December 29, 2007 (the date of publication in Russian)

Alexander Rublev

AN ASSASSINATION WITH A NUCLEAR BACKGROUND

Benazir Bhutto's death may become a prelude to a US intervention into Pakistan

Having opened with the execution of Saddam Hussein, year 2007 concluded in Asia with the death of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. This sequence implies ominous symbolism, the Washington-produced baton of violence and terror being passed from Iraq to Pakistan.

Hours after Bhutto's death on December 27 in Ravalpindi, the responsibility for the terrorist act was taken by Al Qaeda, whose spokesman triumphantly reported about annihilation of the "most valuable American asset in Pakistan". The version that the assassination was executed by Al Qaeda fighters sounds plausible, though reports differ. Speaking to CNN the morning following the bombing, Arnaud de Borchgrave, UPI editor-at-large and a longtime friend of Benazir Bhutto, reported that a week before the attack, Bhutto had named South Waziristan warlord Baitullah Masood, Osama bin Laden’s son Hamza, and a militant affiliated with Islamabad's Red Mosque as having been dispatched to assassinate her. According to local sources, she actually mentioned Baitullah Masood along with unnamed veterans of ISI – the heavily corrupted Pakistani intelligence with a longtime background of shadowy partnership with CIA in drug trade – as the agency behind a new assassination plot to be unleashed months after the first assault which did not affect Benazir but killed and injured dozens of her supporters.

In any case, the identification of Bhutto as a "valuable US agent" arouses serious doubts. The political career of Mrs. Bhutto originated in the ranks of opposition to the ruling military establishment, whose leaders had been taught in US and British military academies for servicing Anglo-American interests in Central Asia. Those universally educated specialists had sentenced to death and hung Benazir's father, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, ostracized for his reluctance to wage a war against the USSR.

In the political situation of 2007, Benazir Bhutto could also hardly be described as a figure, perfectly suitable for Washington's interests. The daughter of the disgraced Premier repeatedly emphasized her adherence to a multipolar foreign policy, including development of partnership with China. Since Washington granted India the status of its strategic ally, the Beijing-Islamabad axis had become the only possible guarantee of Pakistan's geopolitical survival. In its turn, China viewed Islamabad as an indispensable liaison in the dialogue with the Islamic world and a strategic partner in the combat against the surging separatist ferment in the autonomous region of Xinjiang.

Is Bhutto's death favorable for the incumbent President Pervez Musharraf? Certainly not. Desperately seeking ways for domestic political stabilization, he envisaged Mrs. Bhutto as the most valuable counterweight to the Islamist underground. Therefore, he allowed Benazir to return to Pakistan after a years-long exile, and tried to convince her to accept the post of Prime Minister.

Despite old political rivalry, Musharraf and Bhutto were committed for political partnership. Benazir was sober enough to realize that her political projects were unattainable without support from the army, while Musharraf, for his own reasons, preferred to decorate the Pakistani statehood with a democratic facade. On the one hand, he required a broader political base for punitive actions against Taliban and Al Qaeda warlords, operating in the country. On the other hand, Bhutto's presence in the Government could stave off the option of a US intervention into Pakistan under the pretext of "prevention of overtake of Pakistan's nuclear arsenals by terrorists".

Scenarios of an operation of this kind have been discussed in US military circles throughout the year. The plan was supposed to "help the Pakistani army to establish order", and thus to guarantee security of nuclear weapons. This idea was greeted by the leading presidential candidates from both US parties – Rudi Giuliani and Barack Obama. Still, a victorious intervention into Pakistan was most valuable for the Bush-Cheney leadership that would not like to go down in history with the stamp of the Iraqi infamy.

President Pervez Musharraf was reluctant to accept such assistance. He was categorically opposed to a US-led military regime in his country, with a modest role of an auxiliary force reserved for his army. He realized that a large-scale US contingent, once entering his country, would stay there until a "decisive victory over terrorism" – that is for years or possibly decades.

Officially, Washington greeted the alliance of the secularist political forces of Pakistan. Still, for the abovementioned reasons, Mrs. Bhutto was more instrumental being dead than alive. US strategists were trying to prove that Musharraf is unable to control his country. Benazir's death serves as a perfect argument in this "educational work".

Today, Benazir's fanatics are blaming Mr. Musharraf for Bhutto's death, demanding that he resign from his post, and campaign under the slogan "Off with the Musharraf dog!" Most of these activists are concentrated in the southern, most densely populated province of Sind, where secularist views prevail. In their turn, the Pakistani Talibs intensify their assaults on the government forces in the Pashtun-dominated North-Western Province. Islamist terror is likely to spread also across the urban agglomeration of Ravalpindi and Islamabad.

Thus, the only nuclear power of the Islamic world is today teetering on the brink of civil war and disintegration into several quasi-states. The outcome greatly depends on Musharraf's political skills.

There are no grounds to directly blame the United States for the death of Mrs. Bhutto. However, the long-time connections between Al Qaeda and US special services are an open secret. On the other hand, the possibility of a replicated 9/11 on the eve of the Presidential elections of year 2008, inspired by the Bush-Cheney administration in order to retain power in an illegitimate way, is admitted by informed US sources.

A new bloodbath, timed to the US elections, is not necessarily going to take place on the US territory. A nuclear Pakistan represents a perfect playground for a large-scale chaos scenario at the borders of China and Russia, while the assassination of Mrs. Bhutto may serve as a convenient prelude for a new 9/11.

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