This isn't good news. Benazir Bhutto has been assassinated by a suicide bomber. I'm a little surprised that Musharraf himself has lasted this long, but I imagine he's pretty fanatical about security. I also hope that he has the bombs under control.

Pakistan is probably the most intractable problem we have right now, and in many ways is at the heart of the war. And the notion that "non-interventionalism" will make it go away is hopeless naive.

[Update a few minutes later]

Some thoughts from Michael Ledeen:

The freedom of women in the world—with the frightening prospect of the domination of men by women in any form, from the classroom to the ballot box—drives them around the bend. As she knew.

She was one of many women in the front lines of the war against the terror masters, and I often think that, after the American armed forces, brave women are indeed the greatest threat to our fanatical enemies. And they know it, which is why they killed her.

We can only hope that some good will come out of this. We need a "Peshawar awakening."

[Update at 10 AM CST]

Mark Steyn:

Since her last spell in power, Pakistan has changed, profoundly. Its sovereignty is meaningless in increasingly significant chunks of its territory, and, within the portions Musharraf is just about holding together, to an ever more radicalized generation of young Muslim men Miss Bhutto was entirely unacceptable as the leader of their nation. "Everyone’s an expert on Pakistan, a faraway country of which we know everything," I wrote last month. "It seems to me a certain humility is appropriate." The State Department geniuses thought they had it all figured out. They'd arranged a shotgun marriage between the Bhutto and Sharif factions as a "united" "democratic" "movement" and were pushing Musharraf to reach a deal with them. That's what diplomats do: They find guys in suits and get 'em round a table. But none of those representatives represents the rapidly evolving reality of Pakistan. Miss Bhutto could never have been a viable leader of a post-Musharraf settlement, and the delusion that she could have been sent her to her death. Earlier this year, I had an argument with an old (infidel) boyfriend of Benazir's, who swatted my concerns aside with the sweeping claim that "the whole of the western world" was behind her. On the streets of Islamabad, that and a dime'll get you a cup of coffee.

I've been dismayed since September 11th that the federal leviathan saw it as an opportunity to aggrandize itself and perpetuate its foreign-policy fantasies. My biggest disappointment with the Bush administration is that it didn't see this as an opportunity to clean house in both Foggy Bottom and the intelligence community, instead leaving the incompetent Tenet in charge (who should have been removed before the attacks), and letting the milquetoast Powell and the usual pin-stripers at State continue to run the transnationalist show. And if a Dem, any Dem, is elected next year, it will just go on.

And unfortunately, civil service rules are such that even the most fervent attempts at reform generally lose the battle with the bureaucrats.

[Update at 11 AM CST]

John Podhoretz writes about the American voters delusions about "holidays from history." The campaign so far has been amazingly unsubstantive and pathetic. Particular in the moderating of the clown-show "debates" by the media. I hope that this assassination will create an "Ottumwa" or "Manchester" awakening.

[Early afternoon update]

The idiotic reaction of Bill Richardson:

Democratic New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, called on President Bush to force Musharraf to step down. Until then, Richardson said the U.S. must suspend military aid to the Pakistani government.

"A leader has died, but democracy must live. The United States government cannot stand by and allow Pakistan's return to democracy to be derailed or delayed by violence," Richardson said.

And this is the Democrat with the best foreign policy credentials? As Captain Ed warns:

Richardson fortunately doesn't have a prayer of victory in the primaries. It's worth considering, however, that he will likely be a candidate for Secretary of State in any Democratic administration that wins in November 2008, if not a running mate on the ticket. Keep that in mind when thinking about whether to get involved in the next election.

Indeed.

[Update in the afternoon]

Blame America first. Mike Huckabee is apologizing. Not in my name.

And of course, he doesn't explain just what it is for which we should be asking forgiveness. But isn't it obvious that anything that goes wrong in the world is always our fault?

He really is the Republican Jimmy Carter.

[Update a few minutes later]

Unsurprisingly, Fred Thompson isn't apologizing. Unlike Huckabee, he seems to recognize that we're at war, and not against smokers and overweight people.