An overlooked natural ally in the war on terrorism: the Pakistani people.

February 16, 2008
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
In Pakistan, Islam Needs Democracy

By WALEED ZIAD
Islamabad, Pakistan

WHILE it's good news that secular moderates are expected to dominate
Pakistan's parliamentary elections on Monday, nobody here thinks the
voting will spell the end of militant extremism. Democratic leaders
have a poor track record in battling militants and offer no convincing
remedies. Pakistan's military will continue to manage the war against
the Taliban and its Qaeda allies, while President Pervez Musharraf
will remain America's primary partner. The only long-term solution may
lie in the hands of an overlooked natural ally in the war on
terrorism: the Pakistani people.

This may come as a surprise to Americans, but the Wahhabist religion
professed by the militants is more foreign to most Pakistanis than
Karachi's 21 KFCs. This is true even of the tribal North-West Frontier
Province — after all, a 23-foot-tall Buddha that was severely damaged
last fall by the Taliban there had stood serenely for a thousand years
amid an orthodox Muslim population.

Last month I was in the village of Pakpattan observing the
commemoration of the death of a Muslim Sufi saint from the Punjab — a
feast of dance, poetry, music and prayer attended by more than a
million people. Religious life in Pakistan has traditionally been
synonymous with the gentle spirituality of Sufi mysticism, the
traditional pluralistic core of Islam. Even in remote rural areas,
spiritual life centers not on doctrinaire seminaries but Sufi shrines;
recreation revolves around ostentatious wedding parties and Hollywood,
Bollywood and the latter's Urdu counterpart, Lollywood.

So when the Taliban bomb shrines and hair salons, or ban videos and
music, it doesn't go down well. A resident of the Swat region, the
site of many recent Taliban incursions, proudly told me last month
that scores of citizens in his village had banded together to drive
out encroaching militants. Similarly, in the tribal areas, many local
village councils, called jirgas, have summoned the Pakistani Army or
conducted independent operations against extremists. Virtually all
effective negotiations between the army and militants have involved
local councils; in 2006, a jirga in the town of Bara expelled two
rival clerics who used their town as a battleground.

The many militant outfits in the frontier regions are far from a
unified popular movement. Rather, they are best characterized as
ethnic or sectarian gangs, regularly changing names and loyalties.
More often than battling the army, they engage each other in violent
turf wars. For many of them — some with only a handful of members —
"Taliban" is a convenient brand name that awards them the status of
international resistance fighters. It is not uncommon for highway
bandits to declare themselves Taliban when stealing tape decks from
vehicles.

The Taliban franchise that has battled the army for months in the Swat
Valley is held by an outfit whose founder marched thousands of local
youths to their death in a campaign in Afghanistan in 2002. Upon
returning, he virtually solicited his own arrest by Pakistani
authorities to escape the vengeance of the victims' families. The
group is now led by one "Mullah Radio" who, armed with an FM station,
preaches that polio vaccinations are a Zionist plot and that the 2005
earthquake was retribution for a sinful existence. A worrisome crank,
yes, but hardly Osama bin Laden.

The big problem — as verified by a poll released last month by the
United States Institute of Peace — is that while the Pakistani public
condemns Talibanism, it is also opposed to the way the war on
terrorism has been waged in Pakistan. People are horrified by the
thousands of civilian and military casualties and the militants'
retaliatory attacks in major cities. Despite promises, very little
money is going toward development, education and other public services
in the frontier region's hot zones. This has led to the belief that
this war is for "Busharraf" rather than the Pakistani people.

Naturally, Washington must continue working with Mr. Musharraf's
government against extremism. But we also need a new long-term policy
like the one outlined by Senator Joe Biden last fall that would
strengthen our natural allies and rebuild faith in the United States
at the public level.

This isn't just wishful thinking. Interestingly, the Musharraf era has
heralded a freer press in Pakistan than ever before. Dozens of
independent TV channels invariably denounce the Taliban, while
educational institutions are challenging the Wahhabist ethos. My
conversations with Pakistanis, from people on the street to
intellectuals, artists and religious leaders, only confirmed that
after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, anti-militant sentiments
are at a peak.

This is where the lasting solution lies. As Donya Aziz, a doctor,
former member of Parliament and prominent voice in the new generation
of female leaders, told me: "Even now, as the public begins to voice
its anti-militancy concerns, politicians across the board are seizing
the opportunity to incorporate these stands into their political
platforms."
What can America do? Beyond using our influence to push the government
to expand democracy and civil society, we need to develop close ties
with the jirgas in the violent areas. The locals can inform us of the
best ways to infuse civilian aid. (According to Ms. Aziz, "the
foremost demand of the tribal representatives had been girls'
schools.") We should also expand the United States Agency for
International Development's $750 million aid and development package
for the federally administered tribal areas.

If next week's elections are free and fair, it will be an encouraging
sign for Pakistan. But as far as Washington is concerned, this should
constitute only the first stage of a broader policy intended to make
average Pakistanis see the United States as a long-term partner. In
the aftermath of the 2005 earthquake, American popularity soared as
American aid helicopters — widely called "Angels of Mercy" — soared to
the rescue. If we can bear in mind that our long-term interests are
the same as those of average Pakistanis, the challenges of fighting
the militants and rebuilding credibility may not be as daunting as
they seem.

Waleed Ziad, an economic consultant, is an associate at the Truman
National Security Project.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/16/opinion/16ziad.html?ex=1203829200&en=8e3e0f128b76dac3&ei=5070&emc=eta1