Posted by
Bert Chapman on Monday, December 31, 2007 6:55:41 PM
The recent assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is an unfortunate but unsurprising development for that troubled country. Bhutto is the scion of a dynastic political family. Her accomplishments as Prime Minister were fairly modest, although she was able to appeal to the western liberal cognoscenti who viewed her as a feminist messiah for her country's troubled political institutions. Bhutto did little to stop the rise of the Taliban during her years in power when that organization was nursed by the Pakistani intelligence service following its conception during the 1980s under the dictatorship of then Pakistani leader Zia ul Haq. She did nothing to stop the growth of Al Qaida thought and doctrine in Pakistani-based madrasas during her years in power and did nothing to enable her country's security forces to gain enhanced control over the Waziristan wildlands bordering Afghanistan.
The fact that her 19 year old Oxford student son has been appointed her successor by her political party indicates that her "movement for change" is just a vehicle for familial dynastic aspirations instead of representing a genuine broad-based political reform movement. Pakistan is a highly tribalized state where powerful individual personalities and devotion to Islamist ideals are the means to get and retain political power. There is a veneer or Western style democracy in some areas of Pakistan's government, military, and legal communities. Unfortunately, a tribal style mentality, augmented by poisonous doses of Islamist doctrinal drivel, are the cornerstones of Pakistani political and constitutional discourse. This is not a helpful recipe for the world's only Islamic nuclear state to deal with its domestic political angst and international political, diplomatic, and security challenges. If Pakistan really wants to reform itself, it should consider looking at the model of Turkey which disbanded political Islam after World War I and made its government secular in its orientation.
Islam and effective political governance devoted to improving the lives of its people are mutually incompatible objectives as numerous states in the Islamic world prove. Pakistan needs to reject Islamist fantasies once and for all and promote a genuinely democratic state that practices freedom of religion, judicial independence, effective legislative oversight over the executive branch, a civilian controlled professional military, and other attributes of republican governance. Failing to take these steps means there will be more crises within this country which will cause headaches for U.S. foreign and national security policymakers, and policymakers in these fields from countries such as China, India, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.