Chimpy the foreign policy visionary imparts a msall tidbiot of his wisdom to the eager ears of theHerritage Foundation last Thursday.
And now we’re at the start of a new century, and the same debate is once again unfolding — this time regarding my policy in the Middle East. Once again, voices in Washington are arguing that the watchword of the policy should be “stability.” And once again they’re wrong.
Today we learn that “stability” is OK if you are Pakistan.
In Islamabad, aides to Musharraf said they had anticipated that there would be few real consequences to a state-of-emergency declaration.
They said Musharraf had not received phone calls of protest from Bush or other senior U.S. officials.
In unusually candid terms, they said U.S. officials support stability over democracy.
“They would rather have a stable Pakistan — albeit with some restrictive norms — than have more democracy prone to fall in the hands of extremists,” said Tariq Azim Khan, the minister of state for information. “Given the choice, I know what our friends would choose.”