The Economist has a story on the big sham election in Pakistan. A lot of people were willing to cut Pervez Musharraf slack when he supported the United States over the Taliban and started reigning in the Islamist lunatics in Pakistan’s intelligence services, but I don’t see how we can continue to give him our unqualified support. He could have held out for another year or two before calling a legitimate general election, but he has chosen instead to go the “President for life” route and hold a referendum that allows Pakistanis to vote for or against another 5 year term for him. Bear in mind that there are no other candidates, the options are Musharraf or a president to be named later. I guess that whole “he’s a military dictator but he’s a good military dictator” line of reasoning is looking a bit naive now.