Centerfield

Musharraf Declares State of Emergency

A while back, I wrote in this thread that I thought it was no longer in our interest going forward to support Musharraf because he was making secularism look bad, and because he's fakled to even slow any of the causes keeping extremism strong in Pakistan.

The Pakistani public education system is still hopeless as competition for madrassas, the SiS is still helping terror groups, and he's failed to change anything about the tribal regions. The only tool he's used is the military, and he's done that in a way exactly the conventional, stupid way Pakistani extremists could wish for. They're faring embarrassingly badly in the tribal regions.

Here's a test for Condy Rice and the Bush Administration: an opportunity to see the same thing. There is some hope they're on the same page, since Musharraf is known to have postponed this move once before after a conversation with Ms Rice.