The Trouble with Pakistan‪.‬

THE DRAMA THE ASSASSINATION of the great Pakistani political figure Benazir Bhutto last December seemed to emerge as a tailor-made story for the American media to fill the usual post-Christmas news void. The main character was a photogenic, Oxford educated woman with an aristocratic bearing and an accent evocative of ... well, the British Empire. And though she'd grown more matronly in her decade of exile in London and Dubai, she still suggested the "oriental beauty"--with her ever present flowing head scarf--enough, at least, to catch the imagination of a CNN audience. Playing opposite the martyred heroine was the imposing, if less than dashing figure of General cum President Pervez Musharraf, who added an element of ambiguity and tension. He had been, Americans knew well, among their nation's most important allies in the "war on terror," though it seemed he had yet to deliver very much. Commentators even hinted that he might be something of a double-dealer.