Picking Through Pakistan's Clichés

To know Pakistan, one must know what it is not.Our public discourse has it that "all that stops a jihadi finger finding the nuclear trigger is (Pervez) Musharraf," writes Tariq Ali, the Pakistan-born British author.

Whereas this perception lets the general pose as the lone guardian of the last outpost between civilization and bearded Muslim hordes in caves and madrassas, reality is that "the threat of a jihadi takeover of Pakistan is remote."

The Islamists have never won more than 16 per cent of the vote, and are in power in only two provinces in coalition with others.