Glenn Reynolds wonders, “WHY IS THE WORLD MORE CONCERNED with Musharraf’s coup than with Hugo Chavez’s emerging dicatatorship? Because enemies of the United States, like Chavez, get a pass.”
Tom Maguire responds, reasonably enough, “because Pakistan has nuclear weapons and harbors (willingly or otherwise) the remnants of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. What’s that compared to a spot of Venezuelan oil?” Quite right.
A constitutional crisis in Pakistan has the potential to further inflame the whole region. India could get involved. There could be spillover effects into Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and elsewhere. Venezuela’s misery, by contrast, is mostly confined to its own population.
Moreover, it’s hardly unfair to hold leaders that our president embraces as exemplars of democracy to a higher standard than tinpot dictators.
