Quote:
Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
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.
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Ultimately, we must place bets. Musharif, like the Shah, is a bet on a traditional autocratic power. Will the force of radical islam or western capitalism and modernization be more compelling?
It may turn out that Bhutto's successors leading the democratic movement are preferrable to her in some ways; but it wouldn't be good to succomb to the temptation to paint her all one color - the Bhutto legacy is complicated, and has much good to it as well.
