Meanwhile, other parts of the world teeter

For many people, Iraq is (understandably) the "meanwhile." That is, there's all sorts of new stuff always coming up in politics, let alone regular life, and Iraq is a constant, always vaguely in the news and occasionally getting "better" or "worse" for a while during the overall downward trend. For me, though, because I work on and write about Iraq and the Middle East all the time, the rest of the international system often becomes the meanwhile.

Pakistan is one of those nations that would get much more attention if this administration had not embroiled us in a massive strategic and human disaster in Iraq. My conception of Pakistan generally put it in a category similar to Saudi Arabia: a kind of fuzzy dictatorship that we liked because the leadership is more favorable to U.S. interests (security, primarily) than would be the governmental amalgam of democratic processes. Pakistan has a restive Islamist population, but also lacks many of the problems inherent with the rentier states of the Middle East. Perhaps, many observers hoped, Musharraf would be the Pakistani Ataturk, and he talked about economic development, promised to fight corruption, and, in a landmark speech in 2002, denounced Islamic extremism.

But Ilan at DemocracyArsenal makes a different comparison, saying Musharraf's current position is not unlike that of the Shah in 1970s Iran. If Musharraf is indeed losing his grip on his nation, it's something to not only watch closely, but to think about in terms of a potential post-Musharraf situation. We have a huge strategic interest in the future of Pakistan (whose location, demographics, and nuclear arsenal give it much potential for either good or disaster) and the internal rumblings, concurrent with Musharraf's recent Putin-esque power moves, are significant warning signs.