -- the "solution" is presented in as arrogant a manner as possible, so that anyone who disagrees or questions the approach is cast as stupid, corrupt, traitorous or a combination of all three.

Posted by Tillman Fan | May 20, 2007 2:10 PM

I have always been in the same camp as Matt, and most other people I would imagine, in believing that our demands of Pakistan cannot be maximalist; and it is foolish - and indeed very dangerous - to pretend otherwise.

The article gave me a bit to chew on, but I do not know if I am sold. I would like to see some in-depth articles on the prospects of democracy in Pakistan - that is, in terms of what parties would be most poised to win.

I think - and admittedly I know little about Pakistan, like everyone else - that we may be misreading the situation when we just throw Muslims into 'secular' and 'fundementalist' camps. An Islamist candidate could run a sort of populist, anti-Bush and anti-America campaign, and that would conceivably appeal to a lot of voters.

American political thinkers cannot predict elections in this country, so I do not think my reservations are unfair, as learned as Blake appears.

Posted by Neal Murray | May 20, 2007 3:10 PM

Pretty impressive- a post about Pakistan gets three (count 'em) comments.

That would be Pakistan, the nuclear-armed ally we support that harbors a black-market nuclear weapons dealer, and simmers on the back burner as possibly the next country to be taken over by Muslim fundamentalists.

Are we having fun yet?

Nowhere in any of this can be found even a shred of anything Thomas Jefferson or John Adams might have said about international relations. Everywhere can be found the heavy hand of arms dealers, pragmatic managers of empire, and a bevy of undercover and illegal agents of dubious nationality we regularly fertilize with American greenbacks.

Sixty years of 'finessing' this problem (if we can call it that, considering the results) has only made it worse. Supporting Pakistani dictatorships because we hated India was, in retrospect, a mistake. We should have supported an explosion of Muslim or even Communist democracy before Pakistan built a nuclear armory for the next administration to play with.

The old time railroaders faced this sort of problem when trains ran away down the mountains. The longer you wait to jump off, the faster you're going when you hit the ground.

So far, here, the blowback is almost silent. Sure, it involves the perversion of American government for the benefit of arms dealers, empire builders, and undercover agents. But as long as the gas keeps flowing, we don't notice that.

And who knows, maybe this will become insignificant compared to some other problem that develops.

Wouldn't that be fun?

Posted by serial catowner | May 20, 2007 6:27 PM

I would like to see some in-depth articles on the prospects of democracy in Pakistan - that is, in terms of what parties would be most poised to win.

Pakistan seesaws periodically between military dictatorships and (very) corrupt plutocracies installed by the "democratic" process. The most likely candidates to take over for Musharraf are Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif. Though either would be happy to be elected, I would be highly skeptical that either would be significantly more committed to the rule of law than Musharraf.

I actually spent a couple of months in Pakistan a decade or so ago, and read up on its politics. It's a goddamned mess, and getting Musharraf to step down would not make it less of one. It would just mean that we had set up an ISI/military coup a couple years down the road.

Posted by dj moonbat | May 20, 2007 7:26 PM

It boggles the mind that Pakistan has an arsenal of reliable nukes, some mounted on reliable mid range missiles, military and intelligence services salted with Jihadist sympathizers, and a less than stable government, and all we hear about is the Iranian nuke threat.

The biggest story in the world now is possibly the command and control of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.

Posted by rapier | May 20, 2007 10:43 PM

muhahahah, the foreign policy genius of matt yglesias in full pomp. Here we have a country with nuclear capability and significant radicalisation within the populace, and yglesias' view is to let the musharaff government crumble and keep our fingers crossed that someone favorable to the US emerges victorious in the subsequent power struggle. You boy are a fucking idiot.

Posted by pimp hand strikes! | May 21, 2007 3:11 AM

It's not just Matt, it's everyone. I guess I'll stop worrying about it because nobody else is or maybe Cheney has it all taken care of.

On second thought..... The Pentagon has probably spent about a million man hours on targets in Iran. Have they spent more than 5 minutes on Pakistan?

Posted by rapier | May 21, 2007 7:29 AM