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December 27, 2007

Security Interests & The Election After Assassination

FOX News Special Report With Brit Hume

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PERVEZ MUSHARRAF, PAKISTANI PRESIDENT: Today, after this tragic incident, I want to express my firm resolve. And I also seek solidarity from the nation and cooperation and help. We will not rest until we eliminate the terrorists and rout them out.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: The United States strongly condemns this cowardly act by murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan's democracy. Those who committed this crime must be brought to justice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: That was Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and, obviously, President Bush speaking about the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, a Pakistan opposition figure killed today, former prime minister assassinated in Pakistan.

Interestingly, late October, she wrote an e-mail to one of her attorneys here in Washington. We will read from that right now.

"Nothing will, god willing, happen. I just wanted you to know that if it does, in addition to the names of my letter to Musharraf of October 16, I will hold Musharraf responsible. I have been made to feel insecure by his minions, and there is no way what is happening in terms of stopping me from private cars, or using tinted windows or jammers, or for police mobiles to cover all sides could happen without him."

So, who is behind this, and what does this all mean for the U.S.?

Some analytical observations from Fred Barnes, Executive Editor of "The Weekly Standard," Mort Kondracke, Executive Editor of "Roll Call," and syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer, FOX News contributors all.

First of all, Charles, let's talk about the implications for Pakistan and the chaos that we saw on the streets today. What is next for Pakistan?

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Well, this is a catastrophe because she was indispensable. The reason that we had encouraged her to return was because she was the key to legitimizing a new democratic government. And it was working, even though Musharraf had declared martial law, which made it rather difficult.

She had returned, was ahead in the elections. Musharraf had lifted martial law. Her party was ahead. Musharraf had stepped down in the army. There is a new commander in the army who's a friend of ours. And, ultimately, she would have won the election, taken over, and, ultimately, either governed with Musharraf or eased him out.

That was the scenario, and it was all on track.

With her death, there is no one that can take her place. The elections will undoubtedly be postponed.

The only question is will the moderates in the country, the elites, the lawyers and students who are now out on the street demonstrating and protesting and angry and suspecting that Musharraf is involved--although I believe that is extremely unlikely, but you have Islamist elements in the army and secret services who might have infiltrated and done this--but if the democrats don't unite against the extremists, the extremists will win, because if you fracture the moderates, there are enough extremists in the army and the secret services and in the political system that could ultimately take control.

BAIER: Mort, if Al-Qaeda is responsible, even that e-mail that Benazir Bhutto sent will raise the conspiracy theories that Musharraf was somehow complicit.

MORT KONDRACKE, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, ROLL CALL: Either that he was complicit or--her complaint was that he did not provide her with adequate security, which she requested. She wanted international protection. She wanted FBI or the British to provide some sort of security for her, which Musharraf refused to do.

And she was complaining that all the kinds of things about--she wasn't killed by an IED, but she wanted jammers for IED's, for example, which he would not provide her.

Charles is right about America. American policy was based on the idea that we would have a transition here, that she would be--that there would be a power-sharing arrangement. Musharraf would leave, and it would become a stable democracy under her.

There were two things wrong with the American strategy. One, we did not press Musharraf hard enough to hold fair elections in addition to being free elections. On January he was trying to cheat and steal the election by refusing to allow international observers in. And now they will probably be postponed.

The second mistake was that we did not insist that she have adequate security. Members of Congress were pleading with the administration to make sure they got adequate security. The people in the administration that I talked to at the time said they have assured us that- -the Musharraf government has assured us she is getting adequate security. Obviously, it was not adequate.

BAIER: And, Fred, this is obviously a nuclear armed nation. There is a pro-western head of the army, General Kiani, who has taken over- -Ashfaq Kiani--and U.S. officials we talked to say they feel confident that he is controlling the nukes. Yet this is a major, major issue for the U.S.

FRED BARNES, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, WEEKLY STANDARD: It is a scary problem, particularly if the extremists--the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, various Islamic groups, Islamic militants--if they take over the country, the elites in Pakistan can say, well, no, they're not going to have access to nuclear weapons. But they may.

And that would be the ultimate disaster in an occurrence following an occurrence here, which is already a disaster for American foreign policy.

The Bhutto-Musharraf alliance that they were trying to put together was the best hope. It was fragile, but it was the best hope for order and democracy and, particularly, for this, and that is fighting a real war against the Islamists and the Taliban and all the other jihadist groups up in Waziristan, groups that Musharraf said he was going to do something about, but then he didn't.

He negotiated with them but he didn't fight them. He didn't eliminate them. He didn't attack them. He sent some troops up one time.

Bhutto had pledged that she would do that, even using American troops, if necessary. So she was the best hope.

BAIER: All right, that's it for this topic. When we come back with our panel, will the murder of Benazir Bhutto affect the 2008 presidential race with only a week to go until the Iowa caucuses? Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE HUCKABEE, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Certainly, I've had dealings, having been in Pakistan, but I think more importantly, is to have the right principles for the American people.

MCCAIN: I've been to Waziristan. I knew Benazir Bhutto. I know Musharraf very well. And if I were the president of the United States, I would be on the phone right now.

JOHN EDWARDS, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I actually spoke to President Musharraf just a few minutes ago as I was about to come in here, and I urged him to continue this democratization process, how important it was to the Pakistani people.

SEN HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I have known Benazir Bhutto for a dozen years, and I knew her as a leader.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: There you get a little bit of the flavor from the candidates on both sides talking about today's assassination of Benazir Bhutto. So will this change this race with just seven days to go before the Iowa caucuses? Fred, what do you think? Is this a game-changer?

BARNES: I really don't think it is. And rather than bring out the best in the candidates, I think for some of them it brought out the worst in the candidates.

Musharraf thought about John Edwards is on the phone, sir, general. Come to the phone. He wants to tell you to spur democracy more. But, I mean, that didn't amount to much.

The most tortured logic, though, I think was by the Barack Obama campaign that seemed to say because Hillary Clinton had voted for the war in Iraq, and that took attention away from fighting the terrorists in Waziristan and Pakistan and Afghanistan, that they were able to build up and ultimately kill Bhutto today. Did you follow that?

BAIER: Barely.

BARNES: It brought out tortured logic like that.

But I really don't think an event like this--if you've been to Iowa, you'll see. They're basically isolationists, anyway, a lot them-- even the Republicans, not just the Democrats. So I doubt if this will have any real impact.

BAIER: Mort, for somebody like John McCain, for example, potentially he could maybe not use this, but talk about his foreign policy experience.

KONDRACKE: Sure, and I think legitimately so. Republicans generally speaking care more about terrorism and national security than Democrats do. It's higher up on their list of priorities.

So if you're making an argument, and it's a completely justifiable argument, this does remind you that we live in a dangerous world with countries that have nuclear weapons that may not ultimately be our friends, and that sort of thing, and you want somebody with some experience.

The guy who has been claiming the tough on terrorism card all along has been Giuliani. But the more you think about it, the more you'd think that McCain, who not only is tough on terrorism, but also has lots experience and also has good judgment. Look at the Iraq decisions. At every stage of the game, McCain was right about what to do about Iraq when others were wrong.

So I think it probably helps McCain more than anybody else.

BAIER: Well, when a crisis happens across the world in this race, do you think, Charles, it helps the people who have been touting experience and hurts the Obamas and the Huckabees of the world?

KRAUTHAMMER: It does, in general, it does, and I think it will broadly. I think it's not going to happen in Iowa because--the people of Iowa are good folks, but they are rather insular.

When you have a debate in which the publisher of the largest paper starts by taking Iraq off the table you know that you are dealing with a situation in which Pakistan is not going to have a big resonance. So I don't think it's going to affect Iowa.

But I think it will affect the rest of the race, and the reason is that you have had the rise of Huckabee and Obama, who have no experience in foreign affairs--in a three-month period in which Iraq looked as if it was going off the radar, or at least becoming manageable, you had a report on Iran, which, apparently, it looked as if Iran is not going after nukes. You had negotiations with North Korea. And Pakistan looked as if foreign affairs were not important.

This reminds us it's a war on terror. And I think the one it really hurts in the end is Huckabee, because he is really at sea on foreign affairs, as we saw earlier. He made a reference to the martial law in Pakistan that was lifted a couple of weeks ago.

He had an article in the foreign affairs a couple of weeks ago in which he accused the administration of a bunker mentality and then told FOX News he wasn't sure those were his words, although it was his article.

So you've got a man who's at sea on foreign affairs. I think ultimately that will hurt him. The Huckabee explosion can only happen in a situation in which foreign affairs is not on the table.

BAIER: Quickly--does Hillary Clinton benefit on the Democratic side at all from talking about experience, which is her closing argument?

BARNES: Well, I don't know that she's had foreign policy experience. She was First Lady. She's been a Senator.

And, look, I'm not sure people are looking for foreign policy experience anyway. Ronald Reagan was elected in the middle of the cold war and all those hostages overseas. He was tough. He had a credible policy. He didn't have experience.

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