Blood Shed - Time for U.S. to Review Pakistan Strategy

As blood stained the streets of Pakistan, it is time for the US to review their policy.

To lay the groundwork for Benazir Bhutto’s return to Pakistan, US officials worked hard to broker a power-sharing arrangement between Ms. Bhutto and her longtime rival, President Pervez Musharraf.

But the violence that greeted Ms. Bhutto on her return and the finger-pointing between her camp and Musharraf’s after the attack has raised questions about whether the delicate deal that the United States helped arranged can survive.

There is much concern among US officials that, given rising anti-Americanism inside Pakistan, eventually she and General Musharraf could compete for public support by showing who is less beholden to the US on matters such as attacking Al Qaeda’s haven in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

The scenes of carnage in Pakistan this week are a nightmare scenario for President Bush’s last months in office: political meltdown in the a country where Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and nuclear weapons are all hot issues of the day.

US officials insisted in interviews that they had confidence that their longtime ally, Musharraf, would maintain enough influence to keep the country stable as he edged toward a power-sharing agreement with his main rival, Benazir Bhutto. But other officials cautioned that six years after the US forced General Musharraf to choose sides after the Sept. 11 attacks, has left Musharraf weakened.

His efforts to take on the Al-Queda and the Taliban militarily have so far proved ineffective and politically costly.

As almost every major terror attack since 9/11 has been traced back to Pakistani territory, leading in the intelligence circle believe that Pakistan, not Iraq, is the place Mr. Bush should consider the "central front" in the battle against terrorism. It was also the source of the leakage of nuclear arms technology. There are questions now whether Mr. Bush has invested too heavily in a single Pakistani leader, and this may have prevented the US from pursuing other long-term strategies

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