Who Needs Enemies?

Twenty-one men were arrested for today's busted plane bombing threat. All of the men were British citizens of Pakistani extraction and they were perhaps a month from executing their plans. Aren't Britain and Pakistan supposed to be our allies?

Only the heads of government!

President Musharraf of Pakistan is an American ally. Nevertheless, there's more al-Qaeda influence in Pakistan than anywhere in the world outside Iraq. Bin Laden is either hiding in Pakistan or regularly comes to Pakistan to hide. Significant elements of the Pakistani military and intelligence agencies support al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda has a great deal of popular support in Pakistan.

If Musharraf's enemies finally succeed in assasinating him, Pakistan could become the kind of virulent enemy that the Bush administration now fantasizes Iran and Syria to be.

The British situation is more complex, but has similarities. The occupation of Iraq is even more unpopular in Britain than it is in the United States. That's why Bush's ally Tony Blair is hanging on to his job by a thread and why Britain will fall in with the other European powers when Blair finally leaves office.

Likewise, radical Islam has sunk deeper roots among British Muslims than it has in other European countries. Just as Pakistan is the most volatile of the Islamic countries, Great Britain has the most volatile of all the expatriate Muslim populations.

The roots of radical Islam run deep in both Pakistan and Great Britain, but one has to wonder if our invasion of Iraq and support for Israel's hyper-aggressive tactics has not made things worse. Condoleeza Rice keeps talking about the "birth pangs" of a new order, but it looks like the "new order" is going to be even more dangerous than the present.