Word: nationalism
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Pakistan is in crisis. Islamic extremism has metastasized from the lawless tribal areas on the border with Afghanistan to Pakistan's cities. Terrorists tried, and failed, to assassinate the Prime Minister in the capital, Islamabad, on Sept. 3. The nation's economy is a shambles. And Asif Ali Zardari, the man who has just taken the helm of this nuclear-armed country, is a onetime playboy who has spent more time in prison than in government and who wriggled out of a 2006 corruption trial in Britain by pleading mental instability...
...victim of terrorism, it has also been its enabler. As the focus of the U.S.'s war on terrorism has moved from Afghanistan to Iraq and back again, there is a widely dawning realization that its central front is actually Pakistan. Here in the mountainous northwestern fringes of the nation, where a fierce tribal code values honor and the protection of guests, that Osama bin Laden and his key lieutenants are thought to be hiding. From these tribal areas, al-Qaeda and remnants of the Afghan Taliban, protected by their Pakistani friends, have launched attacks into Afghanistan, dragging...
Pakistan, a country of 173 million people that encompasses dusty plains, sublime mountain peaks and some of the world's most densely populated cities, has rarely been a placid place since it became an independent nation in 1947. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, Islamabad, with U.S. and Saudi funding, sent thousands of men across the border to join Afghans in fighting the Soviets. The Pakistani military used religious schools in the borderland to train and equip Afghan mujahedin and to heal them when they returned. More than 3 million Afghan refugees took shelter in Pakistan's cities...
Zardari not only has to overcome suspicions about his past but also will have to unify his fractured nation at a time of great trauma. Other than party loyalists, few believe he can. "The jury is out on redemption," says political analyst Nasim Zehra. "But I don't think Zardari can stand up and rally the people behind him." Zardari has to balance U.S. demands for firm military action against the distrust of a public alienated by American adventures in the region. In a country where most blame the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan for Pakistan's problems...
...make the same mistake with Zardari. Now is the time to identify other partners and focus on Pakistan's real needs--not just security but also economic development, education and health care--as its politicians and people seek a way out of the morass into which their nation has sunk...