The fact that Benazir Bhutto died at the hands of an assassin bent on disrupting the parliamentary elections set for January 8 has dealt a severe blow not only to democracy in Pakistan but to the prospect of extending democracy throughout the world.

If Bhutto’s murder is to be only a temporary setback to achieving the restoration of fair elections in Pakistan, America would do well to engage closely with the tangled forces which govern the Muslim country’s often hysterical political discourse. Her murder has deprived America of a powerful friend in the conflict against Islamist terror and has left behind a fragile, deeply divided, nuclear armed Pakistan facing an even more uncertain future.

The abandonment of January’s election would signal a clear victory for the undemocratic forces within the Pakistani military and intelligence services as well as their terrorist associates hiding in the lawless tribal areas of South Waziristan. Even a delay in voting risks alienating those whose goodwill is needed to make a return to democracy a success.

Only by winning a mandate from the Pakistani people, however, can a new prime minister set the country on a more moderate course towards prosperity and peace and reject the clarion appeal of Islamism.

Above all, it is Mr. Musharraf who will be tested over the next days, weeks, and months. He must demonstrate certain and generous leadership if he is to calm frayed nerves and restore some form of normalcy to his shattered country.

The roots of Pakistan’s febrile instability lie in the haste with which India was given its independence in 1947, a scramble to depart by the British colonial power which offers timely lessons for how best to end the allied occupation of Iraq today.

Those, like Senator Biden, who believe that the tripartite partition of Iraq might offer a simple and carefree solution to the bitter three way divisions in the Baghdad government overlook the ugly precedent set by Pakistan.

The partition of India, like Rome’s Gaul, into three parts, the core of India as it remains today, with two Islamic wings, East and West Pakistan, was the tragic heritage of the Muslim nationalist leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

By splitting with Jawahalal Nehru’s Congress Party and insisting on a separate future for India’s Muslim minority, Jinnah set up the conditions for the massacre of millions which accompanied the bitter division of India while establishing two Islamic states which lacked the social and economic diversity necessary to sustain themselves without perpetual conflict.

The civil war in 1971, by which with the help of the Indian army, East Pakistan came to wrest its independence from West Pakistan to become Bangladesh, further confirmed the catastrophic unintended consequences of Jinnah’s dying wish. Millions of Muslims fled the war and the precarious flood delta of the Ganges to seek refuge across the Indian border in Calcutta, the noble former capital of British India which has valiantly labored with the consequential overcrowding ever since.

Pakistan, meanwhile, became an increasingly insular country, routinely torn between moderates and Islamists and ultimately becoming a safe harbor for terrorists on its lawless northwestern border. Today Osama bin Laden still evades justice in its remote mountains. The Western leaning Bhutto family has long attempted to coax Pakistan into abandoning its self imposed isolation, but at a terrible price. Her father, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the founder of the Bhutto political dynasty, was executed for corruption in 1979. Her brothers Shahnawaz and Mir Murtaza were both murdered for political ends. It is a mark of her extraordinary courage that Benazir Bhutto, twice elected prime minister and twice swiftly deposed after allegations of corruption, should be driven to defy fate and resume her family’s quest for power. That her death by an assassin’s bullet seemed not merely likely but inevitable only added to her reputation, in Pakistan and the wider world, as a fearless, if sometimes reckless, public servant.

Educated until the age of 18 in Karachi, then at Radcliffe, Harvard, and Oxford, Bhutto made many key friends who, in time, would prove important allies to her and to Pakistan. In an increasingly shrinking globe, she came to represent how the problems facing the world were interrelated and indivisible. For many moderates in Pakistan she offered the hope of joining with partners in the West to defeat the Islamists who have encroached upon their country. Her death will leave them in deep despair.

A Pakistan without Bhutto offers challenges to those who hope to succeed President Bush in the White House. The assassination serves as a reminder to all candidates that whatever they may wish to believe, the war on terror remains a reality and will not end in an armistice on January 20, 2009, when the new president is sworn in.

With a week to go before voting begins in the Iowa caucuses, Bhutto’s demise posed an immediate test for candidates over whether they have adequate world affairs and national security experience, and whether they can behave with the gravitas we expect from our leaders.

In this surprise viva examination, those like Senators McCain and Clinton who have spent years mulling the world’s problems showed themselves to have a clear advantage. Their campaigns yesterday instantly responded to events and both appeared on live television displaying the substance and sobriety essential in a president.

They were able to claim that they knew Benazir Bhutto personally and that they counted on her as a friend. They showed resolution in the face of unexpected and unnerving circumstances. They offered reassurance and a clear way forward.

Mrs. Clinton said that Bhutto’s death “certainly raises the stakes high for what we expect from our next president. I know from a lifetime of working to make change,” she said. Mr. McCain reminded Iowa voters that he had not only met with Ms. Bhutto but that he knew Mr. Musharraf well, having visited Pakistan many times. Unfolding events there had “deep implications for the security of the United States and its allies,” he said. Senator Biden was able to say that he had written twice to Mr. Musharraf demanding that Ms. Bhutto be better protected, to no avail. Rudy Giuliani, in Florida, once again hoped to tie unfolding events with those of September 11, 2001, when he showed himself unflappable in a crisis.

Mr. Obama said, as if such a thing were in doubt, that “we have to make sure that we are clear as Americans that we stand for democracy.” Mitt Romney repeated his criticism of President Musharraf for having declared martial law, which seemed ill timed in the circumstances, and betrayed his lack of confidence on world matters when he stumbled, saying Iran instead of Iraq.

Strangely, Mike Huckabee offered “our sincere concern and apologies for what has happened,” as well as prayers for the people of Pakistan, though what America has to apologize for he failed to say.

Most outlandish of all, Governor Richardson demanded that President Bush bring about the downfall of President Musharraf without delay and an end to all financial aid to Pakistan, a sentiment echoed by the isolationist libertarian Republican Ron Paul.

Bhutto will leave a long lasting legacy in Pakistan, if, as can be expected, her children eventually follow her into politics, among them Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the eldest of the three, who is a 19-year-old university student. Whether Pakistan will enjoy the sort of democracy the Bhutto children might wish to take part in will depend on how well the West responds to their mother’s murder.

nwapshott@nysun.com