Bhutto Assassination Signals Deep-running Political Rift that Could Destabilize Pakistan

Fmr. Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto, whose father was executed in the process of a military coup in the 1970s, and who has said she remained "broken" by what had happened to her during 5 years in military prison, was assassinated Thursday, while campaigning to restore free elections to her country. She had been the first woman elected PM in a Muslim country and had sworn she would combat radical fundamentalism and end the cycle of military takeovers.

Since her return to Pakistan in October, she has faced an attempt on her life that killed over 100 supporters, multiple incidents of house arrest, the suspension of the Constitution, martial law and the arbitrary replacement of several supreme court justices by then military leader Gen. Pervez Musharraf. While Pres. Musharraf himself claimed he had surrounded her home with more than 4,000 police and concrete barricades "for her own safety", Bhutto had accused several high-ranking members of Musharraf's security apparatus of ties to fundamentalist militia in the Northwest of the country.

Bhutto has said repeatedly that she returned to Pakistan knowing it would put her life at risk, but that she could not live comfortably in exile while she watched a major threat to her nation gather force and potentially destroy hopes for the restoration of democracy and the rule of law. She was considered the favorite to win the premiership in January elections, slated to be held after much wrangling, international pressure, Musharraf's resigning as military chief and the subsequent lifting of martial law.

Now, the entire global community must face the harsh reality that Benazir Bhutto's assassination poses a very serious threat to regional stability, and could plunge Pakistan into a confused multi-faceted power-struggle in which democracy is likely to lose out to authoritarian measures, which will be justified as an attempt to secuure Pakistan's nuclear weapons against radical Islamist militia groups.

In the US, condemnation of the assassination is near universal, and political and security analysts are warning of the dangers that could emerge either from "ignoring the threat" posed by radical groups that may have been responsible and by the Musharraf government's duplicity in both countering and collaborating with these insurgent elements, or by taking too aggressive a stance against any element internal to Pakistan's domestic political struggles.

Concern is widespread among governments that have backed Gen. Musharraf's regime that his transition to democracy has been slow and clumsy, or even halting and contrary, while his dealmaking with radical militia groups has contributed to their taking root and being emboldened across the poorly policed northwest border region.

In responsible political and diplomatic circles, pressure will be heavy on Pres. Musharraf to find and to subject to serious, open criminal prosecution those responsible, even should they be members of his top-level security establishment, as some Bhutto supporters allege.

That group is often viewed with suspicion both by democrats and by those radical insurgents most opposed to an open democratic state in Pakistan, and demonstrating the will to counter such elements could give the government the credibility it needs to work with opposition leaders and to effectively stabilize the remote border regions. Though at present, many fear the Musharraf government is too heavily reliant on the strong-arm support of rogue elements in the security establishment.