Chickens are coming home to roost

What has happened during the past 48 hours in Pakistan is the most dramatic proof we've had to date that the administration's foreign policy is an area of near-total failure.  Bush, Cheney and Rice couldn't stop Musharraf.

Washington's lack of influence ...was palpable. On Friday, both Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in Turkey for talks on Iraq, and Adm. William J. Fallon, the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, had warned Musharraf not to impose emergency rule. But Musharraf didn't even wait for Fallon, who was in Pakistan, to leave the country before making his declaration.

Foreign policy experts said there were few steps the administration could take to pressure Musharraf to change course.

"I don't know what the U.S. can do," said Wendy Chamberlain, a former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan.

Pakistan has, for years, been the recipient of one of the US's largest aid packages while also being one of our biggest embarrassments.  The effort to eliminate some of that embarrassment, now, by pushing Musharraf towards constitutional democracy and a "power-sharing alliance" with Benazir Bhutto has failed.  The imposition of emergency rule may be in response to -- and the end of -- any effort by Bhutto to cooperate with the Musharraf regime in democratizing Pakistan.

Whatever happens, experts say that General Musharraf’s decision was not good news for the Bush administration Even if Pakistan does get back on the path to democracy, Saturday’s action will likely tarnish the Pakistani leader, as well as the legitimacy of any election organized by his government.

Walter Russell Mead, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the current situation could easily plunge Pakistan into chaos, leading to an increase in violence by Islamic fundamentalists or provoking demonstrations by opposition political parties.

“You could have chaos in the street, or a situation where it would be suicidal for Bhutto to try to participate in the process,” he said, adding, “Either of those scenarios puts the U.S. in a very difficult position.”