Pakistan Watch: Three posts worth reading

1. This excerpt from Dan Froomkin’s Washington Post White House Watch, ”Another Bush Backfire”:

What Cheney Wrought
Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid writes in a Washington Post op-ed: "The spread of anti-Western feelings and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism have been fostered by a U.S. policy that has sought to prop up Musharraf rather than forcing him to seek political consensus and empower a representative civilian government that would have public support for attacking the extremists."

And who's most responsible for that policy? Here's what Rashid wrote in The Post in June: "Current and past U.S. officials tell me that Pakistan policy is essentially being run from Cheney's office. The vice president, they say, is close to Musharraf and refuses to brook any U.S. criticism of him. This all fits; in recent months, I'm told, Pakistani opposition politicians visiting Washington have been ushered in to meet Cheney's aides, rather than taken to the State Department.

"No one in Foggy Bottom seems willing to question Cheney's decisions."

2. Scott Horton at No Comment: "Bush's Musharraf Envy."

3. Barnett Rubin at Informed Comment Global Affairs: "Islamabad: Parting Thoughts on Policy."