Before Bush began courting Mussarraf, the prospects were very real that Pakistan would tip into the the same abyss that had swallowed Afghanistan under the Taliban. Now at least those who are officially in power can be said at least in limited measure to be fighting Islamist terrorists They may be doing so halfheartedly to be sure, indeed, they may be riddled with spies and fifth columnists who effectively frustrate much of these efforts. But we are not confronted with the necessity to invade a nuclear power with an army that is clearly overstretched and embark on a campaign which would make the occupation of Iraq look entirely pacific..
One can see progress in Saudi Arabia as the powers that be come to understand that the greatest threat to the Saudi throne comes from the terrorists and fundamentalists. Whether the Saudis can be said to have had a real epiphany or not remains to be seen but I do not think it's naïve to say that what we got is better than what we had..
In this generation's long struggle against Islamist terrorism, our ability to motivate, recruit, and deploy rational Muslims against their crazed brothers is the ultimate key to our own national survival. That is why the undermining of America's image in the Islamic world with stories about Abu Ghraib or secret torture prisons are so terribly irresponsible.
