The blast echoed through Islamabad and left a crater more than three feet deep in the road in front of the main gate to the embassy. Glass, fallen masonry and dozens of wrecked vehicles littered the area. People, some bloodied, ran away in a state of panic.
A perimeter wall of the embassy collapsed and its metal gate was blown inward, but the embassy building itself remained standing, though its windows were shattered.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri recently called for attacks on Danish targets in response to the publication of caricatures in Danish newspapers depicting the Prophet Muhammad.
Pakistan's new government is trying to strike peace deals with militants in its regions bordering Afghanistan, a pursuit eyed warily by the U.S.
Pakistani officials condemned the blast but indicated they did not want to stop the talks. The government has insisted it is not talking to "terrorists" but rather militants willing to lay down their weapons.
It may certainly be technically true that the Pakistanis are not talking to the bombers but to the militants willing to stop fighting for now. But the terms that the militants want have the feature of allowing the bombers to live and move about freely within the territory of those so-called militants.
So we have terrorists, tribal leaders who tolerate terrorists in their midst even as they bomb innocents, and a government that is committed to talking to the tribal leaders even as the tribal leaders tolerate the terrorists who plant bombs outside the Danish embassy.
Ah, the power of nuanced thinking! Oh, how will this turn out, I wonder?
