foreign policy
Discussing U.S. - Pakistan relations with a friend the day after Bhutto’s assassination, I said the U.S. has an opportunity to support Musharraf’s democratic opposition. He noted Musharraf’s supposed working relationship with the U.S. and questioned the wisdom of supporting democracy in a country where “lots of people hate America.”
I said that most Pakistanis are probably more concerned with the state of their economy, and with restoring their freedoms; foreign policy issues would take a lesser priority.
Supporting democracy in Pakistan would give their citizens one less reason to hate this country. They hate Musharraf, and the U.S. supports him. It looks similar to U.S. support for other unpopular dictators in the recent past, such as the Shah of Iran. Just because foreign heads of state do our bidding doesn’t make them the best leaders for their own people. And if the U.S. supports democracy only in countries with governments we like or leaders we control…that is dissing entire countries. This kind of politics will make more enemies for those who practice it, and expose U.S. support of democracy as an opportunistic sham.
But for the U.S. to shift its support from Musharraf to the democratic opposition would take a state department or executive branch which actually cared about democracy. Why should they start now?