War and Conflict Journal

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan today provoked her
supporters to riot in the streets. This political murder comes just
weeks ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for January. While
Bhutto and her party did not have a lock on winning the coming
election, she represented a valid and legitimate challenger to the
dictatorship of President Pervez
Musharraf. With her death, most likely at the hands of al-Qaida
or a related Islamist group, the chance for Pakistan to emerge from
its current dark period of dictatorship, rebellion, and political
chaos is now quite remote.

An ironic bit of trivia which shows the depth to which political
violence has impacted Pakistan’s relatively short history as an
independent country:

Benazir Bhutto’s final speech took place in a park named
   after the nation’s first Prime Minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, who was
   himself assassinated at that park on October 16, 1951. In the
   northern part of the city of Rawalpindi, Benazir Bhutto’s father,
   former President and Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was
   executed by hanging on April 4, 1979. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had been
   overthrown in a military coup in 1977 and replaced by General
   Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. Pakistan’s current dictator, Pervez
   Musharraf, survived two assassination attempts in Rawalpindi in
   2003.

Pakistan’s political system is frayed to the breaking point. What
happens after that system (in a nation with a nuclear weapons
stockpile), totally breaks down, is a scenario quite unpleasant to
imagine.

Click
here for the latest news on Bhutto’s death and the situation in
Pakistan.