NEW DELHI — After having fretted over a rising prodemocracy tide, Pakistan's ruling military can expect to be the main gainer from former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's killing at the very public park where the 1951 assassination of the country's first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, helped smother a fledging democracy and open the way to the military's entry into politics.
Just as Pakistan become increasingly Islamized following the 1979 execution of Bhutto's father — Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto — by the general who deposed him, the daughter's assassination will help reinforce Islamist radicalization under continued military rule.
In fact, Bhutto — the first woman in modern world history to be democratically elected to govern an Islamic state — met her violent end 3 km from where her father was hanged. Add to the family tragedy the separate killings of her two brothers, one poisoned in 1985 in the French Riviera and the other fatally shot in 1996, with both cases still unsolved.