Infinite Monkeys

Pakistan Unscripted

Everyone is an expert on Pakistan nowadays. I don't claim to know much more than the next man about Pakistan, beyond what I've read in a few books. But I do know how to link.

Mark Steyn writes:

Pakistan is not Persia. For one thing, it's a country only 60 years old whose slapdash creation was one of the worst disasters of British imperial policy. Yet even those who thought so at the time would be astonished to find that, a mere couple of generations later, a regional afterthought is not only a nuclear power that has dispersed its technology around the planet but also a driving force of the world's first global insurgency. If Gen. Musharraf is shooting without a script, what would you do if stuck in a toxic soap opera where the incoherent plot twists pile up with every passing decade?

Steyn offers no profound conclusions, except to warn that the democratic solution some putative experts suggest might not be all it's advertised to be. Pakistan is a hollow state bristling with nuclear warheads. Its government lacks control of large swathes of territory. The population is as fanatical as it was 60 or even 160 years ago, when Pakistan was part of India and under British rule. And while the Harvard-educated Benazir Bhutto might appear charming and gracious before pliant Western diplomats and reporters, beneath that democratic veneer she is as corrupt as any Pakistani pol. And as Diana West notes, "Yes, Mrs. Bhutto is very popular... But Shariah, or Islamic law, is popular, too."

Is Musharraf a bad bet? Maybe. But he looks like the best bet the U.S. has.

Posted by Ben at November 10, 2007 08:13 AM