The Presidential Candidates on the Crisis in Pakistan (Updated)

Hillary Clinton

Clinton was also asked Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s declaration of a state of emergency in Pakistan this weekend. Clinton said the crisis was caused in part by a “fundamentally incoherent” U.S. policy.

The Bush administration, she said, has “diverted resources, time and attention away from Afghanistan and the volatile Afghanistan-Pakistan border. They have sent mixed messages over several years now.”

Joe Biden

Senator Joseph Biden, the Delaware Democrat who heads the Foreign Relations committee, warned that withdrawing aid might weaken Musharraf’s hold over the military.

“This is the most dangerous and complex relationship we have,” Biden, who also is seeking his party’s presidential nomination, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” program. “We have a huge stake, a huge stake, in seeing to it that the moderate majority in Pakistan have a political outlet.”

Christopher Dodd

Another concern is Pakistan’s stability. Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd, a contender for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, said yesterday that Pakistan is all the more important because of its nuclear weapons capabilities.

“The worst thing that could happen at this juncture is for us to have that country become one that is held in the hands of extremists, a fundamentalist state with obviously nuclear weapons capability,” Dodd said on CNN.

John McCain

Arizona Sen. John McCain, campaigning in Iowa for the GOP presidential nomination, said that if Islamic extremists “gain control and we have a radical Islamic government in Pakistan that has nuclear weapons … then we are going to have big, big problems in Afghanistan and we are going to have a lot of problems in the area.”

Fred Thompson

In the NBC interview, Thompson also said the Bush administration should not suspend financial aid to Pakistan after President Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency and suspended the country’s constitution.

“We have to make sure that whatever happens that we do not see total instability in that country, in that government and we do not see a takeover by radical Muslim elements or terrorist sympathizers,” he said on “Meet the Press.”

I’ll link to others as I find them. What’s emerging from these quotes is that, incoherent as it might be, our policy towards Pakistan is an American policy not just a Bush Administration policy.

Update

Barack Obama (via spokesman Bill Burton)

“Senator Obama condemns the decision by President Musharraf to invoke a state of emergency. President Musharraf has broken his pledge to his own people and to the world to move toward democracy. Pakistan is a critical ally of the United States against terrorism, a nuclear weapons state, and an important nation in South Asia and within the broader Muslim world. It is in the interests of the Pakistani people and the United States to see our ally move toward democracy, as more authoritarian government will only mean more instability, more discontent, and more extremism in Pakistan.

“The United States must be clear and unequivocal: President Musharraf should reverse this declaration, respect the decision of the Supreme Court, and hold free and fair elections for parliament in January. At the same time, the United States must move beyond the Administration’s failed policies of promoting stability over democracy, which has undercut our efforts to root out terrorists in Pakistan. We must start with a serious review of our investments in Pakistan to make sure that U.S. assistance is supporting democracy, not repression; and to ensure that concrete action is being taken against terrorism in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, so that al Qaeda terrorists who threaten America do not continue to have a safe-haven,” said Obama spokesman Bill Burton.

Hat tip: comments

8 comments… add one
  • IS it just me or does Hillary’s comment the lamest? The others are just stating the obvious, but really that’s about all they can do at this point. (And again, it’s more than Hillary did.)

  • I thought that it was amusing just how meaningless her comment was, especially since no one is proposing doing anything other than what the Bush Administration is doing.

  • PD Shaw Link

    I too think one of these things is not like the other . . .

    Is Hillary complaining that there should be more coalition forces on the Pakistan border to intimidate Musharraf? Or is it her belief that we should have “won” Afghanistan by now, leaving the U.S. more options in dealing with Pakistan? I’m not sure either of these make sense.

  • It’s funny you should mention that, PD, since I’m one of the very few I know of who thought that invading Afghanistan was a mistake. At this point I’m not sure the jury is in. As Mao Tse Tung said when asked if the French Revolution was a good thing, it’s too early to tell.

    The problem in achieving an acceptable outcome in Afghanistan, short of reducing sizeable portions of the country to radioactive slag, is that it can’t be done without resolving the problems between Afghanistan and Pakistan, too. And that, in turn, can’t be done without deciding whether Afghanistan and Pakistan really are countries that can be taken as such in a Westphalian system.

  • AMac Link

    Dave (4:48pm) —

    In other words, does Powell’s Pottery Barn Rule (you break it, you own it) apply to Failed States and ungoverned, ungovernable territories? If it does, Welcome USA and NATO to Afghanistan; stay a while! If it doesn’t, what then? Fast in, kill people/break things/assure widows and orphans that we mean well? Followed by fast out?

    Are Failed States untouchable because we’re too clever to get stuck as neocolonial administrators in an age of IEDs, yet too moral (and pragmatic) to kill presumed enemies with the inevitable collateral damage that is part of the package deal?

    If so, we’ve simplified Zawahiri’s and bin Laden’s planning problems. Somalia and Afghanistan so far, big pushes to make Algeria, Iraq, Chechnya, and Pakistan ungovernable. How about Nigeria, central Africa, Albania, Kosovo, Lebanon, Palestine, or any other place with a large Muslim minority and a weak or shattered or vulnerable central government?

  • Yes, you’ve stated the problems well. See also my post today on the Turkey/PKK crisis. We’re not the only ones with this problem.

    There are any number of solutions to the conundrum. Although most of the attention goes to Tom Barnett’s proposal for a SysAdmin force, the flip side of that coin is the U. S. as Leviathan—empowered to go anywhere in “the Gap” and do, presumably, anything with international approval. In my view that’s the really impossible part.

    I’m becoming increasingly skeptical about his Core and Gap because I think there are other, simpler, verifiable explanations for the phenomena he’s observed, namely the U. S. sphere of influence and ungoverned territories, respectively.

  • lk5560 Link

    Obama’s Statement:

    “Senator Obama condemns the decision by President Musharraf to invoke a state of emergency. President Musharraf has broken his pledge to his own people and to the world to move toward democracy. Pakistan is a critical ally of the United States against terrorism, a nuclear weapons state, and an important nation in South Asia and within the broader Muslim world. It is in the interests of the Pakistani people and the United States to see our ally move toward democracy, as more authoritarian government will only mean more instability, more discontent, and more extremism in Pakistan.

    “The United States must be clear and unequivocal: President Musharraf should reverse this declaration, respect the decision of the Supreme Court, and hold free and fair elections for parliament in January. At the same time, the United States must move beyond the Administration’s failed policies of promoting stability over democracy, which has undercut our efforts to root out terrorists in Pakistan. We must start with a serious review of our investments in Pakistan to make sure that U.S. assistance is supporting democracy, not repression; and to ensure that concrete action is being taken against terrorism in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, so that al Qaeda terrorists who threaten America do not continue to have a safe-haven,” said Obama spokesman Bill Burton.
    http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/11/hillary_and_obama_fault_white_house_on_pakistan_situation.php

Leave a Comment