Thursday, August 23, 2007

The president's options

by M B Naqvi from The News-International

There is a rising tide of Islamic extremism in Pakistan. The North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) is under serious threat. A new state appears to be rising, tentatively so far. The Islamic terrorists, the Taliban, are the same force battling the Nato forces in Afghanistan with the same ethnic characteristics. Ideologically and ethnically, the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan are Pushtoons who follow Pushtoonwali as well as an extremely austere Islam of the Wahabi or Salafi conception. This is a growing threat, not confined to NWFP ... The US has forced Musharraf to negotiate a deal with Benazir Bhutto's PPP. They are expected to provide a new political impetus to the American war on terror inside Pakistan. She and her party are supposed to be moderate Muslim modernist and adequately pragmatic (in the term's American usage). Can this idea succeed? It is more likely to boomerang and may actually force the pace of Talibanisation to become faster, thanks to its US provenance.

No comments: