So how did the assassin get close enough to Bhutto to be able to shoot her at point blank range? And how did they know when she’d be out of the protective bubble of her car? This seems a well-planned hit that had inside help.
The killing was clearly intended to create chaos and a collapse of the government. Indeed, Musharraf may not last in power much longer.
But why would anyone want to see the 4 horseman unleashed? It helps to recall Lenin. The early revolutionary leaders in Russia wanted to have a new democratic government – in effect they wanted to replace the Tsar with a kind of English system. Ms Bhutto = Kerensky.
Lenin had no ambitions to simply take over the existing state – he wanted to create a Theocracy – a new ideal state based on a religion. AQ have the same desire.
But Lenin had a disciplined mass party and enjoyed broad support. AQ has no such support, not even in Pakistan.
They want chaos in Pakistan that will lead to conflict with India. They want the US to back order and Musharraf so that when M falls, the loss for the US will be even greater. They want Europeans to fear the Muslim immigrants and to have a reaction thus building up the tension inside Europe.
But at some point chaos becomes no one’s friend. Even gun runners and drug smugglers need basic societal stability. Once chaos starts, almost by definition, the outcome is unpredictable.
This creates the ideal conditions for a tribal theocracy.
The brilliance of this move is that while I think I can see how it can all turn out, I can’t think of how I would do anything but follow the script that they have forced upon us. Like in 1914, the powder charges have been laid over 40 years. Now the fuse is lit – the bang is inevitable.
Maybe not. We don’t have to take the bait. There’s no need for the US to do anything militarily and every reason to not do so. Perhaps the absolute best thing the US could do, both ethically and in terms of power politics, is to let Pakistan handle their own problem. Not only would the world breathe a sigh of relief that the US is finally acting sensibly, it would also defuse much of the threat from AQ.