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Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
It is hard for Americans to understand the role of the military in Pakistan, because it is a role that really relates to the military as a separate, deeply entrenched and hereditary institution. There is nothing like it here. But during partition the country was really constructed around the military, which the British had made the most central and privileged local institution and which they counted on, post-independence, as a bulwark against Russia. Just as the American elites have multi-generational ties to Harvard or Yale, the Pakistani elites have multi-generational ties to a particular military unit. What unit your grandfather served in is more important to a Pakistani than what public school their family is associated with is to a City Barrister.
But because it's hard for Americans to understand the role of the military and what Bhutto represents (a family not tied to the military for its prestige - a family that breaks traditional molds in a very modern and non-Pakistani way), when Americans meddle in Pakistani politics, the law of unintended consequences applies. But as the only remaining superpower, they will meddle. The article did a decent job of highlighting how that played into the battle between the Bhuttos of the world and the traditional forces. And Musharif is just as much a part of the traditional landscape as the Islamicists.
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Excellent point. It is exactly America's lack of understanding of the country, in that regard and many others, that drives so many of us to value the Pakistanis' democratic rights over the need to keep their nukes under the control of a non-fanatical regime.
Granted, Bhutto was no fanatic, but I don't mind one bit that a person like Musharraf has the reins of a nuclear power. He's controllable and shrewd, as he's demonstrated by triangulating the differing demands and pressures placed on him by us, the citizens of his country and the elites who run the military. Predictable is as good as it gets in that part of the world.
What keeps Radical Islam knuckled under is our friend, no matter the means.
