Problems posed by Pakistan

Re “Musharraf’s follies,” editorial, May 26

American support of military dictators is a terrible mistake. In the case of Pakistan, the blind support started with that country’s first dictator, Ayub Khan, and continues to its current president, Pervez Musharraf, who has bamboozled the Bush administration with false promises and horrid pretensions. Terrorist organizations, Taliban enclaves and extreme religious groups are thriving and regrouping under Musharraf, who is patronizing them in the name of enlightened moderation. The U.S. should give an ultimatum to Musharraf to act expediently, as he has failed to do for the last four years.

NIRODE MOHANTY

Huntington Beach

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The Times states that it was a “terrible mistake” for the United States to support dictatorships during the Cold War and that the world is now paying dearly for it. But The Times should be reminded that U.S. support of autocratic regimes began long before communism or the Cold War. As a matter of expediency, U.S. foreign policy was based on the premise that a dictatorship is easier to deal with than an unruly and unstable democracy, especially in South America. After World War II, the real mistake in our foreign policy was to advocate and press for a premature breakup of the British empire, resulting in a rise of despotic satraps in Africa and elsewhere and leaving the U.S. to impose democracies on people who were not ready for it or who did not want it.

The Times naively suggests that a true American-style democracy is possible in Islamic Pakistan, ignoring the history, culture and the geopolitical aspects of that country.

ANDREW TYSZKIEWICZ

Rancho Palos Verdes