Camelot Revisited—What’s Lost in Pakistan

In the midst of the U.S. presidential election, with leaders focused on bringing change to Washington, the brutal murder of Benazir Bhutto halfway around the world is a powerful reminder that change does not come without a price. When challenged by a charismatic, populist leader with a liberal agenda for change, the establishment will seize on the work of extremists to stop that agenda.

Like the assassination of RFK almost 40 years ago—which has been shrouded in rumors of cover-ups—the murder of Benazir Bhutto on December 27, 2007, will remain improperly investigated. The Pakistani government and its intelligence agencies are already under a cloud of suspicion: they immediately hosed down the crime scene, including Bhutto's car, and the alleged killer was himself killed in the blast that followed. Bhutto's family does not want an autopsy under the control of the government; the government has not agreed to an independent investigation—either under a restored judiciary or a UN tribunal. The five detectives from Scotland Yard conceded under national and international pressure are unlikely to produce a definitive investigation result.

What happens in Pakistan, in that remote, mountainous desert corner of the world, matters urgently to us as Americans. Benazir's murder immediately intruded on the U.S. electoral campaign. Each candidate tried to sound presidential as they detailed how they would deal with this crisis if they were in the Oval Office. Some emphasized the war on terror, others the centrality of democracy and human rights, but all agreed: the security and freedom of this country is tied to the security and freedom of its allied nations.

And, what we support in Pakistan does influence what type of government is formed in Pakistan, a recipient of up to $11 billion in U.S. aid since 2001. In the careful calculus of the current Pakistan government on how much freedom they will allow their people, to what extent the rule of law is applied, and whether the now delayed elections of February 18th take place at all and with what level of fair play, the word from Washington is a crucial factor.

Already Washington's muted response during the first crisis of the Emergency Rule declared by President Musharraf on November 3, 2007—his dismissal of the Supreme Court and detention of senior lawyers—has cost the Pakistani people what seemed to be an assured transition to a representative government. Benazir's party, the liberal PPP, was going into these elections as the winning ballot; she had just finished addressing a final public rally with the crucial votes due in two weeks. Her relief was palpable as the videos flooding YouTube show her climbing into the vehicle. With her gone from the scene, the PPP has lost its only national level leader who had appeal across all sectors. The extent of that appeal was indicated in her first term as prime minister, when Benazir, a young mother in 1988, won her election from Peshawar, the same city that now harbors the Taliban.

Despite desperate action to put in a family cum loyalist triumvirate to replace her, it’s clear that these three men—her son, her husband and her party vice-chair—cannot begin to replace this one woman. She was far from perfect—imperious, impetuous, with allegations of corruption and mismanagement from her two terms in office. But she still was the only leader in Pakistan with both national and international stature. Benazir was able to combine multiple roles: mother, sister, daughter and celebrity. She was a Princess Diana with the intellectual breeding of Harvard and Oxford; yet despite her feudal hauteur she had the common touch. Not only at the many memorials and protests in Pakistan, but even here in New York City, she is being mourned not in the salons of the Pakistani elite but at community mosques, those in Queens and Brooklyn frequented by cabbies and blue-collar workers—men and women.

What lies ahead is years of turbulence for Pakistan. Her party is still the largest party; but it will have its task cut out to turn the sympathy wave in the immediate aftermath of her murder into majority votes. Members of the new triumvirate are all from the province of Sindh, one too young and the other two without national appeal. While the PPP is beginning to use its regional leadership in Punjab, the majority and crucial province, it’s a ramping up that won't be easy in six weeks, especially since key leaders like Aitzaz Ahsan remain in detention. The election now has a new star, although he is still legally barred from running himself—Nawaz Sharif, former prime minister and leader of the conservative PML-N.

Bhutto's murder has underscored the danger of campaigning for politicians of all stripes. But security lapses—only at the rallies of opposition leaders—have raised questions about the role and loyalty of Pakistan's security forces and their alleged alliances with the Islamists. They are, after all, both men in uniform—be they military or the requisite colorless garb and turbans—and a woman coming back a third time in a declared challenge to them both was perhaps more than either could take.

In response to her murder, many American presidential hopefuls and Western observers suggested that the United States faced a choice between its counterterrorism goals—leading to the support for President Musharraf—and its democratic ideals. In fact, Bhutto's murder opens to examination the links between the military regime and the extremists, and the need for a new U.S. foreign policy that combines the goals of democracy and peace.

As Bhutto herself said in an address at the U.S. Congress in 1991, "Democratic nations....need to forge a consensus in support of the most powerful idea in the world today: the right of people to freely choose their government...There's a simple fact, although it's much overlooked: Democracies do not start wars with democracies. Thus, democracy is the only guarantor of international peace and stability." There are three immediate steps that the United States can take right now to ensure that Pakistan pulls back from the abyss. The first is to insist on an independent and credible investigation of her murder. The second is to insist on fair play in these elections. Washington's generous annual check to Islamabad should not be a blank check, but based on proof of accountability and transparency in these elections and transition to a democratic government. Last but not least, the independent judicial system in Pakistan must be restored. Democracy without the rule of law is a farce indeed.