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If Musharraf Forced Out, Will Obama Bomb?

From the Wall Street Journal:

Musharraf to Leave Office

By ZAHID HUSSAIN and PETER WONACOTT
August 14, 2008

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf is expected to leave office in the next few days before Pakistan’s Parliament takes up impeachment proceedings against him after the president’s aides and officials of Pakistan’s leading political party reached a breakthrough in secret talks designed to ease Mr. Musharraf’s departure from office, according to a person familiar with the situation.

“Musharraf will neither face impeachment nor be prosecuted,” this person said. Mr. Musharraf is expected to step down once a guarantee of safe passage and immunity from prosecution has been struck. “We expect a major development in the next 48 hours,” the person said…

Secret talks between Mr. Musharraf’s aides and PPP officials began last week after the military, which so far has stayed out of the political fray, made it clear they would not allow their former chief to be humiliated. Mr. Musharraf stepped down as army chief when he took up his new presidential term.

The leadership of the military, however, has started to come to the conclusion that Mr. Musharraf would not be able to remain in office given the groundswell of political opinion against him. Mr. Musharraf has consistently said he will fight the impeachment charges and as recently as Wednesday night at a gathering at the presidential palace told supporters he would contest and win, according to people who attended.

Some continued to suggest that Mr. Musharraf wouldn’t be driven from office. Muhammad Intikhab Khan, a top official in the pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League (Q), said he believed the president would fight impeachment. He said the president told a group on Wednesday of about 40 officials that he would “fight the impeachment” and believed he still had the votes to prevail. “The question — is he going to quit, no he’s not going to,” Mr. Khan said.

But Mr. Musharraf’s calls for reconciliation and political stability, made in a speech late Wednesday on the eve of Pakistan’s independence day, were rejected by coalition officials Thursday and an increasing number of political allies also have deserted him. Sherry Rehman, Minister of Information, said impeachment proceedings would begin Monday or Tuesday. She said the government had 325 votes, or a 30-vote cushion to impeach the president. “There’s no turning back from this process,” she said…

Perhaps this is just wishful thinking from this unnamed “person.”

But if this does come to pass, we hope the Democrats and their media minions will be happy with nuclear weapons controlled by the Taliban.

Of course if anything untoward happens, it will naturally be Bush’s fault.

But will Mr. Obama follow through on his vow to bomb Pakistan’s nukes?

From a September 2004 Chicago Tribune article we re-posted back in March: 

Obama would consider missile strikes on Iran

By David Mendell, Tribune staff reporter

September 25, 2004

As for Pakistan, Obama said that if President Pervez Musharraf were to lose power in a coup, the United States similarly might have to consider military action in that country to destroy nuclear weapons it already possesses. Musharraf’s troops are battling hundreds of well-armed foreign militants and Pakistani tribesmen in increasingly violent confrontations.

Obama said that violent Islamic extremists are a vastly different brand of foe than was the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and they must be treated differently.

“With the Soviet Union, you did get the sense that they were operating on a model that we could comprehend in terms of, they don’t want to be blown up, we don’t want to be blown up, so you do game theory and calculate ways to contain,” Obama said. “I think there are certain elements within the Islamic world right now that don’t make those same calculations.

“… I think there are elements within Pakistan right now–if Musharraf is overthrown and they took over, I think we would have to consider going in and taking those bombs out, because I don’t think we can make the same assumptions about how they calculate risks.”

So will President Obama bomb Pakistan?

Or will this be another promise broken?

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This article was posted by Steve Gilbert on Thursday, August 14th, 2008 at 1:06 pm. You can leave a response.

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