How the United States makes Pakistan more radical

For most politicians and mainstream commentators in Germany, France, the United Kingdom and the United States, the event was yet another footnote in the global war on terror, a successful campaign against Al-Qaeda "jihadists" by a steadfast ally. Ironically, however, it is the perception of Musharraf as a subservient enforcer of American interests in the region that is eroding his legitimacy, not only among Pakistan's neo-fundamentalist right, but also among leading civil society figures.

In Pakistan - as in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and elsewhere in the Muslim world - religiously legitimated political activism is not primarily about "global jihad" but about domestic politics. The rich imagery and potent symbols of Islam are repackaged (sometimes beyond recognition) and employed by a range of political associations, religious sects, liberal grassroots organizations and fundamentalist terrorist movements in order to protest the abominations of the state on the one side and real and perceived dependency on the politics of the White House on the other.

The ongoing crisis in Pakistan has a lot to do with the misguided policies of the Musharraf government: the suspension of the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who was only recently reinstated after vehement protests by the country's intelligentsia; the mishandling of the transnational tribal unrest in Baluchistan and North Waziristan; and the corruption of Pakistan's intelligence services.

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