McCain and Musharraf
The similarities are striking. They both are enthralled with the military, support a hawkish, confrontational foreign policy, both view the military model of society as desirable and have tried to cement their support around the war on terrorism. So I guess it was no surprise that in the midst of the Bhutto assassination and Musharaff’s virtual coup, McCain stood by the dictator:
McCain was outspoken in his defense of Musharraf, who has had to contend with criticisms today from others on the campaign trail, such as Bill Richardson’s call for a curtailing of U.S. aid to Pakistan. “I continue to believe Musharraf has done a pretty good job, done a lot of the things that we wanted him to do,” McCain said, citing Musharraf’s decision to relinquish his military post, to call elections, and to end martial law. He added, “I would remind some of my fellow Americans that Benazir Bhutto and [former prime minister Nawaz] Sharif presided over failed states, there was corruption, there was a failed state in Pakistan when Musharraf took charge…I would like to give Musharraf some credit for taking the measures that we asked him to do.”
Interestingly, after pursuing McCain’s campaign press releases, I couldn’t find anything relating to the Pakistani elections Does McCain think that Musharraf is still doing a “pretty good job” or that his successor will preside over “failed states”? He should at least say something about his wannabe puppet being so firmly rebuked by his own people.
It’s also interesting that in this McCain quote, he basically says that despite Nawaz Sharif and Bhutto being elected democratically and Musharraf seizing power from Sharif in a straight-up military coup, it’s OK because Sharif and Bhutto had “presided over failed states.” While this may appear to be unimportant rhetoric, a desire to deal with “failed” or “rogue” states is really at the center of McCain’s foreign policy. In the 2000 campaign, the main foreign policy difference between Bush and McCain was that Bush supported a “humble” foreign policy and disdained nation building while McCain was able to win the support of neoconservatives and the Weekly Standard by supporting a policy of “rogue-state rollback” Simply, his desire for unilateral military intervention and his sanguine view of Musharraf’s rule are really just part of an eternal golden braid of militarism.
