Peter Bergen on Pakistan

Bush pushes for votes in the places that will bring to power Islamism (Palestine) and not in the places (Pakistan) where it will help minimize them.

clipped from www.peterbergen.com Contra the widespread myth that democracy would merely empower Pakistan's Islamists, it would likely damage the MMA, the coalition of religious parties that has never succeeded in winning more than 12 percent of the vote. (And that was in the 2002 election, which Musharraf fixed to disadvantage the two main secular parties.) In fact, polling indicates that the MMA will garner around 5 percent of ballots in the upcoming election. The Islamist militants of the Red Mosque, in other words, may be feisty enough to weaken Musharraf politically through their protests and violence, but they are not nearly numerous enough to run the country.