Pakistan: blood on America’s hands

And this isn’t the first time their meddling in Pakistan has gone awry, says julian west

When Benazir Bhutto's white-veiled head disappeared through the roof of her Landcruiser for the last time, in a mess of blood and bullets, she became arguably the most visible victim - and symbol - of the United States' latest foreign policy adventure in Pakistan.

Bhutto (right) was killed in large part because she was seen by the fundamentalists - whom she had vowed to control, in a script that could have been written by Washington - as America's girl. Hailed as a democrat, but in fact far from democratic, she was what one commentator has called "the bride in a marriage of inconvenience", arranged by America and handmaided by Britain, in an ill-fated attempt to shore up President Musharraf and save the US-Pakistan alliance.

Under the terms of this alliance, which Pakistanis quickly dubbed 'Mush and Bush',

Bhutto was killed in large part because she was seen by the fundamentalists as America’s girl

the Bush administration delegated the fight against al-Qaeda to Musharraf, in return for a total of over $4bn in military aid, much of which may have been misspent, while turning a blind-eye to his failings in order to focus on Iraq.

Bhutto's murder in Rawalpindi, the Raj-era cantonment that is the Pakistani army's headquarters, has exposed the degree to which this policy has gone awry. The country is demonstrably more unstable now than it was six years ago, with militants apparently able to attack with impunity: the bomb blast in Pindi was the third at a political rally in a week.

The tribal areas of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan are now a war-zone; democracy and its pillars, the judiciary and the press, is in tatters; madrassas - Islamic religious schools - are filling the void left by a neglected education system.

All this is well known. What has been forgotten, though not in Pakistan where people have long memories, is that it has happened before. In the late 70s and 80s,