Death of a liberal in Pakistan

The Obama administration has been a generous supporter, delivering billions in civilian and military aid. But some of the civilian aid has been slowed by red tape.

Late Gov. Salmaan Taseer (right) with Prez Asif Zardari (File photo)

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch | US Desk
Source/Credit: The Washington Post |
By Editorial | January 6, 2011

IT'S EASY to blame Pakistan's deepening crisis on its feckless civilian government. President Asif Ali Zardari and his Pakistan People's Party have been ineffectual in managing the country's economy, slow in responding to disasters like last summer's floods and unable to attack Taliban sanctuaries as the United States has been seeking for years. Having lost both its majority in parliament and the support of the International Monetary Fund, the Zardari government looks as if it may be beyond rescue.

Yet the assassination this week of one of Mr. Zardari's chief allies, Punjab governor Salman Taseer, was a reminder that Pakistan is engaged in a fateful civil war between democratic moderates and Muslim extremists - and that the current government is the most reliably liberal force. Mr. Taseer was an outspoken defender of secular values who had been campaigning to reform one of Pakistan's most odious laws, an anti-blasphemy statute that has been used to persecute Christians and other minorities.


This motivated one of his security guards to assassinate him - and the crime has appeared to gain an alarming amount of approval in Pakistan. Though thousands attended Mr. Taseer's funeral, a broad alliance of the country's clerics issued a declaration praising the murderer and warning that those who mourned Mr. Taseer would also be regarded as anti-Muslim. Significantly, Mr. Zardari and senior members of his party have said nothing since the slaying about the anti-blasphemy law, and Mr. Zardari himself did not attend the funeral for security reasons.

There are many good reasons for frustration with Mr. Zardari, both among Pakistanis and among foreign allies. But this week's events make plain - if it were not clear enough already - that the West has little choice other than to try to support and strengthen his government. The Obama administration has been a generous supporter, delivering billions in civilian and military aid. But some of the civilian aid has been slowed by red tape. IMF demands that the government raise taxes have contributed to the collapse of its parliamentary coalition.

Mr. Zardari's government needs to implement economic reforms, sponsor development in areas where Islamic extremism breeds, and push the Army to go after the Taliban. But for now, the priority should be its survival. Richard Holbrooke, the veteran diplomat who served as a special policy coordinator in the region until his sudden death last month, recognized this truth; not long before his death he argued that that the U.S.-Pakistan relationship was one of the most complex and difficult he had known in his long career - but that the United States had no choice but to keep working at it.

"People come up to me and say, we have got to tell the Pakistanis that they have got to do X, or else," Mr. Holbrooke said in an interview with PBS's Margaret Warner. "Well the correct answer is, 'or else what?' . . . We have different situations, and we have to reconcile them." That's advice worth remembering as the administration grapples with this crisis.



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