This is short, please read it (especially the brothers more in-tune with current affairs) as I am sure it will spark many thoughts and hopefully an enlightening conversation on this topic:

Take Pakistan seriously!

27 May 2007

THE international media is right in treating Pakistan with a degree of seriousness not seen since George Bush's with-us-or-without-us warning prompted General Musharraf to offer "unstinted support". The reasons, this time, are near complete opposite.

The wave of Islamic extremism that was to be forcefully removed from Afghanistan has apparently taken firm root inside nuclear-armed Pakistan. To make things worse, it is threatening a forceful takeover of society as an unbelieving polity and international community look on.

Ironically for Islamabad, the costs of America's failings in the quest for Mulla Omer and Osama bin Laden are chiefly being paid inside Pakistan's borders. Its madrassas have been simmering with discontent ever since the Musharraf regime helped break their monopoly over Afghanistan. Thenceforth, they have exploited developments much more impressively to capture their target market than even the West has to tap its, despite the latter's media-spin and overwhelming public-opinion-control.

The result has been the perpetuation of the fundamentalist doctrine that was initially employed to attract mujahideen for the earlier jihad. The extremist phenomenon that outlived the CIA-sponsored anti-Soviet crusade had been steadily growing stronger and was forced to turn its indoctrination-inspired guns towards the centre of power in Islamabad. Shove has come to push, and the confrontation with Musharraf's "enlightened moderation" has brought the very seat of power into the equation.

Considering present-day international politics, especially the aftermath of the ill-fated terror-war, such developments should be sending shivers down the spines of the powerful West's powerbrokers. But their appreciation of the most relevant facts, or rather the lack of it, is betrayed by a line doing rounds in Washington that "Musharraf's relevance has declined to the level that the only thing keeping him around today is the fear that his successor will definitely be worse".

The worrying spread of extremism that came Pakistan's way with the 3-million odd Afghan refugees following the Soviet invasion has mutated into a well-organised, thoroughly disciplined force with a strong appeal and constantly growing following. Worse still, it has now developed a thirst for power. This should appear at the top of any anti-extremist agenda, along with the realisation that solving the problem will require understanding it, not bombing it to the stone age. To keep Asia's most important geo-strategic country from tearing the entire region's fabric apart, the West must bolster Pakistan's establishment, which in turn must empower the secular groups rather than shun them.

SOURCE