With each new piece of information revealed to the press in the ongoing investigation of Faisal Shahzad, the failed Times Square bomber, more and more scrutiny has turned to the state of Pakistan - where Shahzad was born and raised in an elite, secular environment, and to whose loosely governed tribal areas he returned last year. There, apparently already under the grip of religious radicalism, he sought training in the dark arts of bomb-making.
Since Pakistan has, for the past few decades, been home to a motley crew of terrorist groups - both home-grown and imported - this intense scrutiny is not just merited; it is necessary. But as the West quickly concludes that Pakistan itself is to blame for Faisal Shahzad and his ilk, it's time to leaven this scrutiny with a little realism. Securing our children and loved ones against the threat of terrorism - whether outside the enormous Toys 'R' Us in Times Square, the Hamley's in Dubai Mall, or anywhere else - is a critical task, but we must remain humble about what we know and do not know, and about what we can and can't know of its perpetrators and their motives. All the enterprising journalists in the world still can't entirely explain all the factors that transformed Shahzad from an insignificant immigrant in the suburbs of Connecticut into a failed terrorist.
Those attempting to draw a simple and direct connection between Pakistan and Shahzad's deeds have produced two distinct but related accounts, both of which substitute oversimplified speculation for facts to assert that the sheer force of Pakistani anti-Americanism tells us everything we need to know about Shahzad. In the first, Shahzad is a "lone wolf" acting on the basis of his own rage - the perfect caricature of an angry young Pakistani man. His cup runneth over with Islamist ideology, which he is presumed to have absorbed simply by growing up in Pakistan, home to schools that are nothing but "jihad factories". His anger and bitterness coalesce into religious radicalism as he glares angrily at whisky drinkers, and his violent genetic code is stirred into action by the casualties of George W Bush's war on terror. His radicalisation doesn't take place in Pakistan, but the stain of the Islamic Republic is clearly visible.
Shahzad, of course, may not have been a "lone wolf" at all, and more recent news accounts have pursued the idea that he took orders from the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), who seized the opportunity to send a fighter with "clean skin" to strike New York City. This second account is no less a caricature, featuring a vulnerable young man, conditioned by his upbringing in the "global epicentre of terrorism", who follows what we are supposed to believe is a common path for disaffected Pakistanis visiting home, and heads for Waziristan to train as a martyr. Given the rampant and unabashed anti-Americanism on the streets of Karachi and Lahore, his compass turns naturally to Pakistan's home-grown terrorists. From there, all it takes is a few routine training operations, and the next thing you know he's trying to blow up Times Square.
Of course, the fact that his links to the TTP appear tenuous at best, that he is not a dispossessed or poor rural youth schooled in a Deobandi madrasa, and that he fits few of the stereotypes of low-level foot soldiers in the global jihad doesn't diminish the danger represented by Faisal Shahzad and others like him. In some ways his radicalisation may portend a much more sinister danger laying ahead, one that can't be fixed simply by dumping aid money into Pakistan or assassinating more al Qa'eda and Taliban leaders. The serious threat represented by unmoored young men who turn their vague frustrations into violent acts means we need to exercise more, rather than less, care in understanding the problem. Citing the mere word "Pakistan" offers the great comfort of simplicity; adding "anti-American" has the almost magical effect of tieing the whole thing into a neat bow.
But like all magic tricks, this is an illusion. Anti-American sentiment certainly does contaminate public discourse in Pakistan, but to imply that the presence of this sentiment will lead Pakistanis to drive car bombs into Times Square is a real stretch. Just like the pathetic and endangered species of mullahs who peddle anti-Americanism because they have no real political ideas of their own, those who try to construe Pakistani anti-Americanism as the "real" cause of Faisal Shahzad's acts are in the throes of irrational desperation. Without saying so directly, they mean very much to imply that Pakistan is so saturated with hatred for the United States that even perfectly normal boys feeding at the teat of the American dream remain potential terrorists.
The irony could not be richer. The nearly 180 million ordinary Pakistanis demonised by such suggestions are the primary targets of the TTP and its blood lust. Since it came together as an umbrella coalition of terrorist groups in December 2007, the TTP has killed more than 5,000 innocent Pakistanis. It has not spared any kind of target: women, children, the infirm and the disabled. It has struck hospitals, universities, supermarkets, and mosques. The TTP has no public support in Pakistan. According to Gallup, only four per cent of all Pakistanis feel the Taliban are a positive influence, and in Shahzad's home province, that number is one per cent. On Main Street in Pakistan, the TTP represents the country's lunatic fringe.
Do Pakistanis unanimously agree on the solution to this cancer? Not at all. At the broadest level, there is real disagreement even about what the very character of Pakistan should be. Some Pakistanis believe that Islamist terror is alien to Islamic Pakistan - a schism introduced here by Afghan refugees, Indian spies and lorry-loads of CIA cash. Other Pakistanis believe that the expression of Islamic values in public life in Pakistan is at the root of this terror and such expression needs to be muzzled altogether.This kind of escapism isn't just a generic explanation of why Pakistan is beset by terrorism. It permeates into the details too.
America's use of unmanned aerial vehicles to pursue and target suspected terrorists in Pakistani territory is a perfect reflection of the contradictions within Pakistan's re-emerging democratic norms. Though they are used to pursue and target suspected terrorists in Pakistani territory, drones are unpopular. Official policy is to deny that drone attacks are sanctioned by the Pakistani government. But official policy is also to work closely with the CIA, which manages the drone programme for the US government.
Many Pakistanis believe the drone attacks are a disgrace; some also believe that drone attacks are a necessary instrument of war against savages. The rich irony of wanting to retain a veneer of national pride, while also wanting to zap terrorists out of the holes that they hide in is part of the political economy of Pakistan's struggle with terrorism. Within the diversity and richness of the Pakistani discourse, anti-American feelings are but one among a host of stimulants. Pakistanis are engaged in fierce public debates about corruption, about water scarcity, about electricity and power generation and about the cricket scores that night. They are trying to sort through the morass of 63 years of poor governance that has created dysfunctional schools, illiterate teachers, unhealthy hospitals and dangerous medicines.
The TTP and terrorism at large both loom ominously over the entire spectrum of policy and politics in the country. It should hardly be surprising that Pakistanis are confused and internally contradicted about some of the implications of fighting terror. A tsunami of suicide bombs, fedayeen attacks, car bombs, IEDs, and mines has washed over Pakistan since 2003, with more than 10,000 innocent Pakistanis losing their lives in these attacks. The spike in terrorist violence that began in 2007 is widely attributed to the storming of the Lal Masjid is Islamabad that July - an oft-ignored national calamity that remains deeply embedded in the country's collective memory. Many wonder how much worse, or better things may have been if Lal Masjid had been handled differently.
Neither Pakistani ambivalence about how to fight terrorism, nor Pakistani unease at the rapidly growing count of innocent civilians killed by American drone strikes or Pakistan Army artillery are the same thing as widespread support for terrorists. When cheap monikers like "jihadist factory" are bestowed on Pakistan, the lines are not simply being blurred. They are being erased. The ambivalence and unease in Pakistan are actually good things. They demonstrate a vibrant plurality of opinion in the country. The fact that these nuances need to be explained at all is exactly why labeling this large, complex and troubled country as a suicide vest packed with "anti-Americanism" is so dangerous.
The notion that anti-American sentiment in the country is so gripping that it is driving Pakistanis to the madness demonstrated by Faisal Shahzad says nothing about Pakistan, or Pakistanis. Instead it demonstrates how desperate many people are for a simple one-liner to explain the kind of complexity that can rationalise mass murder. In trying to understand the smoke coming out of the 1993 Nissan Pathfinder at Times Square on May 1, complexity and nuance may be luxuries, but they are luxuries we cannot do without.
Mosharraf Zaidi is a columnist for The News in Pakistan and has advised governments and NGOs on aid policy in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
