Salon has one of the better apologies for Musharraf I’ve read recently, so I’ll reply to that. The argument is correct on a few key points:
One of President Bush’s more appalling flights of fancy in the foreign policy arena is his belief that democratically elected governments will somehow be more inclined than incumbent authoritarians to support U.S. policy objectives that are wildly unpopular with their own electorates.
This is true as is the support he sites. Thus the follow-up statement is also probably true:
Polls indicate that the majority of Pakistan’s population today is overwhelmingly opposed to many U.S. policy goals, including killing or capturing al-Qaida and Taliban affiliates and their Pakistani allies. In such an environment, any government produced by genuinely open elections will not be willing or able to support U.S. objectives in the war on terror.
As for this statement (emphasis mine):
In 2002, President Pervez Musharraf allowed carefully controlled elections to be held in Pakistan. Those elections produced a relatively competent technocratic administration, including Shaukat Aziz.... In 2004, Aziz became prime minister as well as finance minister; during his three years as Pakistan’s head of government, he presided over the most sustained period of economic reform and modernization in the country’s history. But Washington, in its bipartisan wisdom, said that this was not good enough.
Perhaps Washington is troubled because Musharraf is wildly unpopular and has been firing judges and imposing martial law. Here’s the detailed polling from November 2007, his approval sits around 30% and two thirds of the country want him to resign. Pakistan is not on the verge of being taken over by fundamentalists, they aren’t that popular; however, it is being actively destabilized by a U.S. sponsored dictator that’s clinging to undeserved power.
Democracy in Pakistan won’t solve Afghanistan, but neither will dictatorship. Afghanistan is hard, but if we try to force Pakistan to solve our problem we will breed resentment and radicalism in the Pakistani people. I didn’t think backing Bhutto specifically was the way to go and I don’t know who is best for Pakistan now. But I do know that the Pakistani people want Musharraf out and that our aid is widely blamed for keeping him in power. So I take great pride in the fact that this article thinks most of the Dems are wrong.
(Side note for policy wonks regarding the emphasis, Naomi Klein argues that U.S. policy routinely uses dictators and disasters to forward laissez faire capitalism, she calls it shock therapy. The thinking that "economic reform and modernization" are all we should want is in keeping with the policy she’s critiquing. However, we’re moving away form Musharraf which suggests, surprise surprise, that U.S. policy isn’t monocausal.)
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