It is a measure of the Bush administration's broken foreign policy that the departure of Pervez Musharraf, the corrupt, long-time military dictator of Pakistan, is provoking fears in Washington of "instability." Despite Bush's warm embrace, Musharraf gutted the rule of law in Pakistan over the previous year and a half, including sacking its Supreme Court. He attempted to do away with press freedom, failed to provide security for campaigning politicians and strove to postpone elections indefinitely.Bush, Cheney and McCain have a regular practice of undermining democracy in places where local politics don't play out to their liking, and in that Musharraf was a true partner. But stability does not derive from a tyrannical brake on popular aspirations but from the free play of the political process. Musharraf's resignation marks Pakistan's first chance for a decent political future since 1977.
You can read the whole thing here.Meanwhile, the Karachi newspaper Dawn runs down how Bush was finally convinced that Musharraf had to go.- Bush was the last holdout supporting Musharraf in Washington, long after Rice and even Cheney had concluded he was not viable.
- PM Yousef Raza Gilani's recent trip to Washington was largely aimed at convincing Bush and others that the dictator had to go. "The prime minister took a team of 'Musharraf experts' with him to the luncheon and they played a key role in persuading Mr Bush to stop supporting the Pakistani leader."
- U.S. Ambassador Anne W. Patterson "argued that if Washington continued supporting Mr Musharraf it would end up stoking massive anti-American feelings in Pakistan."
- Joint Chief Chairman Mike Mullen made three trips to Pakistan and engaged in intensive discussions with his opposite number, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, receiving assurances that without Musharraf the Pakistani military would remain committed to the fight against the neo-Taliban and al-Qaeda.
- Pakistan's Ambassador to Washington, Husain Haqqani, expertly worked Congress and the Senate, as well as think tanks, trying to convince them that Pakistan would not be "unstable" without Musharraf. People in Washington are so funny. Musharraf has been like a one man hurricane in Pakistan for the last year and a half, and the source of most of its instability.
- Perhaps thinking perhaps of his own, personal vulnerability come Jan. 2009. Bush wanted assurances that Musharraf would be granted legal immunity. He enlisted the help of Britain and Saudi Arabia. Dawn reports, "The British sent their former ambassador in Islamabad, Mark Lyall Grant, to Pakistan and the Saudis sent their intelligence chief Prince Muqrin bin Abdul Aziz to negotiate the terms for Mr Musharraf's departure." The Saudis also put pressure on former PM Nawaz Sharif, leader of the Muslim League (N), to tone down his rhetoric (Sharif was in exile in Saudi Arabia for years and is close to its elite).
- Once Bush was convinced Musharraf had to step down, the super-majority in the Pakistani parliament began moving against him.
Imagine my surprise at discovering that Bush, not Cheney, was the last holdout. If the man really does have no common sense and is the ultimate decision-maker, that helps clarify what has gone so wrong for the last seven years.
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