A new Pakistan?

OPINION:

Plato defined man as “animal bipes implume” — a “two-legged animal without feathers.” While a rather sardonic definition, given our species’ performance currently I think Plato’s definition is more fitting than the rather self-admiring title of homo sapiens — “wise man.” Almost any news story that has appeared in the last few years would support my argument, I think you might agree.

But I have in mind this week two barely reported events that have every potential to induce havoc in the most volatile region of the world. Need I say I am referring to the land of political madness that is encompassed by the geography from Turkey to Pakistan. In fact, I refer precisely to Turkey and Pakistan.

Let’s talk Turkey, first. The Turkish high court (known as the Constitutional Court) announced Monday that it had decided to take a case on closing Turkey’s governing party, the Justice and Development Party, and banning its top political leaders—its current vastly popular Prime Minster Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ally, President Abdullah Gul.

If I might add, en passant, I had dinner last year at the Willard Hotel in Washington with Mr. Gul. And, a more charming and civilized chap one would be hard pressed to find. But he, as his prime minster and party, are what one might call “soft Islamists”: Very far from the bomb-throwing, throat-cutting lunatics, they are supportive of head scarves for Muslim women and dedicated to a gentle rollback of the indomitable secularism of Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (praised be he.) Eight of the eleven members of the Constitutional Court, along with most of the military, the government bureaucracy and much of the business community are staunchly secular. By this decision, the secular establishment has decided to challenge the popular government — confirmed by the public in a big electoral victory last July — in what may well be a fateful decision.

If they outlaw Mr. Erdogan, Mr. Gul and the Justice and Development Party, they will act in defiance of the popular Turkish will about as dramatically as would have been the case if Franklin Roosevelt’s government had been outlawed in the fall of 1933 by Herbert Hoover’s Supreme Court.

While my sympathies are with the secularists, I dread the consequences of an undemocratic court outlawing a popularly elected government, particularly as the government denies being Islamist and is treading very carefully down the path back to Turkish Islam in government. If the court tries to turn out the government, we are likely to see a more radical re-formation of Turkish government and culture. And with that, the last hope will expire of a major Muslim country committed to genuine integration into Western civilization.

On the other end of the land of lunacy lies Pakistan, our (until now) more or less stalwart ally in the war against al Qaeda. Also on Monday, the leader of Pakistan’s new government condemned the country’s president, our maximum ally former Gen. Pervez Musharraf, for “strongarm tactics against Islamist militants”: A.K.A., the Taliban.

In his inaugural speech, the new Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, a loyalist of assassinated opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, “rebuked” Mr. Musharraf’s military tactics in the northern provinces abutting Afghanistan where al Qaeda and Taliban forces operate.

Mr. Gilani is generally seen as a placeholder for the real emerging leader, Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of former Prime Minster — and recently assassinated martyr to the secular cause — Benazir Bhutto. As soon as Mr. Zardari is elected to parliament in a by-election, he presumably will become prime minister.

Mr. Gilani said that combating terrorism was his first priority, but “he also said he was willing to talk to militants who are ready to lay down their arms and join the path of peace.” Translated into English, that means that he intends to distinguish between Taliban (potentially good) and al Qaeda (probably bad.) However, it has been our government’s view that the Taliban supports al Qaeda and that both are bad.

Thus, we are likely to face a new Pakistani government that rejects Mr. Musharraf’s strategic alliance with the United States vis-a-vis Afghanistan. It will cut a deal with the Taliban in the northern provinces of Waziristan and embrace the strategic argument that there is no mere Afghan solution to the danger. Rather, it will argue that a much broader regional peace process is required.

Our next president, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton or John McCain, will thus face the likely prospect that in Pakistan and Afghanistan — the cockpit of world terrorism — we will have no regional ally. The potentially emerging new Pakistani government would appear to be rejecting our, and Mr. Musharraf’s, theory of the war in Afghanistan: that the Taliban are the enemy along with al Qaeda and must be defeated.

It is a measure of our unfeathered bi-pedalism, that with these potentially drastically dangerous events in train, the stories of the week in the media remain Mrs. Clinton’s stupid lies and Mr. Obama’s clever tactics.