One Vote Against a Bhutto Deal

Benazir Bhutto may be perceived as a champion of democracy, but a US-promoted third rise to power for the ousted prime minister would be a disaster for Pakistan, Bhutto’s niece writes in the LA Times. Bhutto “talks of democracy while asking to be brought to power by a military dictator,” says Fatima Bhutto, a poet and writer who lives in Karachi.

Bhutto writes that she has personal reasons to fear her aunt’s presence in Pakistan—her father, a vocal critic of his sister’s politics, was assassinated in 1996 while his sister was PM. But she says she is not alone: “The Islamists are waiting at the gate. They have been waiting for confirmation that the reforms for which the Pakistani people have been struggling have been a farce, propped up by the White House.” (More Benazir Bhutto stories.)