Okay…never held political office, irresponsible playboy married into wealth, accused of corruption but no one could produce the smoking gun, and backed by the Bush Administration…why it must be the new President of Pakistan!
Proving that even after half a century of putting guys like Saddam Hussein into power, only to regret the decision a few years later, the U.S. has thrown its complete support behind the husband of assassinated Pakistani political leader Benazir Bhutto, Asif Ali Zardari. Though it’s been pretty damn hard to find out what’s been going on in the Real World all summer between Michael Phelps, Sarah Palin and hurricane season, you may have briefly heard that Our Sainted Ally in the Global War On Terror, Pervez Musharraf was pressured into resigning his office a couple of weeks ago and that there was much debate about whether to impeach him if he didn’t step down. It’s still believed that Mushy was behind the killing of Bhutto last year, and that he is playing fast and loose with the Americans and the Taliban, all while squashing constitutional rule in Pakistan. You know, basic tenets of democracy as defined by the Bush Administration.
Well now they’ve got themselves quite a winner with Zardari. He’s known as “Mr. Ten Percent” in Islamabad for insisting on skimming every deal he touches and using the money to build and maintain his palatial residences in England. Much of the criticism levelled at Benzair Bhutto came from simply being married to this scumbag and personally benefitting from his corrupt ways. This article at The Atlantic by Robert D. Kaplan lays out ther story of Asif Ali Zardari, and if the guy weren’t already setting up shop in the Presidential Palace in Pakistan, he would have made a GREAT substitute for Sarah Palin on the Republican ticket.
I have no doubt that if McCain wins, we’ll be up to our necks with this guy for a long time. If Obama wins…well, time will tell, but I’d say it’s a 50-50 proposition that we’ll still be supporting him in 2009. We just never seem to learn from our foreign policy mistakes.
