Article

2007-12-27 India-Pakistan

Mark Steyn: "Benazir Bhutto's return to Pakistan had a mad recklessness about it"

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by Mike 2007-12-27 11:14|| || Front Page|| [11 views ] Top

#1 Pakistan is about to come apart. I see the Afghanistanization or Balkanization of it. We might need to snatch a portion of the country to keep Afghanistan supplied. The Islam War is far from over and about to head into the next chapter.

Posted by US Army">US Army 2007-12-27 11:31|| 2007-12-27 11:31|| Front Page Top

#2 If The Pure turn to fighting amongst themselves, they won't have as much attention for adventuring in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Perhaps we should consider establishing new supply lines from Iraq through Iran...

/yes, I know it's an awful lot harder for our guys to do than for me to say. But it looks so neat on the map!

Posted by trailing wife">trailing wife 2007-12-27 11:47|| 2007-12-27 11:47|| Front Page Top

#3 State Department's idea....

Posted by danking70 2007-12-27 12:06|| 2007-12-27 12:06|| Front Page Top

#4 If Rice doesn't get booted from State for this disaster, I don't know what will get her fired.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2007-12-27 12:30|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2007-12-27 12:30|| Front Page Top

#5 A typical Steynian off-the-cuff comment - brilliant stuff. One can't find anything close to it in the New York Times or the Washington Post. A pity, that.

Posted by mrp 2007-12-27 13:33|| 2007-12-27 13:33|| Front Page Top

#6 Right on that MRP. Classic Steyn distillation.

Posted by Classical_Liberal 2007-12-27 14:39|| 2007-12-27 14:39|| Front Page Top

#7 Steyn has additional thoughts here:

When you invent an artificial country, you better be sure that your artificial identity will stick. Pakistan today is not what the British and Jinnah had in mind, nor Ayub Khan, nor Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, nor General Zia, nor Nawaz Sharif. Instead, across 60 years, their failures incubated an identity that would have seemed utterly deranged to even the more excitable Punjabi Muslims of the early 1940s. As Andy noted earlier, according to one recent poll, 46% of Pakistanis support Osama bin Laden.

What should be easy to agree is that Pakistan is getting worse. Even those who thought at the time that its creation was one of the most unnecessary mistakes in British imperial policy wouldn't have predicted that a mere half-century later it would be a coup-prone nuclear basket-case exporting both its tribal marriage customs and irredentist jihadism to the heart of the western world. Fifty years ago, Pakistanis emigrating to England and Canada brought with them an essentially Britannic education and a moderate Sufi Islam that was not a barrier to integration. Today they bring a narrow madrassah education and Deobandi Islam, which is deeply hostile to assimilation. In other words, what a "Pakistani" is is profoundly different. I liked Benazir Bhutto very much, but she represented Pakistan's past, and her murder is a horrible confirmation of that fact.

Posted by Mike 2007-12-27 18:00|| 2007-12-27 18:00|| Front Page Top

#8 Only 46% of Pakistanis support Osama bin Ladin? I thought it was more like 85%. I guess the rest think Osama's too Westernized, not Muslim enough, something like that.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2007-12-27 21:10|| 2007-12-27 21:10|| Front Page Top

23:58 Seafarious
23:56 twobyfour
23:54 JosephMendiola
23:47 JosephMendiola
23:44 JosephMendiola
23:39 JosephMendiola
23:37 twobyfour
23:33 JosephMendiola
23:31 JosephMendiola
23:29 JosephMendiola
23:28 JosephMendiola
23:27 3dc
23:25 JosephMendiola
23:23 twobyfour
23:16 Barbara Skolaut
23:11 Frank G
23:07 trailing wife
23:02 trailing wife
22:59 trailing wife
22:55 twobyfour
22:54 Frank G
22:48 Frank G
22:45 twobyfour
22:37 Frank G