Scrambling for a Response

A few days before Christmas, Benazir Bhutto e-mailed one of her friends and advisers in Washington, the military analyst and columnist Harlan Ullman. Talking of Pakistan's upcoming parliamentary election, Bhutto said, "The only outcome is for democracy to win. I pray that happens. Otherwise, I fear Pakistan will descend into chaos."

Bhutto's assassination at a rally in Rawalpindi pushes Pakistan closer to the chaos she feared. "Pakistan was facing serious political instability even before this happened," says Washington military analyst Anthony Cordesman. "There is no question this event makes it worse."

The Bush administration, with senior officials still scattered after the Christmas break, was scrambling to assess the situation. President Bush, vacationing in Crawford, Texas, was told of the murder at his usual morning brief. He emerged later to condemn "this cowardly act by murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan's democracy."

Reconciliation and democracy were the administration's prescription for Pakistan. In background briefings over the past couple of months, State Department officials have been upfront about Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's thinking. Rice was convinced that stability in Pakistan required a power-sharing accord between President Pervez Musharraf and the exiled Benazir Bhutto, perhaps the country's most popular civilian political leader. It was administration pressure—along with promises of additional U.S. aid—that persuaded Musharraf to allow Bhutto to return from her eight-year exile in October. And it took Rice's personal dialogue with Bhutto to persuade Bhutto that some form of power sharing with Musharraf offered the best option for stability in Pakistan. A privately negotiated deal to this end between Musharraf and Bhutto broke down. But the other strand of Rice's policy—to persuade Musharraf to doff his military uniform, cede control of the army (at least formally), and rule as an elected civilian president—had worked. Musharraf resigned as army chief of staff at the end of November. And recent polls suggested the scheduled Jan. 8 elections would give Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party a working majority of seats in parliament, duly making Bhutto prime minister—and sealing the Musharraf-Bhutto partnership that was Rice's goal.

This strategy died with Bhutto. With the current unrest, elections are unlikely to be held as scheduled. And Bhutto, the longtime "chairperson for life" of the Pakistan People's Party, leaves no clear successor in the party. Meanwhile, the other main opposition leader, Nawaz Sharif—like Bhutto a former prime minister and like Bhutto a recent return from exile—is still forbidden under Pakistani law from taking office again. Besides, Sharif and Musharraf loathe and distrust each other. (Whereas Bhutto had established a real, if wary, relationship with Musharraf.)

In the hours after Bhutto's death, administration officials were teleconferencing, sorting out the facts of the assassination and starting to shape a response. "We're all scrambling," said one midlevel Defense Department official involved in the effort to find out more and to assess the possible consequences. "What everyone agrees is that nothing looks good," he added. But perhaps the administration should have already had a postassassination plan in place: the killing of Benazir Bhutto was always in the cards. Bhutto realized the risk. In her frequent visits to Washington last fall—before her return to Pakistan—she confronted the risk with a certain stoic pride. "Death has always been the price my family has paid," she said at one dinner gathering. "My father was murdered. My two brothers were assassinated. I know there will be those who will want to kill me. But I have a duty to the people of Pakistan."