Quote:
Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
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.
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I don't have any problem with Bhutto at all. I didn't mean to imply that. In fact, since she was committed to democracy, which Musharraf clearly isn't, in a safe and stable country, I'd support her every day over a strongman like Musharraf.
However, under the circumstances in place in Pakistan, open, true Democracy would be exceedingly dangerous to the world. The country has nukes, and it also has hundreds of some of the most virulently anti-western madrassas in the world, as well as uncontrolled Al Queda, Taliban and radical Islamist elements. In a country where a sizable percentage of the population is educated only by memorizing the Koran, I don't see any true "Democratic" votes taking place (A democracy where a large portion of the voting public is brainwashed to vote a certain way is not a real democracy [This could be said of United States in some regards]). I see an ignorant mass distorting the vote and placing large numbers of Islamists in the government, a growing cancer which could topple a leader like Bhutto, sending a cache of nuclear weapons into the hands of Islamists.
Now, you might say, "Oh, well, as it has in the past when it doesn't like the elected govt, in such a scenario, the military would simply swoop in and overthrow any wild Islamist leadership." You'd probably be right, but I think that would plunge the nation into chaos beyond what we're seeing now. That's a scenrio where we'd wind up occupying the country with a UN force, and as I think Not Bob said a few weeks ago, that would be a disaster of epic proportions.
So leave the strongman in for now. In 10 or 20 years, when India and China's labor costs start increasing and the global markets look more toward Pakistan for cheap labor, its economy will rise and with some degree of wealth and even the hope for a middle class, the country will forget the idiocy of Radical Islam and move into the 20th Century. Then you'll see people like Bhutto really bring the nation forward.
