Disaster looms in Pakistan

[Karmadillo]

Maybe now is not the best time for US politicians to saber rattle.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,330315332-103595,00.html

Decorum was abandoned as accusations ricocheted between the wood-panelled walls of Pakistan's national assembly on Monday night. "Murderers! Murderers of innocent people!" screamed an MP from a religious party, his yellow turban shaking as he wagged a finger towards the government benches.
Five female parliamentarians, their faces concealed behind black and white burkas, slapped the benches with open palms. Another mullah stood up and started shouting. The speaker strained to maintain order.

Others were less captivated by the debate on last month's siege of the Red Mosque, in which more than 100 people died. One man snoozed at his desk. Across the vast hall others started whispered conversations. And high above them Muhammad Ali Jinnah, a dapper man with a pinched, clean-shaven face, looked on impassively from his giant portrait on the wall.

In August 1947 Jinnah founded Pakistan in the hope of forging a homeland where the subcontinent's Muslims could live in peace and harmony. Sixty years later, it is going badly wrong. The military runs the country, headed by a dictatorial and unpopular general. Huge protests have filled the streets, the courts are defiant and the Taliban control the tribal belt. So, in part, does al-Qaida, and the United States is threatening to use force. Suicide blasts have rocked the big cities - and there may be worse to come.

President Pervez Musharraf's rule has been "catastrophic" but his regime could yet "turn really nasty" said Stephen Cohen of the Brookings Institution in Washington and author of The Idea of Pakistan. "The country hasn't had a crisis of this magnitude since the 1970s when East Pakistan split off and became Bangladesh. But in this case it's an Islamist movement that wants to transform the country from within."

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