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Time's Up

TIME'S UP....Deciding how long to support a faltering ally is a tough business. Genuinely tough. Think Carter and the Shah, Reagan and Marcos, Clinton and Yeltsin. But Joshua Kurlantzick says Bush and Musharraf is an easy call:

The time for mere condemnation is over. It's time for America to cut the cord on Musharraf and throw in entirely with the country's democratic forces. The Bush administration has repeatedly called for elections in Pakistan, and Musharraf has ignored it. The administration has funneled gargantuan sums of money to Pakistan — over $10 billion since the 9/11 attacks — and Musharraf has misspent that. Despite some initial, post-9/11 victories against extremists near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, Musharraf has allowed radical movements in Pakistan to multiply, while stifling the change Pakistan truly needs: the development of a new generation of democratic-minded leaders that would challenge the generals and corrupt old politicians for power.
Read the rest. Fred Kaplan has a somewhat different take here.

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