WASHINGTON, 29 December 2007 — US President George W. Bush and members of Congress have angrily condemned Thursday’s slaying of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, and urged the country to continue on the path of democracy.
Bush, who said the attack was a “cowardly act by murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan’s democracy,” called Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and offered his sympathy, said White House spokesmen who gave no further details of the phone conversation.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also called Benazir’s husband, Asif Ali Zardari, to offer her condolences, the State Department said. Although the Bush Administration shied away from criticizing Musharraf for not taking stronger measures to crack down on militants and terrorist groups in the country, some Capitol Hill Democrats accused Musharraf of failing to provide adequate security for Benazir, who was campaigning to return as prime minister in the Jan. 8 parliamentary elections.
“The failure to protect Benazir Bhutto raises a lot of hard questions for the government and security services that must be answered,” said Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden of Delaware.
By quietly backing Benazir, the US had made its goals and allies more vulnerable — in a country where more than 70 percent of the population already looked unfavorably upon Washington.
“We are a player in the Pakistan political system,” said Wendy Chamberlin, a former US ambassador to Pakistan. She told reporters that the US was partly to blame for Musharraf’s dip in popularity, adding: “This is Pakistan. And Pakistan is a very dangerous and violent place.”
That said, Benazir’s assassination highlighted the failure of two of Bush’s main objections in the region: to bring democracy to the Muslim world and to force out the militants who continue to hide in the mountainous regions of Pakistan.
“The US came to understand that Benazir was not a threat to stability, but was instead the only possible way that we could guarantee stability and keep the presidency of Musharraf intact,” said Mark Siegel, who lobbied for Benazir in Washington and witnessed much of the behind-the-scenes diplomacy.
“US policy (in Pakistan) is in tatters. The administration was relying on Benazir Bhutto’s’ participation in elections to legitimate Musharraf’s continued power as president,” said Barnett Rubin of New York University. “Now Musharraf is finished.”
Others agreed. By failing to protect Benazir, “Musharraf has shown that he doesn’t have control of domestic security,” said Muqtedar Khan, Associate Professor at the University of Delaware, and nonresident Fellow at the Brookings Institution. “The biggest loser in all this is the US, because the US put a lot of its diplomatic efforts to help create a democracy in Pakistan, and in the process they really alienated Musharraf as they were not as supportive as he expected during emergency rule,” said Khan.
“The US weakened Musharraf at home, and the alternative they were banking on has now been assassinated. Musharraf is now weak in his county.”
He added: “What this means is that Pakistan has not become like Somalia, but it is getting there.”
But Bush officials said Thursday that they still had not given up hope and hoped that Musharraf may be able to steer through current uncertainty and strike a ruling coalition with whoever becomes Benazir’s successor in her Pakistan People’s Party. Secretary Rice telephoned Benazir’s second-in-command, Makhdoom Amin Fahim, to offer sympathy and pledged to continue to support elections in Pakistan, administration officials told reporters.
One of Washington major concerns remains Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. However, Dr. Syed Farooq Hasnat, a scholar with the Washington-based Middle East Institute in Washington, said they posed “no problem.” “I don’t think Pakistan’s nuclear program will be affected, it’s as secure as in any other nuclear country. That’s not the issue: the damage for Pakistan is that this will harm the political process and the restoration of democracy in Pakistan.”
