Babe Ruth... hah!

Anyway, reading your post I noticed your point about China's influence in Pakistan and the very real animosity between India and Pakistan. That got me to thinking that maybe there's still hope for any of the crusty Cold War-ophiles still lurking in the darker alleys in our nation's capital. How giddy would it make them to get to play proxy war with the communists once again Pakistan and India...except of course that both have access to nuclear weapons.

My initial reaction to this is that it's foolish and wouldn't happen. Then there's your closing comment - there are no deep thinkers in the White House and no South Asian experts working the case either at Foggy Bottom or Islamabad.

AFP reports Bhutto has been placed under house arrest and 6,000 troops have been deployed to block the demonstration she called for. Politically, probably the best thing that could have happened to her.

Not many good options in Pakistan.

I used to often travel to HK & go into China for my last job about 8 or 9 years ago & the big build-up was still just under way. They were building office buildings that remained empty, waiting for the economy and businesses to catch up. It was sobering & sad. Conditions there were not pretty and I imagine they are not much better now. Then again, I'd be willing to bet my business that were it not for our country letting people debt their way to 'a good life' that America would look strikingly similar. They are indeed prepping to 'step up'. As far as our backing of Musharraf, we have a remarkable record of backing the wrong horse. It's like a gambling addict - we KNOW we loose & are even a bit aware we have a problem... but this NEXT one is sure to be a winner. Everything on odd...

"The most likely replacement for a Musharraf regime would be some form of secular, democratic or emerging democratic regime, not an extremist fundamentalist grouping."

I don't know how you come to this conclusion. (Or maybe it's my fault for hearing echoes of what the pro-Iraq invasion advocates were saying in 2002/3)

Firstly, should any democratic or quasi-democratic regime emerge, that could only happen on the back of elections. And they would obviously have to be free and fair elections, and no-one's going to bet the ranch on that.

Secondly, assuming that you are referring to Benazir Bhutto or some successor of the Nawaz Sharif regime as the secular-democratic alternative, then you have to remember that a key reason their regimes were ousted was because of the kleptocratic nature of their governments. So again, the democratic alternatives aren't exactly sweetness and light.

Thirdly, let's not muck around with where the real power in Pakistan lies - the military. One of the reasons Musharraf came into power in 1999 was because Sharif tried to oust him from the army (allegedly tried to assassinate him too), and the military - riding popular discontent with Sharif and his kleptocracy - got Musharraf installed.

To me, it is simply wrong to believe that the Pakistani military will tolerate a replacement of Musharraf by someone who has ties to a regime who tried to have him removed as army chief in the first place.

The best we can offer Pakistan at the moment is to provide Musharraf with a dignified transition into a coalition government. It will be messy, undemocratic and temporary, but it might offer a window of opportunity for some political reconciliation. The Pakistani military is simply too unreliable to be left to its own devices, and it would be foolish to imagine it is suddenly no longer hostile to civilian leadership.

Islamic fundamentalism is a reality in Pakistan, and any legitimate election would see these folks gain representation. So yeah, if I were King of the World, I would hold off calling for elections, I would try to sit Musharraf and the various political leaders around a table and hash out a Government of National Unity (GNU by name, gnu in form) which can agree to a 2 or 3 year plan, take some steam out the situation, and thus disempower the radicals.

As horrible as the scenes are in Pakistan, removing Musharraf could succeed in making a bad situation worse. It doesn't seme to be in anyone's interests to have more instability in that part of the world, and lest it be forgotten, the country has nuclear arms... just saying it would nice to have some confidence in knowing who is the person with his finger on the button.

For a very long time America has used alliances with Pakistan for its own purposes, often supporting dictators when they did.

Nixon leveraged the Pakistan/India War in 1971 by coercing the USSR to get India to back off pressing their counter-attack. It seems that Nixon did this primarily to help in his relations with China, and to cause strife between China and the USSR.

From the end of:
Nixon White House Tape
Conversation: Oval Office 636-8
December 10, 1971
Nixon and John Connally on the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War and Deténte

President Nixon: So, we’re playing all the cards we can, but clearly apart from that, whether we can do something or not do something, Brezhnev is very, very interested, he seems to be, in having a good relationship with us at this time for other reasons. And he damned well has got to—I just told him, I said, “You risk all that if you do this,” and that’s the way we’re going to play it with him. . . . But, beyond that, it has an enormous effect on our relations with the Chinese. They doubtless see that. If we let them into West Pakistan, if we let the Russians gobble them up without protesting, it just will embarrass the hell out of the Chinese. And we don’t want to—that doesn’t mean we want to suck on the Chinese tit, but we don’t want to be sucking the Russian tit.

Connally: That’s right.

President Nixon: And it’s really very important to play both of these devils the same way. In other words, we’ll sort of play one off against the other. That’s where we got where we are. So, we shall see.

In a June 13, 1997 interview by the National Security Archives for the CNN Cold War miniseries, Zbigniew Brzezinski talked of The Carter Administration's 1980 dealing with Pakistan and it dictator, Gen. Mohammed Zia ul-Haq, as a strategic preparatory move in Brzezinski's vision of a "Grand Game":

There was a certain coolness and distance in the American-Pakistan relationship prior to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. After that invasion, we collaborated very closely. And I have to pay tribute to the guts of the Pakistanis: they acted with remarkable courage, and they just weren't intimidated and they did things which one would have thought a vulnerable country might not have the courage to undertake. We, I am pleased to say, supported them very actively and they had our backing, but they were there, they were the ones who were endangered, not we.

In a subsequent interview, Brzezinski admitted to arming Afghan insurgents prior to the Soviet invasion intended as a bloody bear trap to goad them into "Russia's Vietnam". An act of provocation that was a significant cause for the Russian War in Afghanistan, which cost the lives of 15,000 Soviet soldiers, most conscript sons of peasants, and an unknown number of Afghanistan casualties, at least 1,000,000 strong.

"Interview with Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski", Le Nouvel Observateur, January 15-21, 1998 (translated by Bill Blum, and published in Counterpunch)

A vast chunk of the covert U.S. funding for the Afghan War was funneled through the Intelligence Service of the Pak military, The ISI, which was then headed by none other than Pervez Musharraf.

A 2004 AP article detailed how the Reagan and GHW Bush Administrations ignored the warning signs of Pakistan's Nuclear Research, because they perceived the positive alliance with Pakistan as a conduit for supporting the Afghan resistance to the Soviet Occupation more important. In the article are remarkable statements by Henry S. Rowen, who was "assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs in the U.S. Department of Defense from 1989 to 1991. He was also chairman of the National Intelligence Council from 1981 to 1983" (from Hoover Fellow Bio). They are remarkable because Rowen, along with admitting that the Reagan Administration left Pakistan alone in its pursuit of nuclear weaponry, was also a GW Bush appointee to his 'non-partisan' Silberman/Robb Investigative Committee on Pre-Iraq War WMD Intelligence. A bit of a conflict of interest.

Matt Kelley - Associated Press, "Pakistan threatened to give nukes to Iran, ex-officials say", USA Today, February 27, 2004

A 1987 Cato Institute Policy Analysis, critical of America's relationship with Pakistan, traced it back to the Eisenhower Administration:

Ted Galen Carpenter, "A Fortress Built on Quicksand: U.S. Policy Toward Pakistan", Cato Institute, Policy Analysis no. 80, January 5, 1987

In Late 2002, the NY Times reported that the GW Bush Administration had deceitfully covered-up Pakistan's role in the proliferation of N. Korean Nuclear Technology:

David E. Sanger, "In North Korea and Pakistan, Deep Roots of Nuclear Barter", New York Times, November 24, 2002

Mashal Lutfullah, "Al Qaeda planning next phase: From a Pakistan safehouse, the Taliban's top intelligence chief claims bin Laden is alive and well", Christian Science Monitor, December 28, 2001

The now defunct South Asia Tribune, whose editor was Pak expat, Shaheen Sehbai, and was based in a Northern Virginia D.C. suburb, published a series of hard-hitting Pakistan articles in 2005 detailing the corruption and other evils of the Musharraf government. An article published September 3, 2005, clearly stated in a first-hand account that al Qaeda was alive and very well in the Waziristan tribal areas of Pakistan.

• Praveen Swami, "Condoleezza's Search for a Caliph in South Asia", South Asia Tribune, March 23, 2005
• Wajid Shamsul Hasan, "When Condi Rice Wants Pakistan to be a Role Model, What Does She Mean", South Asia Tribune, March 27, 2005
• Husain Haqqani, "The Deceptive Cloak of Musharraf's Enlightened Moderation", South Asia Tribune, June 15, 2005
• Ali Dayan Hasan, "The Many Mocking Masks of Master Musharraf", South Asia Tribune, June 16, 2005
• Khawar Mehdi, "Every One Knows Where the Terrorists Are, But", South Asia Tribune, September 3, 2005

In early 2007, the Scooter Libby apologists were able to disparage Armitage, because he had the temerity to go to Musharraf in late 2001 and tell him to acquiesce to the U.S. requests for an alliance against the Taliban in Afghanistan, or be rolled over by the U.S. military on its way to Afghanistan. Both right and left sides of the political bipolarity derived pleasure in taking pot shots at Armitage for this behavior. Given the fact that Pakistan had been a primary supporter of the Taliban, and major exporter of Nuclear technology, this sort of diplomacy seemed appropriate to me. I found few who agreed back then though.

All of this, and much much more, was obtained from readily available open-sources since September 11, 2001, and I have been a vocal opponent of the alliance with Pakistan since late 2003. Mr. Bush's claims of supporting democratic processes is rightfully viewed by many as wafting mendacity that hangs over his head in a dark cloud of doubt, because of his counterproductive relationships with Musharraf, Saudi Princes, as well as the several year alliance with The Butcher of Andijon, Uzbek klepotcrat, Islam Karimov. All three of these friendships have greatly increased, since September 11, 2001, the number of humans who presently stand as The Nation's enemies.

My question is this (and this is not a charge directed at you, as I am woefully unaware of your published prior work product):
What The Hell Took The Wonks So Long
To Recognise The Inherent Dangers Of Musharraf?

Don't worry about about Mushy-

Bush is pulling the bell and he'll be under the bus by the next stop.....

Alphonse ( Al ) Kada
Iranians are fighting the Americans in Iraq so they don't have to fight them on the streets of Tehran

William Hartung says:
The best thing the U.S. can do is cut back military aid and press for him to open up the political process, as a forerunner to a peaceful transition from military rule. Unlike in Iran, this time we shouldn't be caught on the wrong side of history.

Being able to do something different than how the Shah was deposed requires not just sending the right message but having enough influence to support other developments than what lead to the Khomeini revolution. It is instructive to remember the fall of the Shah because the failures of our military operations afterwards was not a measure of what our military was capable of but a demonstration that we had no other lines of action than flying helicopters into sandstorms.

So in the present crisis, we see Rice and company trying to support the Bhutto angle (accompanied by explosions and dead people)and what is the result? The "grassroots leadership" you refer to is far away from making or unmaking the deals cut to chill out the extreme elements of the ISI.

I am all for applying influence to ward off a political firestorm that would seriously undermine the efforts being made in Afghanistan but where will the power to do that come from?

All the chips were placed on the Musharraf square for that sort of thing.