Pakistan cooperation a test for the faithful

By PETER POPHAM

ISLAMABAD - Maulvi Gowher Rachman, the spiritual leader of a madrassa, or Islamic seminary, less than an hour's drive from Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, tucked his legs up on the big bed, stroked his beard and pursed his lips pensively.

"President [Pervez] Musharraf only said that he will cooperate against terrorists," he said.

"Islam is against terrorism. He did not say he would cooperate with America against Afghanistan.

"He also did not say that he would allow America to use Pakistan's air space."

Whenever a Pakistani opens his mouth in these strange days he finds himself walking a verbal tightrope.

The Maulvi of the madrassa in North West Frontier Province, whose students had locked the female photographer I was with in a room to prevent her outraging their modesty, was no different.

Each step along the rope is a challenge. The attacks on America were bad - "Islam is against attacks on civilians ... I strongly condemn the attacks on New York and Washington. Islam allows jihad, holy war, when it is imposed on them on the battlefield - but not like this."

That's step one. Then step two: "Afghanistan is not involved in this attack. And if America carries out attacks on Afghanistan, it will be a great cruelty."

And step three: "Osama [bin Laden] is innocent. He is innocent because he is a good Muslim who first fought against the Russians."

Step four: "America has no evidence against Osama. If evidence is found against him he should be tried in an Islamic court in Afghanistan."

And so the end of the tightrope is reached and the Maulvi steps gratefully to safety.

All is well in this cloistered, bearded, unisexual bit of the world, where all you need to know is the Koran by heart.

But, of course, all is not well: at the end of Pakistan's tightrope now is a yawning void.

Yesterday, foreign businessmen continued to fly home as foreign journalists came the other way.

Speculation has begun to take on a tinge of panic. If Pakistan gives America permission to use its air space, what of the danger to Pakistan's secret nuclear installations?

And if Pakistan failed to cooperate, would not that danger be even more tangible?

The Taleban, meanwhile, threaten to attack any country that aids the United States, and while such an attack would not be on a scale to menace the Pakistani state, it could set the border ablaze.

And the reaction of the Taleban's spiritual kinsmen across Pakistan (such as Maulvi Rachman and his disciples) is entirely predictable.

General Musharraf knows that many of Pakistan's 140 million people are adamantly opposed to helping the United States.

The hardline Islamic parties that openly back the Taleban, and have helped supply cannon fodder for military offensives since their emergence from Pakistani madrassa in 1994, now openly warn of the internal unrest that helping a US onslaught on Afghanistan will trigger.



At the back of many minds is the memory of what happened on the previous occasions that Pakistan cooperated with the US.

Former General Mirza Beg said: "Pakistan had extended the fullest cooperation to the US against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

"But the day the USSR pulled out, the US turned its back on Pakistan and Afghanistan ...

"Pakistan stood on the side of the US during the Gulf War, but the result was no different."

Scepticism about joining a US-led war is not confined to the jihadis: many Pakistanis trace the fact that the country is awash with guns and drugs and blighted with sectarian killings to its role as the base for the decade-long war against the Soviets.

But through the smoke of anxiety and resentment that shrouds Pakistan, occasionally a clear beam of light penetrates. Why, asked Muhammad Ali Siddiqi, writing in the daily newspaper Dawn, does Pakistan find itself shackled to the universally execrated Taleban?

Pakistan's worry is unrest on the Afghan border, where no Afghan regime has ever agreed on the official demarcation between the two nations.

The Taleban, created, financed and advised by Pakistan, seemed a permanent answer to the problem. But now the answer has blown up in Pakistan's face, with results no one can predict.

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