Who killed Benazir?

Boston Brahmin didn't think he'd be posting again in 2007, but Benazir Bhutto was assassinated yesterday in Rawalpindi. With her died the hopes of millions of ordinary Pakistanis.

The earlier attack on her political rally in October had been a bomb that killed over 150 of her supporters but narrowly missed her. There are no leads in that crime either, although her supporters are sure the ISI and other Islamists in the Musharraf government are behind it, just as she has stated several times.

Obviously, dear reader, you must have seen the headlines of yesterday's assassination already. Here's something you might not have seen, in an unlikely place: Parade Magazine published a November interview with Benazir Bhutto. It is to appear on January 6th.

Here are her last words in the interview. Enjoy:

What would you like to tell President Bush? I ask this riddle of a woman.

She would tell him, she replies, that propping up Musharraf’s government, which is infested with radical Islamists, is only hastening disaster. "I would say, ‘Your policy of supporting dictatorship is breaking up my country.’ I now think al-Qaeda can be marching on Islamabad in two to four years."

Nice going, Bush.