Democracy has reappeared in Pakistan with the successful February elections, President Pervez Musharraf taking off his uniform, and a civilian coalition government still managing to hold together. None of this, however, has made the fight against terrorists any easier.
The good news on that front is that Pakistanis have lost sympathy with extremists. The radical political parties fared miserably in the elections and recent opinion polls show rock-bottom approval for al-Qaida and the Taliban, particularly in the North West Frontier Province where these groups have operated most freely.
But popular support for the American-led "war on terror" is no higher than that for the extremists. Pakistanis feel they have been used as a pawn of American policy and that is one of the major reasons for Musharraf's decline.
The country has suffered an upsurge in terror attacks. There were more than twice as many in 2007 as in 2006. Over 1,300 people were killed, placing Pakistan behind only Iraq and Afghanistan in the terrorist killing league. Pakistanis recognize that they have a growing problem with terrorism, but they want to fight it their way not the American way.
The trouble is that this is not just Pakistan's problem. What happens in the NWFP and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of North and South Waziristan does not stay there. The Afghan government believes that the April 27 assassination attempt against President Hamid Karzai in Kabul was hatched in Pakistan's tribal areas.
Britain, with 800,000 citizens of Pakistani descent, and the United States, are both concerned that the FATA might become a safe haven for terrorist training such as al-Qaida enjoyed in Afghanistan under the Taliban. A steady chorus of senior U.S. officials, including U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte and chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, have been harping in recent days on the need to bring the tribal areas under control.
One official spoke of "regaining control" of those areas, but, as the Pakistanis realize very well, you cannot regain what you never had in the first place. In the days of the Raj the British never controlled the tribal areas and neither has Islamabad since.
Pakistan's approach today is to build schools and roads, and to negotiate with tribal leaders to keep extremists out. The government has even been talking to Baitullah Mehsud who is suspected to be behind the killing of Benazir Bhutto. The army shows no stomach for a fight in the tribal areas. They made truces in 2005 and 2006 and seem quite happy with another today. That is no surprise. They can hardly relish the prospect of an unpopular and protracted guerrilla war with no prospect of an easy victory.
Meanwhile the problems on the frontier continue to spill over into Afghanistan where violence and instability are on the rise and that country's future is in the balance. It is a tough challenge for all the parties involved and democracy does not make the solutions much easier.
Now if only all those U.S. resources in manpower, money and materiel weren't tied down in Iraq....