The new crisis in Pakistan demonstrates the hypocrisy of Bush administration saber-rattling against Iran, foreign policy analysts say.

Pakistan’s president and top Bush “war on terror” ally Gen. Pervez Musharraf staged what many call a military coup Nov. 3, declaring a state of emergency, suspending the constitution, firing the entire Supreme Court and jailing hundreds of lawyers and other protesters including trade unionists.

The United States has given Musharraf’s government $10.59 billion in military, economic and development aid since Sept. 11, 2001, according to The Associated Press. About 75 percent is military funding. The Musharraf government has spent much of this on purchasing major weapons systems. Pakistan, unlike Iran, has nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have ratcheted up apocalyptic warnings about an Iranian threat that remind many of their pre-invasion talk about Iraq.

“The Pakistan crisis should offer an opportunity to expose the hypocrisy of U.S. policy towards Iran,” William Hartung, director of the New America Foundation’s Arms and Security Initiative, told the World. “On the one hand, the administration is coddling a repressive, nuclear-armed state, giving it billions in military and economic aid. On the other, it repeatedly states that it will keep the military option ‘on the table’ against Iran, for a shifting series of reasons ranging from its nuclear program to its role in Iraq. In both cases, claims about Iranian capabilities and intentions are being exaggerated. In Pakistan, by contrast, its repression is there for all to see, in the streets of its cities; and no one doubts that it already has a considerable nuclear arsenal.” ...

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