For those of us of a certain age, the assassination of Benazir Bhutto recalled the drama of the slaying of Senator Aquino, the Philippines opposition leader and tribune of democracy who, on August 21, 1983, was shot to death at the Manila airport as he deplaned from exile. It was an event that astonished the world and changed the course of history, though in ways not immediately appreciated as the senator lay dead on the tarmac. In the case of the former Pakistani premier, the portents seem even greater, given that we are in a world war against Islamist terror, a war in which Pakistan is a fulcrum.

The sheer drama of the event is hard to overstate. The Bhuttos are a tragic dynasty, like the Kennedys. All chose political careers, only to be murdered one after the other. Benazir Bhutto’s brother, Murtaza, was killed by police at Karachi in 1996, while she was prime minister. Her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a former president and prime minister, was executed in 1979 on charges drummed up by General Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, who led the army coup against the Bhutto government.

Zia went on to attempt a general Islamization of Pakistani society, imposed by a military run government, unleashing tendencies that have mushroomed into state supported terrorism in Kashmir and the launch of the Taliban. If some are now blaming the military intelligence service, the ISI, for the Bhutto assassination, it is because of things set in motion during Zia’s rule. Zia himself was, in 1988, killed in a “mysterious” plane crash that also claimed the life of the American ambassador, igniting conspiracy theories of the type that will abound in the latest case of political killing.

Sources close to a leading political family, the Sharifs, privately believe the ISI was involved. That may be mere politics — when in doubt blame the incumbent, and the Sharifs stand in opposition to the government of President Musharraf. The rumor has traction, nonetheless. Mr. Musharraf now may impose, backed by both the British foreign office and our own State Department, emergency laws that would benefit elements within the army and security forces that rue the military’s recent loss of political powers. Religious extremists are also high on the list of suspects, and for reasons that are all too clear, starting with the fact that within hours of the killing a report surfaced on an Italian Web site that Al Qaeda was claiming responsibility.

Certainly Bhutto’s death signals the end of a long period in Pakistani political life dominated by a few generals and a few families. Bhutto, her father, Nawaz Sharif (leader of the Pakistan Moslem League-N), and President Musharraf are among the group that has ruled the country in one capacity or another since 1971. Think 28 years of Bushes and Clintons. Bhutto was leading her party toward general elections that are, or at least were, scheduled to take place in just two weeks time. Our own government and Britain’s supported the deal she brokered with Mr. Musharraf according to which he would retain the presidency for a third term, quit the army, and rule as a civilian, and she would be prime minister.

Bhutto was expected to win enough seats in the January 8 vote to return as prime minister. Mr. Musharraf was “re-elected” president by a rump of the national and regional legislatures in a vote boycotted by Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party delegates; other party delegates resigned from their seats rather than lend any legitimacy to the vote. On the heels of taking up his third term, Mr. Musharraf was warned that the Supreme Court would later that week rule that he had been ineligible to put forward his candidacy while still in military office. Preferring one constitutional crisis over another, Mr. Musharraf declared emergency law (since lifted) and dismissed the court, reinstalling only those justices who supported his presidency. Now the PPP is leaderless.

There was also an attempt yesterday on the life of Mr. Sharif, who escaped unharmed, although several of his party stalwarts were killed. Mr. Sharif was campaigning on behalf of his Pakistan Moslem League-N, but is not a candidate for the premiership because the Supreme Court ruled he could not stand as a candidate himself. To judge the impact had the second assassination bid come off, imagine what it might have like had the traitors involved in the assassination of President Lincoln succeeded in their attempt to also murder several members of his cabinet on the same day.

Mr. Sharif is no Lincoln. Recently returned from exile, like Bhutto, he was reminding voters that it was during his tenure as prime minister that Pakistan became a nuclear power. He has also protested Mr. Musharraf’s treatment of the Supreme Court judges he dismissed and the house arrest of A.Q. Khan. Mr. Khan is the Pakistani nuclear scientist who developed the “Islamic bomb” but was also at the center of a worldwide black market ring selling nuclear know-how to rogue states. That is a position that would lead to a clash with Washington, which views Mr. Khan as a dangerous criminal.

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Even as the assassins lurked for Bhutto, savvy Pakistanis were speculating about Washington’s own intentions. On December 24, the New York Times issued a dispatch undercutting the central rationale for post-September 11, 2001, American-Pakistani relations. It reported that significant funds supplied to the Pakistani army have gone for purposes other than the intended goal of fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda. This ignited the Islamabad press, which yesterday quoted Pakistan’s envoy in Washington, Mahmud Ali Durrani, as dismissing the Times story as “speculative and untrue.” He was quoted as saying: “This does not reflect the view of the Pentagon and it does not represent the view of the US administration.”

That steered speculation toward the Central Intelligence Agency as a source of the story in the Times. American intelligence officials went public last spring in testimony to Congress criticizing the performance of the Pakistani military against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the mountainous frontier between Pakistan and Afghanistan. This line of speculation suggests the CIA is sending a message that Mr. Musharraf has to go.

For now, Mr. Musharraf retains the loyalty of the new army chief of staff and the corps commanders. Mr. Sharif and his supporters have announced a boycott of the January 8 vote. Mr. Musharraf’s Pakistani Moslem League-Q thus would now prevail in an election, but devoid of sufficient political legitimacy to govern. A generation ago in the Philippines, the blood of Senator Aquino was redeemed in a historic, peaceful revolution that swept out the Marcos hegemony and elevated Mrs. Aqino to the presidency and the Philippines to the democratic vanguard. It is hard to imagine an analogous event redeeming the death of Benazir Bhutto, though history has a way of surprising us all.