I had thought that with Benazir Bhutto sorrowfully following in the family footsteps of martyrdom, there'd be a vacuum of "democratic" leadership in Pakistan not just because the rest of the parties have no-names or refusniks, but that her children - the logical choice for the nepotistic, er, dynastic political heirs - were teenagers. I was wrong.
This article from Reuters,
Bhutto supporters pin homes on son and heir, have quotes from party faithful already abandoning any struggle for democracy in Pakistan and looking towards the recently renamed 19 year old Bilawal Bhutto Zardari (nee Bilawal Zardari), living and educated in Dubai, now to go to Oxford, as their new hope. He's not eligible to run for anything in Pakistan for another 6 years. Never mind that his father, Asif Ali Zardari, still chairman of the PPP (People's Party of Pakistan, the party Bhutto's father founded), and should be picking up the mantle, but won't, due to blackmail and corruption scandals and, honestly, isn't that well liked by Pakistanis.
I guess with 6 years to go, that should give Musharraf a bit of breathing room. Granted, he's like a weeble wobble reaching his flopping point - I don't know how much more vaccilation between Western appeasement and hometown bluster in the face of unwillingness and inability to crack down on the FATA provinces he can manage - 6 years will be too long for him. One might thing that'd give him enough time to clean house, but he hasn't started yet, what makes anyone (especially the USUK) think that he'll start now? In fact, if he were an American President, the campaign season against the Bhutto dauphin has just officially started - there won't be any time to legislate, not even mentioning execution of military missions, while he's trying to think up negative campaign ads.
On the other side of the tracks, what sort of trophies can the highly motivated "Talibs" achieve in 6 years? If we've looked back on Musharraf's record and seen a dearth of progress and are extrapolating to the future, looking back on the last few years of the Taliban's ascendency in Pakistan post "Operation Infinite Justice" (oops!) recovery, well, it's probably ungentlemanly of me to mock and juxtapose at the same time.
Lastly, what does it mean for us, the US (and ever so slightly for the UK, where, btw Zardari lives)? This, for me, puts Musharraf into even greater relief - he's not on our side and apparently not very much on Pakistan's side either. And, as everyone seems to remind me, he's got nukes. We, as far as our foreign policy towards Pakistan goes, have been wimps or naieve or both - it's not that they can't be trusted, they're just not fully willing to be seen as collaborating in the War on Islam, oh snap there I go again, I mean the War on Terror. Since we're unable to put on the perspecticles of the region and not at all of Pakistan's, we
still don't have a clue as to how to engage Pakistan. I hesitate to suggest Afghanistan as a model, since blowing the crap out of Pakistan (remember: nukes!) isn't really going to help, right? Oh right, yes it will. We (used to) do it all the time with Afghanistan's and Pakistan's tacit approval and made a certain amount of headway in the 2002 - 2005 period. Unfortunately, we've gone soft, allowed Musharraf to vaccilate a lot more, and we've lost the advantage. Now, we're on the defensive in that region, politically - for at least another six years.
Oh, yeah - what's this kid supposed to do again?