Since the summer, it has looked like the combination of al Qaeda losses in Iraq and Afghanistan, coupled with their lack of support in the Moslem world, that al Qaeda would turn to Pakistan as an active front rather than a rear area. By provoking Pakistan this way, al Qaeda and the Taliban are forcing Pakistan to fight the jihadis in a sort of Pakistan Awakening.
It is an amazingly stupid move on al Qaeda's and the Taliban's part. They've lost their sanctuary by forcing Pakistan to fight and risk losing nearly completely in this new front.
This is a long shot born of desperation on al Qaeda's part and their fellow jihadis. The Pakistanis have already seen what the Islamists can do domestically and the recent jihadi terror campaign only adds to the disgust more Pakistanis have for the jihadis:
In 2002, Ibrar Hussein voted for an Islamic takeover.
Fed up both with Pakistan's military-led government and with the mainstream, secular opposition, Hussein decided that religious leaders should be given a chance to improve living conditions in this sprawling frontier city.
But five years after support from people like Hussein propelled the Islamic parties to power in the provincial government -- and to their strongest-ever showing nationally -- the 36-year-old shopkeeper is rethinking his choice.
"You can see the sanitation system here," Hussein said, pointing with disgust to a ditch in front of his shop where a stream of greenish-brown sludge trickled by. "People were asking for clean water, and they didn't get it. We were very hopeful. But the mullahs did nothing for us." Hussein's disenchantment is just one reason why, with Pakistan on the eve of fresh parliamentary elections, the religious parties are struggling to appeal to voters.
On the surface, at least, they have many things going for them: Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, is deeply unpopular. So, too, are his backers in Washington. The leading opposition politicians have had their opportunities before, and failed. Overall, frustration in Pakistan is running high.
And yet the Islamic parties seem poorly positioned to benefit from that frustration. Beset by bitter internal divisions, they have failed to come up with a unified campaign strategy. Their candidates, meanwhile, have to answer for a dubious record in governing North-West Frontier Province, their traditional base of support. And out on the stump, they are finding that anti-American sentiments are not quite as raw as they once were.
Only four percent of Pakistanis say they will support Islamist parties in the January elections. I still think that Pakistan needs free elections to keep the jihadis from rebounding and again capitalizing on public disgust with the corrupt secular political parties and the military that seizes power. The past success of Islamists in elections provides a window to marginalize the Islamist parties:
Latif Afridi, a cleanshaven lawyer who helps lead a Pashtun-nationalist party, said the religious parties "are directly responsible for the destruction of Swat." He also said they are now vulnerable because they abandoned their promises.
While they ran in 2002 on a vow of clean government and improved citizen services, leaders of religious parties have fallen prey to the same allegations of corruption and lackluster governance that shadow the nation's secular parties.
"They've got a record now, and it's not a great one," said a Western diplomat, who would speak only on condition of anonymity. "When you're out of office, you can call for all sorts of things and be a paragon of virtue. But when you're in office, it's a different story. The glitter has worn off a little bit."
It is good that the jihadis compiled their record that puts off Pakistanis without gaining control of the central government where they'd be difficult to dislodge. Yet there are enough Pakistanis who want a religious dictatorship to sustain a terror campaign:
And yet, there is a more ominous explanation for the religious parties' struggles.
It's also possible, Ayaz said, that some of those who believe in bringing Islamic law to Pakistan -- particularly the young -- are giving up on the democratic process and on the Islamic parties. They're going underground instead, choosing insurgency instead of politics.
In the slums of Peshawar, where veterans of the war in Afghanistan hobble on peg legs through trash-strewn streets, that theory has some credence.
"The Taliban system is the best system," said Sabiq Shah, a 42-year-old peanut salesman. "It will come to Pakistan. Either through election or revolution, it does not matter which."
Pakistan can be the last jihad. The jihadis are staking everything on a front that is not very hospitable to them.
But we have to reduce the number of people who will vote for them or tolerate violent jihadis, and kill those jihadis who will wage war on the government.
