The deadly blast at the Marriott hotel in Islamabad on Saturday was a “revenge attack” for recent US strikes in the Pashtun tribal areas on the Afghan border, says Tariq Ali in The Guardian. In recent weeks, despairing of the new President taking any real action against the Islamic militants they believe are behind attacks on US and Nato forces in Afghanistan, America has taken to launching unilateral attacks in the tribal areas. Almost 100 innocent people have died as a result: “no outrage and global coverage for them”.
America was foolish to “fan radical feelings” by entering Pakistan’s tribal areas, but “blaming Washington must not be an excuse for failing to tackle extremism head on”, says The Daily Telegraph. The perpetrators of the Marriott bombing – most likely al-Qaeda or the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) – have “thrown down the gauntlet to the democratic, secular polity which emerged from elections last February”. The state’s survival is at stake, says The Independent. The bombing – the latest in a series that have received less attention because victims didn’t include Westerners – “makes a mockery” of Zardari’s claims to be getting tough on Islamic militants. Zardari’s late wife, Benazir Bhutto, warned that Pakistan’s woes could not be addressed without an economic turnaround; a “substantial injection of foreign cash” may be the only solution.
Sure, the economy is key, but there is no hope for a turnaround unless tough action is taken against the TTP, says Anatol Lieven in The Times. The real threat in Pakistan is not Islamic revolution or state failure, but a spread of terror and a state that turns to counter-terror in response. This would increase the stream of educated people leaving the country, along with foreign businessmen and foreign investment. Economic growth will then vanish, further fuelling extremism. Washington must persuade Pakistan’s leaders that the fight against extremism is as essential to their own democracy as to America’s war on terror, says the International Herald Tribune – and Pakistan’s leaders must persuade their citizens. Bush should also “work a lot harder” to come up with a policy that bolsters Pakistan’s civilian government.