Times of Crisis
August 11th, 2008All the turmoil in Georgia and China — quick walkthrough: here is a history lesson on the roots of the Georgian-Russian conflict; here is John McCain’s declaration that Russia faces “severe fallout” over this invasion; and here is the latest news out of Georgia: the Russians have opened a second, bloody front; on the other hand, there have been terrorist attacks all over China during these Olympic games, which you can read about here and here, for instance — has taken away media attention from the potentially cataclysmic situation in Pakistan.
Pervez Musharraf faces impeachment and is once again under attack from al-Qaeda. He has been accused of pocketing millions of dollars in US aid that was supposed to go to the good cause of killing terrorists, which he denies, and he refuses to resign. Musharraf has been able to survive numerous crisis before but it does not appear as if he has any outs left in this ballgame. This is unfortunate for the world not because Musharraf is a particularly helpful ally but because he is serviceable as a “moderate” of sorts in Pakistan. Heaven help the West if he falls and al-Qaeda sympathizers take over, which is a painfully real possibility as that country is full of them and it has nuclear weapons. There are very “few” leadership alternatives that would be good for us and by extension the rest of the World, and that’s terrifying to me.