If this is true, it strikes me that General Musharraf may have gone one step too far for the international community to tolerate.

The opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was placed under house arrest this morning, her political party said. Streets were filled with police officers carrying batons and shields, and trucks blocked roads, trying to prevent access to a protest rally that Ms. Bhutto had helped organize in Rawalpindi, the garrison city adjacent to the capital of Islamabad.

Gen. Pervez Musharraf said Thursday, a day after President Bush called, that PakistanÂ’s parliamentary elections would be held before Feb. 15. But his security forces continued to widen their crackdown and jailed thousands of opposition party members before the rally, which is scheduled to start in the early afternoon today.

I'm sorry, but there is absolutely no positive spin that can be put on this story. While the rescheduled elections had appeared to be a positive development yesterday, the arrest of the key opposition figure that the General had been courting is a key misstep. My suspicion is that this move, along with the arrests of thousands of Bhutto's followers to stop protests against the Musharraf regime, will result in a withdrawal of support from the Musharraf regime, and demands for strong sanctions against Pakistan until Musharraf is removed from power. As a result, I see the US losing a key Muslim ally in the war on Islamist terror groups like the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

H/T Malkin, Hot Air

Posted by: Greg at 07:03 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 251 words, total size 2 kb.