The Moustache And The Military

Me on Pakistan, yesterday:

It seems obvious to me. This is our brilliant plan in Pakistan: to stand by and possibly allow a military coup to take over the country because it's the only way to convince the Pakistani Army to take out the Taliban.

Former Bushie UN Ambassador John Bolton, today:

To prevent catastrophe will require considerable American effort and unquestionably provoke resistance from many Pakistanis, often for widely differing reasons. We must strengthen pro-American elements in Pakistan's military so they can purge dangerous Islamicists from their ranks; roll back Taliban advances; and, together with our increased efforts in Afghanistan, decisively defeat the militants on either side of the border. This may mean stifling some of our democratic squeamishness and acquiescing in a Pakistani military takeover, if the civilian government melts before radical pressures. So be it.

Hate to say I told you so, but.

In all seriousness if Obama is listening to the neo-cons on this, we have a problem. In fact, if Gen. Petraeus is honestly saying "We should consider engineering a coup to let the military take over in order to secure Pakistan's nukes" then we're in far, far deeper trouble in Pakistan right now than anyone imagined. Bolton is saying that Musharraf was a mistake, but that the current democratically elected civilian government is worse because it can't convince the Army to go fight the Taliban.

In other words, we don't need democracy in Pakistan in the Bolton view. We just need them to kill who we tell them to kill.