Bush's Final Year

Jay Solomon writes in the Wall Street Journal that in the wake of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto's assassination last week, "some of her aides are charging the U.S. didn't do enough to protect the former prime minister after she returned to Pakistan.

"They note that the Bush administration played a central role in brokering an agreement with Mr. Musharraf that allowed her return after an eight-year exile. And they say Washington should have done more to guarantee her safety once she was on the ground and facing numerous threats."

Helene Cooper and Steven Lee Myers wrote in the New York Times last week: "The assassination of Benazir Bhutto on Thursday left in ruins the delicate diplomatic effort the Bush administration had pursued in the past year to reconcile Pakistan's deeply divided political factions. Now it is scrambling to sort through ever more limited options, as American influence on Pakistan's internal affairs continues to decline. . . .

"The assassination highlighted, in spectacular fashion, the failure of two of President Bush's main objectives in the region: his quest to bring democracy to the Muslim world, and his drive to force out the Islamist militants who have hung on tenaciously in Pakistan, the nuclear-armed state considered ground zero in President Bush's fight against terrorism, despite the administration's long-running effort to root out Al Qaeda from the Pakistan-Afghanistan border."

Robin Wright and Glenn Kessler wrote in The Washington Post: "For Benazir Bhutto, the decision to return to Pakistan was sealed during a telephone call from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice just a week before Bhutto flew home in October. The call culminated more than a year of secret diplomacy -- and came only when it became clear that the heir to Pakistan's most powerful political dynasty was the only one who could bail out Washington's key ally in the battle against terrorism."

Peter W. Galbraith writes in a Washington Post op-ed that Bush should "demand an international investigation of the Bhutto killing, since Musharraf's government cannot be trusted to do an honest probe. And President Bush should choose his words more carefully. He does not help matters by repeatedly describing Musharraf as a man of his word. Such assertions make the United States look either gullible or cynical. Neither is a good approach to a failed state with at least 70 nuclear weapons and no one clearly in charge -- and, with Bhutto's death, no obvious hope on the horizon."

Andrew J. Bacevich writes in a Los Angeles Times op-ed: "Faced with the prospect of 'losing' Pakistan, what should the world's sole superpower do? Despite Musharraf's flaws, should Washington back him to the hilt as the only alternative to chaos? Or should Bush commit the United States without reservation to building a strong democracy in Pakistan?

"To pose such questions is to presume that decisions made in Washington will decisively influence the course of events in Islamabad. Yet the lesson to be drawn from the developments of the last several days -- and from U.S. involvement in Pakistan over the course of decades -- suggests just the opposite: The United States has next to no ability to determine Pakistan's fate. . . .

"At the beginning of his second term, Bush spoke confidently of the United States sponsoring a global democratic revolution 'with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.' Ever since that hopeful moment, developments across the greater Middle East -- above all, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and on the West Bank -- have exposed the very real limits of U.S. wisdom and power.

"Now the virtual impotence of the U.S. in the face of the crisis enveloping Pakistan -- along with its complicity in creating that crisis -- ought to discredit once and for all any notions of America fixing the world's ills."

The Torture Tapes

Scott Shane and Mark Mazzetti reported in the Sunday New York Times that the CIA apparently destroyed videotapes of its agents torturing terror suspects for fear that their release would hurt the agency's image.

Instead, of course: "To the already fierce controversy over whether the Bush administration authorized torture has been added the specter of a cover-up. . . .