Letter to the Editor, PLU MAST, for the PLU GOP

In the February 22, 2008 issue of the Mast, Ethan Jennings conveyed in his column a neat, black and white understanding of the situation in Pakistan that does not conform with the messy realities that exist on the ground in that country. He wrote that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has "enjoyed the backing of the Bush administration in yet another case of America supporting a morally corrupt dictatorship in favor of convenience, something it has been doing since at least the beginning of the Cold War."

This is snide misrepresentation. The choice on who to support in Pakistan is not between the corrupt dictator Musharraf and the pluralistic, accountable, and democratic party of the late Benazir Bhutto, as Mr. Jennings insinuates.

That Musharraf has been corrupt we do not deny nor seek to controvert. What we do feel compelled to point out is that Bhutto was no better than Musharraf. Her party, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), was founded by her grandfather, and has monarchically remained in the family’s control ever since. Also, as the observer of Pakistani affairs Jonathan Foreman points out, in her two stints as Pakistan’s prime minister her government was "marked by spectacular corruption and incompetence."*

In this light it is manifestly unfair for Mr. Jennings to assert that the Administration has sided with a despot instead of democrats "out of convenience." There have been no good options in Pakistan and are none now. We have supported and cooperated with Musharraf not because he is the best choice, but because he is the only viable one at this point. We’ve worked to get his country’s assistance in fighting the Taliban and al Qaeda elements that use Pakistan as sanctuary, which has been crucial, all the while pressing him to hold free and fair elections on schedule (which, as Mr. Jennings points out, we have been successful in) and to cooperate with the PPP and other non-Islamist political parties in Pakistan.

Mr. Jennings closes his piece by advising the Administration to support the new Pakistani government—which it will do—and "send a message to the Muslim world that the U.S. is not only interested in its own wealth and power, but in the welfare of others, and the furtherance of democracy as the most important of American interests."

However, President Bush has been sending this message since 9/11. We are militarily supporting two democratic governments in the Middle East at this moment and continue to press governments in the Middle East to reform their governments and societies towards democracy. As the President said in his second inaugural, "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world." He has not always taken the proper or adequate course in advancing representative government in the Middle East in our view, but that the furtherance of democracy is one of the most important American interests and goals of his presidency is clear.

*Foreman, Jonathan (2008, January 28). The Real Bhutto. National Review, LX(1), 24-28.