Pollyanna-ish About Pakistan

Yesterday’s assassination of Benazir Bhutto was an extremely high-value “kill” for Islamic terrorists. Her death not only sets back the democratic movement in Pakistan, but “the world's second-most-populous Muslim nation totters on the brink of becoming a failed state”. Beset by Islamic extremists, lambasted by civil libertarians, and threatened by repeated assassination attempts on his person, Pervez Musharraf’s own tenure may not outlast George Bush’s.

And if Pakistan flies apart into different religions and tribes, what happens to its nuclear weapons? Nuclear-armed Pakistan all along was a much bigger prize for jihadists than Iraq or Afghanistan. America’s foreign policy choice seems to be limited to propping up the dictator Musharraf---much as we did the Shah of Iran decades ago and look how well that turned out---and crossing our fingers that we somehow avoid the abyss.

Iraq has taught us important lessons—instilling democracy takes years if not decades, the rule of law cannot take hold when the bullets are flying, many in the West expect America to wage the “perfect” war with zero U.S. soldiers and innocents killed, and that such a perfect war must be won within a couple of years.

World population rankings from Wikipedia.

Pakistan is the sixth most populous country in the world, and any American-style military expedition into Pakistan beyond the specific objective of securing its nuclear armaments will fail because it's impossible to pacify and democratize 162 million people with the forces we can put on the ground.

Map from Refugees International.

But note the proximity of the world’s two most populous countries. Rising economic powers who are just beginning to reap the benefits of globalization, China and India have much more to lose from Pakistan’s dissolution. They will do the killing that is necessary to defend their people, and the world will look the other way because the U.S. is not involved.

We’ll be the good guys as we deplore the violence that others inflict while we silently cheer them on, and we’ll airlift supplies and help rebuild the region when the shooting stops. So let's root for Musharraf to survive, but the alternative may eventually work out. Otherwise, Benazir Bhutto's assassination may be an Archduke Ferdinand moment. © 2007 Stephen Yuen