This item seems to have slipped by, but I think it is important. I thought it would develop, so I didn’t write about it, but instead it sort of finished–for the moment. But I think it will bubble up again, and soon. Whence my belated alert.
Musharraf, America’s puppet in Pakistan, has made some bad choices lately, first ignoring and firing Pakistan’s highest judge–roughly equivalent, I suppose, to a Supreme Court Justice, and now engaging in a shoot-out assault (actually a massacre) on a mosque in the capital city.
The details of the shoot-out, over several days, are collected at the Agonist.
Going back a few months, the Bush Administration had been pressuring Musharraf to join the war against Afghanistan, by attacking Afghanis within his own country with main force. The realities of tribes and national boundaries being what they are, this would have been impossible to do without firing upon his own countrymen, since they are in fact intermingled. National control of the border areas is sort of a polite fiction, anyway. Mostly they are under the control of local tribal leaders.
The Bush regime has pre-empted his reluctance by attacking the tribes using American force. Of course the US military has no more idea of who is Taliban or who is Al Qaeada in Pakistan than they do who is an insurgent in Iraq. Many villagers–plainly Pakistani civilians–have been killed in American air-to-ground missile and bomb attacks. This has led, during the ensuing weeks, to a rapid decline in Musharraf’s popularity: The open act was his fight with, and dismissing of, the high judge. He is now widely regarded as an American stooge, not to mention murderer and traitor.
In addition, Musharraf’s government never had good legal standing. He has gotten away with rule by force, but by firing the judge he has lost most of the little legitimacy he had, and with elections scheduled, there is worse to come. His government will soon be openly, officially, illegal.
Both the legal (secular) and religous segments of society now oppose him, with street demonstrations by the one and acts of armed rebellion by the other.
It seems to be just starting.
Musharraf is responding with the American weapons of his own army. It is a desperate move. It looks like the beginning of the end.
I add, with somewhat bitter amusement, that it was all needless. By waging a pointless and hopeless pursuit of “terrorists” into Pakistan, the US created itself this instability, with no possibility of positive outcome–in that the Afghani war is itself a hopeless and fruitless venture.
Musharraf will almost surely be replaced by an Islamic government which is openly hostile to the US. The hostility is not theoretical, nor even theological, but earned, through real American acts of murder.
How soon? We shall see.
It may even be that the US will have to call off its attack on Iran–there may be more pressing problems.
The US thinks so too. A third aircraft-carrier group has been added to the theater of operations, on top of the putative Iran strike-force. What it can do to help, though, is a bit problematic.
The strategic position of the US is poor, and getting worse. Doing nothing at all would have left us better off than what we have achieved with great expense and effort.
All of this looks like it is leading to wider war, and that would likely mean nuclear war. Perhaps there is a reason that Republican sex scandals are breaking out (being allowed to break out) now. The scandals certainly look to impede the American war initiative–maybe there is somebody who does not want to go into this fight with Bush wielding the button.
Even: The time may be nearing when the Bush regime can be removed.
