Bush Administration has no 'Plan B' for Pakistan
12/30/2007 @ 10:19 am
Filed by John Byrne
"For the Bush administration, there is no Plan B for Pakistan."
Citing US officials operating in the Pakistan policy arena, this is the
prognosis of veteran
Washington Post reporters Robin Wright and Glenn Kessler in Sunday editions of the paper. The
Post ran the story on page 24.
Kessler and Wright paint a US foreign policy unchanged by the assassination of erstwhile prime minister Benazir Bhutto, one aimed at propping up controversial strongman Pervez Musharraf -- and lone pro-US leader in the country -- with hundreds of millions of dollars in aid. Next year,
the US will begin a five-year, $750 million plan intended to bring jobs and security to restive border regions.
( Boutons: We know from how State and Defense have tightly un-monitored the 100s of $Bs that disappeared in Iraq that the $Bs pumped in Pakistan will hit the target. Yeah right, directly into the plutocracy and/or into the AQ/Taleban. Very effective, astute Repug leadership: bomb the out of a country and/or throw 100s of $Bs at it )
"Despite anxiety among intelligence officials and experts, however, the administration is only slightly tweaking a
course charted over the past 18 months to support the creation of a political center revolving around Musharraf, according to U.S. officials," the reporters write.
"Plan A still has to work," a senior administration official involved in Pakistan policy told the paper. "We all have to appeal to moderate forces to come together and carry the election and create a more solidly based government, then use that as a platform to fight the terrorists."
Bush's policy remains "wedded" to Musharraf despite warnings from experts and others who say his dictatorial methods are "untenable," they say. The Pakistani president recently deposed Supreme Court justices who would no go along with his plans.
"This administration has had a disastrous policy toward Pakistan, as bad as the Iraq policy," Robert Templer of the International Crisis Group told the
Post.
"They are clinging to the wreckage of Musharraf, flailing around. . . . Musharraf has outlived all possible usage to Pakistan and the United States."
Replied the US official: "We have a room full of tigers in Pakistan. This is a really complicated situation, and we have to use our influence in a lot of ways but also realize we can't determine the outcome. We're not dropping pixie dust on someone to anoint them as the next leader."
On Washington's agenda is getting another former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, to reverse his plans to boycott a Jan. 8 election, which may be postponed due to Bhutto's killing and the subsequent unrest. Sharif could create a "centrist space" for Pakistani politics, though his platform is anti-American.
Musharraf toppled Sharif's government in a 1999 military coup. The former general has accused Sharif of attempting to kill him.
Experts say Bush's plan to steer his foreign policy ship along the "Plan A" course is dangerous at best. "Farcical elections" will produce an anemic government ripe for Musharraf's manipulation, a Brookings Ins ution scholar said.
"It's folly," added C. Christine Fair of the Rand Corp.
"Pakistanis are going to read [elections] as a sham to prop up Musharraf as Washington's water boy."
Others offer even dimmer scenarios.
"In the best case for the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and the worst case for the world, Pakistan could fall into such turmoil that the very control of the state could fall into Islamist hands, or Pakistan could effectively fracture -- with its massive armaments, including dozens of nuclear weapons, falling into the wrong hands," J. Alexander Thier, a former UN official told the
Post.
Read Wright and Kessler's
full story here.
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there's no such thing as overracting to a nuclear weapon detonated in a US city IMO. 
