It’s interesting that whenever Hezbollah or Hamas makes a noise, Washington is quick to point to Iran as the mastermind and center of evil in the region. Pakistan, however, the actual home of Ossama bin Ladin and the hornets’ nest of Islamic radicalism from where the Taliban sprang and overran neighboring Afghanistan, is never called to account. Part of the reason is that Pakistan is a nuclear power and was, until recently, run by one of “our” dictators who we counted on to be our friend and to whom we funneled billions of dollars in the hope of keeping a lid on the simmering problem (just as we do in Egypt, another disaster waiting to happen). The dictator in Pakistan is gone and now the pot is boiling while we sit and watch the spillover into Waziristan, the tribal regions and now India. While nothing is proven yet, the attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai were no doubt planned and staged from Pakistan and should make everyone sit up and take serious notice.

Pakistan is, of course, the legacy the world has to bear from the British pullout of India. It was Britain’s “two state solution” to the problem of religious strife and the challenge for democratic pluralism, a challenge the Brits had no taste for dealing with once they’d made the decision to vacate. It was simply “Muslims here, Hindus there…and we’re outta here.” There has not been a day’s peace in the region since (which is certainly something promoters of a two state solution in Palestine/Israel should consider very seriously). Moreover, the creation of an “Islamic state” naturally attracted the hardest core radicals who began to congregate and share ideas and plans, which they took to their weaker next door neighbor, Afghanistan, to implement. One of those plans became “9/11.” While American security is more sophisticated than India’s, which proved itself breathtakingly inept, nevertheless the Taj Hotel could have easily been the Waldorf Astoria or the Hyatt Regency. Whereas 9/11 was four passenger airplanes, the Mumbai assault was in no fewer than seven locations at the same time. All it took was guns, grenades and a bunch of guys with can-do spirit. It could easily happen here. Mumbai is the heir to 9/11 and 7/11 in Britain and clearly shows, if anyone had any doubt, that Pakistan remains the most dangerous place on Earth. We had all better wake up and take a very different posture to what is in serious danger of becoming, for all intents and purposes, a rogue nation.

What should also disturb Americans is that this does not appear to be “al Queda.” Al Queda plans explosions and killing on as mass a scale as possible. The sticky business of taking of hostages has never been their pattern. It is exactly, however, the pattern of the al Queda clone groups who moved into Iraq in the wake of the United States military clearing the way for them by removing the regime of Saddam Hussein. What Mumbai means is that terrorist tactics that have played out since 9/11 are increasingly being adopted by low tech, and no doubt low income, people who are disaffected and who lack traditional political power. It is no coincidence that both the 9/11 and Mumbai attacks centered on financial centers. The attacks have no relation to the strife and glaring poverty and misery in India. Rather, these folks have figured out that stock markets and banks are the life blood of the infidel beast they feel oppresses them. This is the pattern- religious David vs. the infidel Goliah, not class warfare.

The challenge for the incoming Obama administration, and for the West as a whole, now will be to develop a cooperative, multilateral law enforcement entity to share data and enforce shared laws and protections as well as broadly enforced economic sanctions. The only defense against “terror” is accurate information about people and networks and monitoring the travel of suspects and organizational infiltration. Ironically, we already have a model for how to do this, it was called the “Cold War.” We just need Arabic and Farsi speakers instead of Russian and German ones. As Bush has so ingloriously proved to us all, there are no military solutions, and the worst thing America can be in the future is the lonesome cowboy who occupies countries. And the first place to focus on is not Iran, but Pakistan.