The Shah of Pakistan
| 12:30 UK time, Wednesday, 11 July 2007
One of our guests on World Update this morning, Professor Akbar Ahmed, made the worrying suggestion that the growing storm around President and General Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan reminded him of what had happened to the Shah of Iran.
The American's had backed the wrong guy then and were doing it now, he said.
In the 1970s, said Prof. Ahmed, who used to be Pakistan's High Commissioner to the UK, the US had backed the Iranian leader against the nation, and lost the nation.
Now, when America should have forced Gen. Musharraf to hand over to a democratic government long ago, they had instead continued to support him because he had proved a useful ally in the 'global war on terror'. US support had preserved the Musharraf regime beyond its sell-by date.
The reason for backing the repressive Shah in the 1970s was his role as defender of the Middle East against Soviet influence. The US gave him enormous amounts of weaponry to that end - weapons which fell into the hands of the Islamic revolutionaries after 1979, and then spread around the world in the hands of America's enemies.
The reason for backing Gen. Musharraf is his pursuit of Taleban and al Qaeda militants - for which his country was .
The dilemma for the US now is how to move forward. The economic failures, unrest in tribal areas and Sunni-Shia clashes that the General has failed to contain only add to the likelihood that what follows him will be a more dangerous and more anti-American Pakistan, said professor Ahmed.
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