Pakistan’s former Prime Minister and Leader of Pakistan People’s Party, Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated in Rawalpindi after an election rally on December 27, 2007. Pakistan’s Interior Ministry reported that she fractured her skull on the sunroof of the SUV in which she was a passenger. This report would seem to suggest that the Pakistan Government now has fully solved the mystery over Bhutto’s death in a mere 24 hours.

And this report came only hours after a doctor at the hospital at which she was admitted, had confirmed that Ms. Bhutto died of gunshot wounds. Bhutto’s senior Attorney-at-law Farooq Naik responded to the Interior Ministry’s explanation as: “It is baseless. It is a pack of lies. Two bullets hit her, one in the abdomen and one in the head”.

Predictably, the U.S. Administration is calling for a full investigation into the circumstances surrounding her killing; and so they should do, as they covertly encouraged her to return to Pakistan, knowing full well the clear and present dangers lurking.

The U.S Administration since ‘9/11’ has pumped billions of dollars in military aid to Pakistan to fight al-Qaeda and the Taliban network. But for some time now, the U.S. Administration has felt uneasy with Pakistan’s unpopular President Pervez Musharraf’s performance in delivering the goods; coupled with problems of transparency and accountability.

And so the U.S. hatched a plan to have both Bhutto and Musharraf work together in America’s national security interests, especially as Musharraf was fast becoming a liability.

We need to note that the U.S. has serious concerns with al-Qaeda and the Taliban elements which it claims totally control the northwest mountain areas of Pakistan; and Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal represents another concern for the U.S., as security arrangements for Pakistan’s 70 nuclear weapons are not safe and sound.

The U.S. rationale was that Musharraf and Bhutto in some strange power-sharing arrangement would save the day, a significant component of the Bush strategy in the war against terrorism. Bhutto was to be the woman in Pakistan to protect America’s vested interests for powerful reasons.

Bhutto was a populist figure; Bhutto was charismatic; Bhutto was committed to fight religious extremists; Bhutto espoused secular views; Bhutto was a moderate; Bhutto championed the institution of democracy and the rule of law; Bhutto was a queen and a loved one; Bhutto was twice Prime Minister; Bhutto was a politician of international stature. Bhutto more than fitted the bill for the U.S. grand but failing foreign policy design on Pakistan, and indeed, the entire Middle East.

Bhutto genuinely believed in democracy for Pakistan, but knew that external assistance was prerequisite for reaching that goal; and so Bhutto became a victim of U.S. manipulative tactics.

However, the Musharraf-Bhutto power-sharing arrangement was part of the U.S. plan; but the plan backfired a bit when a few weeks ago, Musharraf declared a state of emergency and purged the judiciary; appropriate U.S. influence, however, ended the state of emergency and enabled Musharraf to step down as head of the military forces. But Bhutto’s assassination now has thrown the entire plan into disarray, and has left a gaping wound in the Bush strategy to fight Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

We should remind ourselves that Bush, after ‘9/11’, told the world that Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda network can run but can’t hide; and so Bush first directed his military strategy toward Afghanistan where the elusive Osama bin Laden was not found; Bush then redirected his strategy toward Iraq, but then holding a mixed-bag strategy – Osama bin Laden and weapons of mass destruction.

In making the case for military action against Iraq, President Bush claimed that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons. The President was wrong. And in this U.S. War on Iraq, Saddam Hussein was a mere humbug in the U.S. pursuit of controlling this Middle East dominance.

Clearly, the U.S. War on Iraq carried enormous falsehood. And now we have the Iraq Study Group Report which the Chicago Tribune describes as ‘one of the darkest and gloomiest public documents ever written’.

Very few Americans today support the U.S. War on Iraq and many would not dispute the view that their government’s foreign policy has failed the nation and that the President used false statements to bolster his and the ultra-conservatives’ over-zealousness toward military adventurism in Iraq. In fact, President Bush misled the American people and placed his own and the ultra-conservatives’ interests over those of the nation.

After Afghanistan and Iraq, Bush’s military strategy intensified toward Pakistan. And now this tragedy!

But U.S. military strategy and aid toward Pakistan have been consistent throughout Pakistan’s 60 years in existence. The U.S. always had a foreign policy that propped up military governments in the 160 million-populated Pakistan. Former aide to Bhutto and currently Professor at Boston University in a testimony to the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, said: “Since 1954 almost $21 billion had been given to Pakistan in aid…Of this, $17.7 billion were given under military rule, and only $3.4 billion was given to Pakistan and the civilian government.”

As I have said before, the U.S. has an impressive track record of interventions in other countries. Wolfe pointed out that from 1789 to the start of World War II, U.S. troops were dispatched to foreign countries 145 times without authorisation from Congress.

There are about 500,000 U.S. troops on 737 military bases, dispersed around the globe in about 130 countries. Johnson in Nemesis, notes that these bases are intended to sustain American hegemony over the world; policing the globe to guarantee that no nation can face up to America militarily, thus the interventions.

However, in many cases, these interventions create undemocratic governments and are responsible for considerable chaos globally. Then, what kind of democracy is the U.S. currently championing for Pakistan, and in whose interests? These questions need answers.

The interventions really are the politically biased mindset of an elite group of American power holders. Unfortunately, the end point is that many are hurt by these interventions. The war on Iraq is a case in point. And now Pakistan has become the hotbed of covert U.S. intervention and grand design.