WASHINGTON — The assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has dealt a severe blow to U.S. efforts to restore stability in a turbulent, nuclear-armed Islamic nation that has been a critical ally in the war on terror.
While not entirely dependent on Bhutto, recent Bush administration policy on Pakistan had focused heavily on promoting reconciliation between the secular opposition leader who had been dogged by corruption allegations and Pakistan’s increasingly unpopular president, Pervez Musharraf, ahead of parliamentary elections set for January.
In Washington and Islamabad, U.S. diplomats urged that Jan. 8 elections should not be postponed and strongly advised against a reimposition of emergency rule that Musharraf had lifted just weeks ago.
FBI and Homeland Security officials sent a bulletin late Thursday to U.S. law enforcement agencies citing Islamist Web sites as saying al-Qaida had claimed responsibility for the attack and that the group’s No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, had planned it.
The intelligence community is using its resources to determine who was behind the Bhutto assassination, Director of National Intelligence spokesman Ross Feinstein said. But, he said, “we’re in no position right now to confirm who may have been responsible for the attack.”
The United States has poured billions of dollars in financial assistance into Pakistan since Sept. 11, 2001, when Musharraf made a calculated decision to align his government with Washington in its pursuit of al-Qaida and the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan. That move is blamed for several unsuccessful assassination attempts on him.
But it was not immediately clear what, if any, influence Washington might have or whether Bhutto’s death would drive the United States into a deeper embrace of Musharraf, whom some believe offers the best chance for Pakistani stability despite his democratic shortcomings.
“This latest tragedy is likely to reinforce beliefs that Pakistan is a dangerous, messy place and potentially very unstable and fragile and that they need to cling to Musharraf even more than they did in the past,” said Daniel Markey, who left the State Department this year and is now a senior fellow at the private Council on Foreign Relations.
“The weight of the administration is still convinced that Musharraf is a helpful rather than a harmful figure,” he said.
Under heavy U.S. pressure, Musharraf resigned as army chief and earlier this month lifted emergency rule to prepare for the elections. Bhutto’s return and ability to run for parliament had been a cornerstone of Bush’s policy in Pakistan.
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