I'm typically more interested in last week's news than this week's. I prefer to read about things after there's been enough time to think them through, and if in the process I miss out on details that stopped being interesting after the first day or two, so much the better. Thus I'm only partially familiar with what has happened in Pakistan and not familiar at all with who's been saying what about it among American politicians.

But we've seen this before, and we'll see it again. Although the declaration of emergency was not inevitable and one would have been hard pressed to predict the exact timing of it, it's been clear for several months — years even — that something like this was likely to happen. (Just as it's clear now that some time in the intermediate future we could see a violent overthrow of the Saudi monarchy or a mass popular uprising against Egypt's corrupt and abusive government.)

Why is it so difficult for America to stand up for its political principles? Whenever pro-interventionist Americans trumpet our aggressive global foreign policy there are always invocations of our supposed political ideals. We want to spread democracy across the world, we say. But then when there's a clear-cut case of choosing between democracy and a convenient authoritarian we dither. Why?

Every half a generation we get a chance to answer this question to the world. We got it wrong in Iran in 1979, and we got it wrong in Algeria in 1991. Can we please get it right this time?

This should not be a difficult question to answer. We believe in the rule of law, we believe in democracy, we believe in free speech. Musharraf is now standing in opposition to all three. He may have been our ally in the past, and we don't have to repudiate that, but we simply can't support him now. He should abide by the constitution of his country, step down from his post as promptly as possible, and proper elections should be held.

And the President of the United States should say that.

11:24:27 PM  [permalink]  comment []