One of the worst gaffes of my political career was a thwarted attempt to kiss
Benazir Bhutto. We had attended a meeting together and, although we had met
just a few times, she had greeted me warmly as an old friend. So when it
came to saying goodbye I went to kiss her on both cheeks, as I would with
most colleagues of the opposite sex. She almost screamed and slipped free,
making it clear that such physical proximity was wholly inappropriate.
If my cultural insensitivity has any excuse, it is that she was so evidently
at ease in the West. She was my age and we all knew of her when she became
president of the Oxford Union. Photographs confirm that in those days she
left her head uncovered.
I liked her. After she had been prime minister of Pakistan she had the
authority of those who have held high office and mixed as an equal with
other world leaders. She had presence and dignity but was approachable and
modest. I was stunned by how pro-western she was. Despite the many occasions
when America ignored expert advice and made disastrous policy errors in
Iraq, she was reluctant to condemn. Terror was a threat to Pakistan and to
us all, so we had to stick together.
An Al-Qaeda spokesman has claimed responsibility for her murder, describing
her as a “precious American asset”.
Whether or not the claim is genuine, the
description of Bhutto seems apt. She was, from the West’s point of view,
that unusual thing: a pro-American Pakistani democratic politician with a
chance of gaining power. The United States and its allies urged her to
return, brokered a deal between her and President Pervez Musharraf (despite
the potential damage to her credibility) and wished for her electoral
success.
With so much riding on her, how was she left so exposed to assassination?
Fingers have been pointed at Musharraf for, at a minimum, not protecting her
better. But how did the Americans, or for that matter the British, allow her
to return to Pakistan without a proper security team? After she was so
nearly killed on the day of her homecoming, no lessons were learnt. The
video footage of her last moments shows that the crowd was allowed to surge
around her vehicle. The media were given access to her without their
equipment being scanned.
Pakistan may be in turmoil now, but western foreign policy lies in tatters
too. The extremists have been handed a propaganda coup and the Americans
have no candidate left in the Pakistani elections, which may still be held
just over a week from now. True, Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s party may do
well, perhaps better than if she were alive, but she was the party and her
successor is unlikely to have her mass appeal and may have different
policies.
Maybe western policy rested too much hope on Bhutto. She had left office
during her second term as prime minister, accused of corruption. Her
democratic credentials were therefore tarnished even before the recent pact
with Musharraf. If the Americans had grown impatient with the Pakistani
president’s failure to control terror at home or the export of fighters to
the Taliban in Afghanistan, what hope was there that Bhutto would do better?
Had she won office, there is no certainty that she would have been a success.
Her two administrations were fairly chaotic. She deserves huge credit for
being the first woman leader of a Muslim country, but it seems unlikely that
her authority over Pakistan’s armed forces could have exceeded that of the
general in his prime. She argued that the restoration of democracy to
Pakistan would deprive the extremists of legitimacy, but you would not want
to bet too much on such wishful thinking.
America looks incompetent. It undermined its own plan by allowing Bhutto to be
so easily killed and the plan was, in any case, half-baked.
Across the region, the policy of America and its allies looks muddled. In Iraq
the American surge of troops into Baghdad has produced tangible improvements
in security, but meanwhile Britain is hastening to withdraw from the south,
leaving behind a messy situation.
In Afghanistan, the territory from which Al-Qaeda launched the September 11
attacks, the Nato alliance has fallen apart. While America and Britain are
battling the Taliban, Germany and other European allies stand on the
side-lines, apparently unconvinced that the war can be won. Gordon Brown
told parliament earlier this month that we do not negotiate with the
Taliban. Of course we do. It is a broad spectrum of forces and we engage
with those that we hope to turn to support the Afghan government, as the
American ambassador to Kabul confirmed last week.
The United States continues to denounce Iran for its moves towards acquiring
nuclear weapons. What America can do about it, given the political capital
that it has expended on Iraq, is unclear. But it is evident that the United
States took no action while Pakistan built the first Muslim nuclear bomb.
The father of that weapons programme, Dr A Q Khan, passed atomic secrets to
Iran, Libya and North Korea. His activities over many years must have been
well known to the authorities or supported by them. Yet only five years
after Musharraf came to power was Khan exposed. Then he was promptly
pardoned. According to a report from the International Institute for
Strategic Studies, Khan’s proliferation network remains in being.
It is naive to expect from the democracies a moral foreign policy or even
absolute consistency. But glaring double standards supply easy propaganda to
our enemies and make it much harder for the allies to win support from their
electorates.
To his credit Tony Blair went on explaining his belligerent foreign policy in
the teeth of mounting public opposition. Brown is happy to appear with the
troops but uses the language of soft options. He speaks of the need to
rebuild Afghanistan rather than the necessity of defeating the Taliban in
battle and he has left the Iraqis to defend themselves. Those lines may make
his life easier, but they fail to explain to the British public why the
government thinks it worthwhile to expose our armed forces to great danger.
In Downing Street we have a new prime minister, one who steered clear of
difficult foreign policy issues throughout the previous decade. In the White
House George W Bush is discredited by the woeful blunders committed by
Donald Rumsfeld. As Bhutto’s murder signals increased danger, on neither
side of the Atlantic can we have much confidence in the foreign policy
judgment of our elected leaders.
Even so, in the wake of Bhutto’s death, let me be unfashionable and praise
politicians. She was a woman of extraordinary courage. She achieved huge
success early in life. Later she settled into a relatively quiet existence
with her young family and could have expected to live for many years. She
put it all on the line by returning to Pakistan. The danger was fully
apparent to her, all the more so after the bombs that massacred her
supporters and so nearly killed her in October.
Her father was hanged, one brother was killed in a shootout and another died
in murky circumstances, possibly poisoned. The Bhutto family had sacrificed
enough. Some will say that ambition persuaded her to return. Perhaps it was
more a sense of duty, or an anxiety to redeem herself following the
allegations of corruption. Whatever it was, she was brave to campaign every
day, knowing that any moment could be her last.
Other political dynasties have also paid an enormous price, such as the
Kennedy family in America and the Gandhis in India. Margaret Thatcher nearly
lost her life for resisting the IRA and Norman Tebbit’s wife Margaret was
crippled in that attack on the Conservative party in Brighton. Blair could
at any time have been an assassin’s target – indeed, could be still, given
his role in Middle East peace-making.
As we enter 2008, the global political outlook is gloomy. But Bhutto’s death
reminds us that there are men and women ready to stand for election and even
lay down their lives. That gives me a kind of hope.
