Even when Pakistan serves as a proxy for some other state or supplies the site for a war waged by outside forces on its territory–a double role it has played in two global conflicts already, as an American ally during the Cold War and the War on Terror–it does so in an unusual way. After an Islamic republic was established in Iran, for example, Pakistan quickly became an important ideological battlefield between the forces of Shi’ite revolution sponsored by Iran and those of the Sunni counter-revolution funded by Saudi Arabia… Pakistan became the setting for sectarian struggle because it is the most important Sunni country in the world, with a large population at home and abroad, a skilled workforce, industrial capacity and a sophisticated elite. …
Yet Pakistan, together with India, is also home to the only important Shi’ite elite outside Iran, one that is instrumental in funding sectarian causes worldwide. So it is not surprising that Pakistan should have become the model of sectarian militancy throughout the Muslim world. Indeed this struggle, sponsored by states like Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, can even be said to have given substance to both the recent wars in Afghanistan, whatever the Russians or Americans thought was happening there. Unlike Afghanistan, however, Pakistan has never been a mere proxy in such conflicts. … .
While it is the true home of Islamic ideologies, militant as well as moderate, Pakistan is at the same time home to the most powerful civil society in the Muslim world. Indeed these two facts go together, which is why both secular and sectarian protesters are to be found among those demonstrating against military rule in that country… For whatever the strength of its military, this state is a stunted one, which is exactly what one would expect in a borderland. And what we see happening in protests and bombings across the country now is the coming apart of Pakistan’s vibrant if contentious civil society from its stunted state, an event of such great significance that it has forced political parties like that of Benazir Bhutto to set aside their power-sharing deals with President Pervez Musharraf for the moment in order to join these civil society demonstrations and try to claim their leadership in the borderland. Access the full article>>