Bush and the Assasination of Benazir Bhutto

George W. Bush has a habit of putting all his eggs in one basket before splattering them on the sidewalk when he trips up. The assassination of Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto is the latest foreign policy mess that has the administration scrambling to cope with its disastrous decisions and bad judgement.

It took the Bush administration roughly a year to broker a power sharing deal between Pakistani strongman Pervez Musharraf and Bhutto, but it only took al-Qaeda (or whatever extremist elements were responsible) minutes to effectively derail the Bush administration’s democratization efforts for Pakistan.

The administration’s support for the progressive and pro-Western Bhutto, of course, made sense. The former Prime Minister was ousted on corruption charges more than a decade ago, but most observers believe her relatively secular PPP party represented the best hope for a country being torn apart by religious extremism. There is little doubt that Bhutto was willing to do something Musharraf has not, namely take on the Taliban and al-Qaeda elements that are turning Pakistan into a failed state and the new headquarters of al-Qaeda’s international efforts.

Bush’s blunder has been in making General Musharraf the linchpin of the administration’s efforts to combat Islamic extremism in Pakistan. Since 9/11, the United States has poured more than $10 billion into Pakistan with virtually nothing to show for it. Indeed, Musharraf will be blamed for Bhutto’s death whether he had anything to do with it or not. The Bush administration has placed the United States in the unenviable position of being associated with a dictator who disbanded an independent judiciary, cracked down on a free press, instituted martial law, and arrested political opponents.

Musharraf has never been more loathed, nor has his grip on power ever been shakier. By effectively outsourcing the hunt for bin Laden to Musharraf the Bush administration has gotten the worst of all worlds: 1) ineffectual efforts against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan and 2) to the extent that we have supported an unpopular dictator we have no broad base of support among the Pakistani people.

Experts on Pakistan agree that Musharraf has played Bush for a fool. Clearly, the Bush administration’s strategy for Pakistan is in shambles. But Bush’s misjudgment about Musharraf is just the latest in a serial of errors made by our incompetent "commander-in-chief." Among Bush’s blunders are: the failure to heed urgent warnings about the 9/11 attacks, the decision to go after Saddam Hussein rather than 9/11 mastermind Osama bin laden, the botched occupation of Iraq, the mishandling of Hurricane Katrina, and more recently the administration’s failure to recognize that Iran had suspended its military nuclear program.

Bush and Musharraf have a lot in common. Both came to power in coups, both act as if they are above the law, and both have completely lost credibility. We are witnessing a failed presidency of monumental proportions.

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