By Dr Farooq Hassan

The Nation 8 March 06

The strategic implications of Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten’s publication of the cartoons blaspheming holy Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) are spreading in several directions. It has caused great anger and hurt the Muslim world. One fundamental implication is clear. The public furore has assumed an antagonistic posture towards Western political interests and those of its supporters. Even Condoleezza Rice was constrained to note publicly that this “severe” Islamic condemnation of caricatures was getting out of hand and threatening to block “the progress that the US was endeavouring to achieve” on many international fronts.

As a result, worldwide agitation and protests have evidently become a terrifying prospect for policymakers of countries such as Pakistan where democracy has been held hostage by the army. So much is the government shaken that it had to vote for a condemnatory parliamentary resolution. A countrywide protest and strike resulted in severe destruction of public property. The government agreed to participate in the national anti-blasphemy protest on 3rd March, the day President Bush came to Islamabad.

The reason for the government’s dilemma is obvious. It is petrified that if it supports even by lip service the Islamists’ call, it gets doomed in the eyes of its Western benefactors including Washington. If it does what it wants to really do, it is doomed to an unceremonious ouster as it has no political base among the people. Besides, it loses credibility in Washington and elsewhere that he can turn the screw at will against fundamentalist forces.

Read the whole essay here.

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