Benazir Bhutto Assassinated

Today's assassination of Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto was a sobering reminder of an observation that I believe is attributed to Abraham Lincoln. If I'm wrong about that, please, someone set me straight!

The observation, essentially, was that anyone who was willing to exchange his life for Lincoln's could do so.

That's what happened today in Pakistan -- literally. Bhutto's assassin apparently fired a gun at Bhutto, striking her with a fatal shot, and then blew himself up with a bomb. News reports indicate the assassin's head was found about 90 feet away.

Bhutto had been prime minister of Pakistan twice. And twice she was driven from office. She was attempting a comeback at the time of her death.

In the Washington Post, David Ignatius remembers the young Benazir Bhutto he knew.

But he also knows that her assassination is "a warning that the path to the modern Pakistan she dreamed of creating won't be easy."

The extremists are determined to resist, and al-Qaeda appears to have found some safe havens in that country. Many people feel that it is all but certain that al-Qaeda and/or the Taliban had a role in this attack.

It's also a reminder that the extremists do not permit gender to stand in the way of violent acts.

When one thinks of political assassinations, one is inclined to think of men because mostly men have been the victims of violent attacks. And women are usually seen as the nurturers of the species. But attacks are rarely bloodier or more violent than the one that took Bhutto's life.

And assassinations often spark chaos and rioting. In the hours after Bhutto's death, large cities in Pakistan, such as Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore, witnessed outbreaks of rioting. It is similar, in some ways, to the rioting that broke out in the United States in the hours following Martin Luther King's murder in 1968.

It doesn't take much of a leap of one's imagination to anticipate a bleak immediate future for Pakistan, possibly dissolving into civil war.

The United States must be prepared to take an active role in Pakistan's future. Now and for a long time to come. Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards told CNN's Wolf Blitzer tonight that America has "enormous leverage" to wield in this regard.

With the presence of Islamic extremists and people with nuclear know-how in the same country, it is in America's interest to act. There is more at stake in that part of the world than ever before. Make no mistake about it.

There are no easy answers.