Why Bhutto's Assassination Matters

Middle East insider and author, JOEL C. ROSENBERG comments on the gravity of former Prime Minister Bhutto's assassination at his blog:

...the attack is certainly another tragedy for Bhutto's family (her father, who was premier in the late 1970s, was hanged by radicals in 1979) and we should be praying for their peace and comfort during this difficult time....but why else does Bhutto's death matter?....to be blunt: Pakistan and her nuclear weapons are in danger of falling into the hands of Islamic radicals....such radicals have attempted to assassinate Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf multiple times in the last few years, hoping to seize control of the government and impose sharia law....today's attack is a sobering reminder that Pakistan is just one coup d'etat away from Osama bin Laden or one of his fanatical, murderous allies suddenly gaining control....it is difficult to imagine a more nightmarish scenario than al-Qaeda in possession of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, but this is not an impossibility.....for several years, and certainly throughout 2007, Musharraf has been severely criticized by Western leaders -- including those here in Washington, D.C. -- for imposing martial law and employing other heavy-handed tactics in an attempt to crush the radicals and safeguard the country from their control....he has deserved some of this criticism, but we must also keep things in perspective....while we all want Pakistan to become a fully-developed democracy -- peaceful, prosperous and healthy in all respects -- we must be very careful never to underestimate the danger that Musharraf and his colleagues are in from the radicals....they are in a battle not just for the soul but the very survival of their country....I personally have serious concerns about how truly committed Musharraf is to Jeffersonian democracy....but I do not believe that he is the worst-case scenario for Pakistan....bin Laden (or bid Laden-ism) is the worst case scenario....let us, therefore, take great pains not repeat the mistakes that President Jimmy Carter made in the late-1970s when he pressed so hard for democracy and human rights in Iran that the Shah eventually was forced to flee the country and the Ayatollah Khomeini took over....as deeply flawed as the Shah was, can anyone effectively argue today that Khomeini was better for the people of Iran, the people of the epicenter, or the world at large?