Cover Story: Pakistan

Islamic militants have spread beyond their tribal bases, and have t

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un of an unstable, nuclear-armed nation.

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ENAZIRBHUTIO WAS WORRIED SHEwould not survive the day. It was, forher, to be a moment of joyous returnafter eight years of exile, but also anhour of great peril. Just before she leftDubai for Pakistan on Thursday, Oct.

18,Bhutto directed that a letter be hand-deliveredto Pervez Musharraf, the embattled Pakistani au-tocrat with whom she had negotiated a tenuouspolitical alliance. If anything happens to me,please investigate the following individuals inyour government, she wrote, according to an ac-count given to NEWSWEEK by her husband, AsifAli Zardari. Bhutto, Pakistan's former prime min-ister, then proceeded to name several senior secu-rity officials she considered to be enemies, Zardarisaid. Principal among those she identified, ac-cording to another supporter who works for herPakistan People's Party, was Ejaz Shah, the headof Pakistan's shadowy Intelligence Bureau, whichruns domestic surveillance in somewhat the wayM.I.5 does in Britain. Shah, a longtime associateof Musharraf's, is believed by Bhutto supportersto have Islamist sympathies. And Bhutto hadboldly challenged Pakistan's Muslim extremists,declaring before her arrival that "the terrorists aretrying to take over my country, and we have tostop them."

Bhutto was certainly prescient about thethreat. On Thursday, as her motorcade inchedalong a parade route guarded by roughly 20,000Pakistani security forces, one or more suicidebombers set off twin explosions that killed at least134 bystanders and police, and injured 450 oth-ers. The bombs narrowly missed Bhutto, who hadducked into her armored truck minutes before.Shaken but uninjured, she was rushed to safety.Musharraf's government quickly fingered Baitul-lah Mehsud, a longtime Thliban supporter and di-rector of some of the most lethal training facilitiesfor suicide bombers in the far-off mountains ofWaziristan. Mehsud had reportedly threatenedBhutto. She and her husband, however, pointed

A MONSTER IS ON THE RAMPAGE: The suicideattack against Bhutto's homecoming killedat least 134people and injured 450 others

OCTOBER 29, 2007 I NEWSWEEK 27

much closer to home. "We do not buy thatit was Mehsud;' Zardari told NEWSWEEK.There was no immediate evidence thatShah was connected to the bombing. At anews conference the next day, though,Bhutto noted that the streetlights had mys-teriously been turned off on her paraderoute and said: "I am not accusing the gov-ernment. I am accusing people, certain in-dividuals who abuse their positions. Whoabuse their powers:'

Whoever the real culprits turn out tobe, the truth is that Pakistan's governmenthas only itself to blame for the carnage inKarachi. Pakistani leaders created the Is-lamist monster that now operates withnear impunity throughout the country.Militant Islamist groups that were origi-nally recruited, trained and armed by Paki-stan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency(ISI) have since become Islamabad's dead-liest enemies. Twice they have nearly suc-ceeded in assassinating Musharraf, whowas once among their strongest support-ers. In the last six years extremists havekilled more than 1,000 Pakistani troops.

Today no other country on earth isarguably more dangerous than Pakistan. Ithas everything Osama bin Laden couldask for: political instability, a trusted net-work of radical Islamists, an abundanceof angry young anti-Western recruits, se-cluded training areas, access to state-of-the-art electronic technology, regular airservice to the West and security servicesthat don't always do what they're supposedto do. (Unlike in Iraq or Afghanistan, therealso aren't thousands of American troopshunting down would-be terrorists.) Thenthere's the country's large and growing nu-clear program. "If you were to look aroundthe world for where AI Qaeda is going tofind its bomb, it's right in their backyard;'says Bruce Riedel, the former senior direc-tor for South Asia on the National SecurityCouncil.

The conventional story about Pakistanhas been that it is an unstable nuclearpower, with distant tribal areas in terroristhands. What is new, and more frightening,is the extent to which Thliban and Qaedaelements have now turned much of thecountry, including some cities, into a basethat gives jihadists more room to maneu-ver, both in Pakistan and beyond.

In recent months, as Musharraf hasgrown more and more unpopular aftereight years of rule, Islamists have beenemboldened. The homegrown militantswho have hidden AI Qaeda's leaders since

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EVERYTHING HE COULD ASK FOR: A T shirt forsale at a clothing shop in the Pakistani capitaldisplays the face of Al Q,aeda's fugitive leader

safe and relaxed here," Abdul Majadd, aThliban commander who was badlywounded this summer during a fire fightagainst British troops in Afghanistan, toldNEWSWEEK recently after he was evacuat-ed to Karachi for emergency care.

Militancy is woven into the fabricof Pakistani society. At independencein 1947, the country's whisky-swillingfounder, Mohammed All Jinnah, used Is-lam to forge a sense of national identity.Since then the various military dictatorswho have periodically ruled the countryhave found jihad to be a convenient meansof distracting their citizens and furtheringtheir foreign-policy aims. Gen. Zia ul-Haq

the end of2001 are no longer restricted tountamed mountain villages along the bor-der. These Islamist fighters now operaterelatively freely in cities like Karachi-aprocess the U.S. and Pakistani govern-ments call "Thlibanization." Hammered bysuicide bombers and Iraq-style IEDs andreluctant to make war on its countrymen,Pakistan's demoralized military seems in-capable of stopping the jihadists even inthe cities. "Until I return to fight, I'll feel

turned Pakistan into a base for the muja-hedin waging war on the Soviets in M-ghanistan-and won billions in Americanaid in the process. In the 199Ds, after theSoviet defeat, generals like Musharraf dis-patched thousands of those fighters towage a guerrilla campaign in Kashmir.Many trained across the border in Mghan-istan, in the same camps that AI Qaedahad set up under the Taliban.

After 9/11 Musharraf promised Wash-ington that he would cut off support forsuch groups, including the Thliban. Earlyon, he authorized the arrests of several topQaeda leaders in Pakistani cities, includ-ing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mas-

termind of the 9/11 attacks, and AbuZubaydah, a top Qaeda organizer. ButMusharraf's efforts have always beensomewhat halfhearted, constrained by thedeep sympathies that many of his country-men have for jihadists. For decades Pa-kistanis were taught that the guerrillaswere Muslim heroes, fighting for nationalhonor and security. Such loyalties cannotbe turned off like a tap. Several of themilitants' onetime spymasters, both insideand outside the government, maintainlinks to their former charges. The securityservices will go after certain figures-par-ticularly foreign Qaeda fighters-but askothers simply to lie low. Many officials-

even many ordinary citizens-still thinkthe jihadists should be preserved for fu-ture use as a strategic weapon, especiallyagainst India, long after America's War onTerror is over.

THE SAFE HAVEN PROVIDED BY PAKI-stan has already had dire effects on .S.and NATO efforts to fight the resurgentTaliban next door in Mghanistan. Talibanfighters now pretty much come and go asthey please inside Pakistan. Their sick andinjured get patched up in private hospitalsthere. Guns and supplies are readily avail-able, and in the winter, when fighting

'If you were to lookfor where AI Qaedais going to findits bOffio, it's rightin their backyard'-in Pakistan.traditionally dies down in Mghanistan,thousands retire to the country's thrivingmadrassas to study the Qur'an. Some ofthe brainier operatives attend courses incomputer technology, video productionand even English. Far from keeping a lowprofile, the visiting fighters attend servicesat local mosques, where after prayers theyspeak to the congregation, soliciting dona-tions to support the war against the West."Pakistan is like your shoulder that sup-ports your RPG;' Taliban commanderMullah Momin Ahmed told NEWSWEEK,barely a month before a U.S. airstrikekilled him last September in Mghanistan'seastern Ghazni province. "Without it youcouldn't fight. Thank God Pakistan is notagainst us."

Dozens of Taliban commanders havemoved their wives and children to Paki-stan, where they live in the suburbs of citieslike Peshawar and Islamabad. This keepsthem out of the reach of Mghan authori-ties, who have been known to arrest rela-tives in order to track down guerrilla fight-ers. Mullah Shabir Ahmad is a memberof the Taliban's 3D-man ruling council, orshura. He's moved his family to a modestneighborhood of nearly identical brick andmud-brick houses in Quetta. Inside hishome he shows a visiting NEWSWEEK re-porter a room filledwith new bolts of cloth,Ramadan gifts from the city's Taliban sym-

OCTOBER 29,2007 I NEWSWEEK 29

OUT OF CONTROL: Dozens of bullet scarsspecltle the wall of a Shiite mosque in theteeming, violent port city of Karachi

pathizers. He spends roughly half the yearinside Pakistan, shuttling between Quetta,Karachi, Peshawar and the tribal belt toraise funds, recruit new fighters and plotstrategy with other commanders.

The insurgents have no centralizedsupply system. Instead, each seniorprovincial commander operates his ownnetwork. Din Mohammad, a tall, portlyman in his mid-30s, looks after the needsof insurgents who fight for commanderGu1Agha in southern Helmand province.With cash from Afghanistan and from hisown fund-raising efforts he buys shoesand warm clothes for Thliban fighters,walkie-talkies and satellite phones-evenweapons, explosives and remote-controldevices. The benign stuff he trucks into

Visiting Talibanchiefs in Peshawarcall reporters tofind a cheap hotel,a good restaurantor a new cell phone.Afghanistan openly. The lethal items arehidden in shipments of clothes and foodor under the baggage of Afghan refugeeson their way home. Some Thliban chiefsprefer to shop for themselves. Earlier thismonth Mullah Rehmat, a Taliban com-mander, rested at a youth hostel in Pesha-war while he waited for the master gun-smiths of Dera Adam Khel village to finisha $750 sniper rifle he'd ordered.

The contrast to 2002 is striking. Backthen, in the first flush of Musharraf'scrackdown on extremists, a NEWSWEEKreporter met Agha Jan, a former seniorTaliban Defense Ministry official, in an or-chard outside the city of Quetta. A nervousJan recounted how he had to change homesevery two nights for fear of capture, and hefled when some local villagers approached.Jan now has a house outside Quetta, wherehe liveswhen he's not fighting with Talibanforces across the border in his native Zabu1province. Reporters in Peshawar, a strate-gic Pakistani border city some 50 miles eastof the historic Khyber Pass and the Afghan

SO NEWSWEEK I OCTOBER 29, 2007

border, say it's not unusual these days toreceive phone calls from visiting Talibancommanders offering interviews, or askingwhere to find a cheap hotel, a good restau-rant or a new cell phone.

Last August, a NEWSWEEK reporterreceived a phone call from the spokesmanfor a senior Taliban leader, inviting him fordinner at a popular restaurant in Pesha-war. The reporter replied that he was al-ready there. As he looked around, he sawthe smiling jihadist sitting a few tablesaway. They shared a kilo of Mghan barbe-cue as the spokesman confidently talkedabout the Taliban's resurgence in Mghani-stan and how comfortable they felt operat-ing inside Pakistani cities and in the fron-tier tribal area. "The biggest chink inMusharraf's armor is his failure to moveagainst the Taliban, particularly in thecities:' says Samina Ahmed, the South Asiadirector of the International Crisis Groupin Islamabad. "The brains, the ones whoplan the operations, are not necessarily inthe boonies or in the sticks, they're in citieslike Quetta. Can he pick them up? EasilY:'

Taliban fighters say they are carefulnot to antagonize their hosts; the attacksagainst Pakistani troops have generallybeen conducted by Pakistani tribals, some-times with the support of Qaeda operatives.But that's a fine distinction. "If you takeaway that support the Taliban are gettingfrom across the border in Pakistan, it wouldbe much easier for U.S., NATO and Mghangovernment forces to confront the Talibaninside Mghanistan:' says Ahmed. Eachgroup may have its own agenda, but they allshare a visceral hatred of America and itsregional allies-including Musharraf TheTaliban also work closelywith Qaeda lead-ers in the tribal regions, planning attacks '"together and pooling their skills. ~

The Taliban presence began to grow iout of control after Musharraf, his Army ~bloodied by incursions into South Wa-ziristan, cut a peace deal with the tribalregion's Mehsud clan in 2005. He madeanother such truce with tribal militantsin North Waziristan in 2006. The cease-fire agreements were publicly announcedas treaties with tribal elders. Nothingcould be farther from the truth. The dealswere made directly with the militantleaders, their frontmen or terrified tribalelders who did the militants' bidding.As a result they were worthless: the mili-tants had no intention of keeping theirpromise to stop the passage of arms andfighters across the Mghan border. Whilethe Army halted offensive operationsand dismantled checkpoints, the militantshelped the Taliban and Ai Qaeda regroup

32 NEWSWEEK I OCTOBER 29, 2007

and reinfiltrate back into Mghanistan.Those forces, all working together,

have brought the Mghan jihad home toPakistan. Within the tribes' ancient mud-walled fortresses they run training coursesfor insurgent recruits and suicide bomb-ers. Some graduates travel to Mghanistanto fight beside the Taliban. Others will stayin the tribal area to fight the PakistaniArmy, while others are sent out to hit tar-

Army headquarters at Rawalpindi andelsewhere, killing scores. Authorities saythat until the showdown, the Red Mosquehad served as a way station and munitionsdepot for hundreds of fighters shuttling be-tween Pakistan's cities and the tribal areas.It reopened Oct. 3, and preachers there areonce again denouncing Musharraf and hispartnership with the West. A similar mes-sage was delivered to Bhutto before she

PRECIOUS FREEDOM: Few Pakistanis haveany desire to live under the militants' rule,but many think o/this as Musharra/'swar

gets in places like Karachi. Several terror-ist plots in Britain have been traced back tothe tribal areas.

Now the Pakistani government is bear-ing the brunt of the attacks. The threatturned critical in July, when more than 100militants died in a weeklong shoot-outwith government forces at Islamabad'sRed Mosque. In retaliation, tribal suicidebombers have managed to penetrate highlyguarded military facilities in the capital, the

came home. Last week, speaking by satel-lite phone from the South Waziristan tribalarea, a senior militant commander namedHaji Muhamad Omar called Bhutto anagent of Washington. "She doesn't comeback by her own choice. The United Statesand Britain are bringing her back to fightagainst the mujahedin:' he said.

The militants dominate in areas beyondthe tribal areas as well. Armed groups haveeffectively seized control in places like thepicturesque Swat Valley, where a jihadileader named Mullah Fazlullah rides ablack horse and commands hundreds m'men under the noses of a nearby PakistaniArmy division that seldom leaves its bar·

racks. Peshawar is perhaps the most im-portant production and distribution centerfor Taliban and other Islamist material.Jibadi CD and DVD shops abound. Onesmall shop features large posters of thenotorious Thliban commander MullahDadullah Akhund, who was killed in Hel-mand earlier this year, and pictures ofGuantfulamo inmates in their orangejumpsuits behind barbed wire.

The Mghan refugee camps aroundPeshawar, meanwhile, have become vastjihadist sanctuaries. The Jalozai andShamshatu camps, each housing some100,000 Mghan refugees, date back to thewar against the Soviets. Complaints fromthe Mghan government have forced Islam-abad and the UN. High Commissionerfor Refugees to begin the long process ofemptying Jalozai, a job that's supposedto be completed by next spring. Many ofthe camp's high-walled compounds are al-ready abandoned. But few Jalozai resi-dents are returning to Mghanistan whenthey leave the camps. Most are settling inPeshawar or other towns in the vicinity,

which will allow the Taliban more spaceto operate in. A local mullah was arrestedin Jalozai earlier this year after three Paki-stani militants blew themselves up whileusing his house as a bomb factory.

The Shamshatu camp, just south ofPe-shawar, is the personal fiefdom of the no-torious Mghan warlord Gulbuddin Hek-matyar. His guerrillas, the Hizb-i-Islami("Party of Islam"), operate mainly in M-ghanistan's Kunar province, but Sham-shatu is their power base, in effect an au-tonomous enclave within Pakistan. LikeJalozai, the place resembles a sprawling,labyrinthine Mghan village of mud-brickhouses surrounded by high mud walls,and it's ruled by strict, Taliban-style Islam-ic law. Music is forbidden-even musicalringtones on cell phones. So is tobacco.Women are banned from venturing out-side except in the company of a male rela-tive. (There are girls' schools, though: un-like his Taliban allies, Hekmatyar believesin women's education.)

Shamshatu contains high-securityareas that are out of bounds even to campresidents. Camp residents say Hekmat-yar's men run private jails in these off-limits areas. Recently a woman who livedin the camp dared to go shopping alone.When she entered a small electronicsshop, gunmen followed her. They forcedthe shopkeeper to close his store, detainedthe woman and telephoned her husband."If you won't kill her, we will;' they toldhim, before handing her over with a warn-ing that if they caught her again withoutan escort, they would kill her. Then theyconfiscated the shopkeeper's goods andthrew him out of the camp.

MUSHARRAF SAYS HIS FORCES ARE DO-ing everything possible to halt the ji-hadists' spread. Pakistan's president hasshown he can deliver when he must. Latelast February, just as Vice President DickCheney arrived in Islamabad to pressureMusharraf to fight harder against theIslamists, Pakistani military-intelligenceagents in Quetta suddenly captured Mul-lah Obaidullah Akhund. As the Taliban'sDefense minister and one of MullahOmar's key deputies, he was the highest-ranking Taliban official the Pakistanishad ever taken into custody. A couple ofmonths earlier, Pakistan reportedly in-formed US. forces in Mghanistan thatanother senior Taliban leader, MullahAkhtar Mohammad Osmani, was headinginto Mghanistan from Quetta. A US.airstrike promptly killed him, just insideMghanistan. But those cases remainexceptional.

US. government officials say thatMusharraf's government still has tightcontrol over the nation's nuclear-weaponsprogram. Still, radicals would not need tosteal a whole bomb in order to create ha'oc.Pakistan has never made a public account-ing of its nuclear materials, and last yearits Atomic Energy Agency began publish-ing ads in newspapers instructing the pub-lic about how to recognize radioactive ma-terials and their symbols. The ads werequickly withdrawn after they incited fearsthat fissile material had gone missing. ButPervez Hoodbhoy, a noted nuclear physicistat Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad,says outside experts don't really know howmuch higWy enriched uranium Pakistanhas produced in the past and how muchremains in existing stocks. "No one has areal idea about that;' he says. "That meansthat stuff could have gotten out. Little bitshere or there. But we really don't know."

'The greatest dangeris that the wholenation seems tobe saying that thisis not our watch,this is not our war.'

In Washington, a senior administra-tion official involved in counterterrorismsaid US. intelligence is chronically fearfulthat Islamists might get hold of nuclearmaterial, equipment or know-how in Paki-stan. He recalled that after 9/11, a group ofrogue Pakistani nuclear scientists met withOsama bin Laden. "Given that history, wecontinue to look at this issue very closely,"he said, speaking on condition of anonym-ity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

It's not surprising that Pakistani au-thorities might give the Taliban specialtreatment. The country's intelligence offi-cers and military men have maintainedclose personal relations with senior Tal-iban leaders ever since the Soviet occupa-tion of Mghanistan in the 1980s. Westernmilitary and diplomatic officials say theydoubt that Pakistan is still activelyassist-ing Mghan insurgents-but they don'tthink it's trying very hard to stop them, ei-ther. "I'm not delusional;' says a Westernmilitary official in Islamabad, not wishingto be quoted by name on such a sensitivetopic. "Their [the Pakistani government's]

TO TURN ANOTHER PAGE: A giant Qur'an ondisplay in Karachi during the celebration ofPakistan's 60th birthday this pastAugust

guys are in contact with the Talibs. Theymay not be assisting them, but they aren'tbusting them, either."AWestern diplomat,speaking off the record because he is notauthorized to represent his government'sviews to the media, says, "I'm sure thereare intelligence officials, active and retired,who have dealt with the Taliban in the pastand still support their cause. That's thepower of personal relationships over time.You don't cut those off abruptly."

The Thliban war effort is also greatlyaided by dozens of "retired" former offi-cials in Mullah Omar's defunct Talibangovernment who now reside in Pakistan,some armed with Pakistani national iden-tity cards. The Taliban don't think they'reputting anything past the ISI-"the blacksnake," as they call the agency. MullahShabir Ahmad, a provincial commander,spends upwards of six months of the yearinside Pakistan. "The Pakistanis knowwhat we eat for lunch and dinner," he says.Mullah Momin Ahmed, visiting his family

34 NEWSWEEK I OCTOBER 29, 2007

in Quetta shortly before his death in Sep-tember, agreed: "Pakistan knows every-thing about us, but it seems to ignore us." _Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad, the military'schief spokesman, says that Pakistaniforces have arrested and deported 1,500Taliban to Afghanistan, "but many some-how return."

Until now, most Pakistanis seem tohave remained impervious to the jihadistthreat, despite the evidence around them.Musharraf himself has seemed preoccu-pied with other matters. "He has failed tounderstand the danger of insurgency onboth sides of the border, and how to bringthe Pakistani people along with him tocounter that threat," says retired PakistaniArmy Lt. Gen. Talat Masood. "He has beentoo obsessed with perpetuating his power."Instead, according to Masood and otherobservers, the president has allowed Paki-stanis to lull themselves into thinkingthat the battle against the jihadists isMusharraf's and America's problem, nottheirs. "The greatest danger is that thewhole Pakistani nation, including seniorpoliticians, seems to be saying that thisis not our watch, this is not our war,"says Masood. "Even the Taliban presence

in the cities seems to have an acceptance."Few Pakistanis have any desire to live

under the militants' rule. The trouble is,the country's moderate alternatives havebecome almost as unpopular. Musharrafwon a third term as president by a unani-mous Electoral Assembly vote on Oct. 6(heavily boycotted by the opposition). Ina recent nationwide poll by the Interna-tional Republican Institute, however, heearned a dismal 21 percent approval rat-ing. Bhutto fared little better, scoring apitiful 28 percent. Many Pakistanis wereappalled by her willingness to cut a dealwith Musharraf so that he would allow herto return from exile.

True, the survey was taken before lastweek's attack. In the wake of the deadliestterrorist bombing in Pakistan's history.the public might rally once again to hersupport. "She won't be deterred," her hus-band told NEWSWEEK, describing Bhuttcas "composed" in a phone call after theattack. "She won't be taken hostage by G

small minority of people." But that minori-ty of Islarnists isn't so small any longer-and it's ready for a long war.

With MARK HOSENBALL in Washingtor.ZAHID HUSSAIN in Islamabad and staff repor.

WORLD VIEWFareed Zakaria

Stalin, Mao and ... Ahmadinejad?

AT A MEETING WITH REPORTERS LASTWEEK, PRESIDENT BUSH SAIDthat "if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like youought to be interested in preventing [Iran] from having the knowledgenecessary to make a nuclear weapon." These were not the barbs of

some neoconservative crank or sidelined politician looking for publicity. This wasthe president of the United States, invoking the specter of World War III ifIrangained even the knowledge needed to make a nuclear weapon.

The American discussion about Iran has lost all connection toreality. Norman Podhoretz, the neoconservative ideologist whomBush has consulted on this topic, has written that Iran's PresidentMahmoud Ahmadinejad is "like Hitler ... a revolutionary whoseobjective is to overturn the going international system and to re-place it in the fullness of time with a new order dominated byIran and ruled by the religio-political culture ofIslamofascism."For this staggering proposition Podhoretz provides not a scintillaof evidence.

Here is the reality. Iran has an economy the size of Finland'sand an annual defense budget of around $4.8 billion. It has notinvaded a country since the late 18thcentury. The United States has a GDPthat is 68 times larger and defense ex-penditures that are 110times greater.Israel and every Arab country (exceptSyria and Iraq) are quietly or activelyallied against Iran. And yet we are tobelieve that Tehran is about to overturnthe international system and replace itwith an Islamo-fascist order? Whatplanet are we on?

When the relatively moderate Mo-hammed Khatami was elected presi-dent in Iran, American conservativespointed out that he was just a figure-head. Real power, they said (correctly), BIZARRE TWISTS: The Iranian president last weekespecially control of the military andpolice, was wielded by the unelected "Supreme Leader;' Ayatol-lah Ali Khamenei. Now that Ahmadinejad is president, theyclaim his finger is on the button. (Oh wait, Iran doesn't have anuclear button yet and won't for at least three to eight years, ac-cording to the CIA, by which point Ahmadinejad may not bepresident anymore. But these are just facts.)

In a speech last week, Rudy Giuliani said that while the SovietUnion and China could be deterred during the cold war, Irancan't be. The Soviet and Chinese regimes had a "residual ration-ality,"he explained. Hmm. Stalin and Mao-who casually or-dered the deaths of millions of their own people, fomented insur-gencies and revolutions, and starved whole regions that opposedthem-were rational folk. But not Ahmadinejad, who has donewhat that compares? One of the bizarre twists of the current Iranhysteria is that conservatives have become surprisingly charitableabout two of history's greatest mass murderers.

Ifl had to choose whom to describe as a madman, North Ko-rea's KimJong Il or Ahmadinejad, I do not think there is reallyany contest. A decade ago KimJong Il allowed a famine to kill2 million of his own people, forcing the others to survive by eat-

ing grass, while he imported gallons of expensive French wine.He has sold nuclear technology to other rogue states and threat-ened his neighbors with test -firings of rockets and missiles. Yetthe United States will be participating in international relief ef-forts to Pyongyang worth billions of dollars.

We're on a path to irreversible confrontation with a countrywe know almost nothing about. The United States governmenthas had no diplomats in Iran for almost 30 years. American offi-cials have barely met with any senior Iranian politicians or offi-cials. We have no contact with the country's vibrant civil society.Iran is a black hole to us-just as Iraq had become in 2003.

The one time we seriously negotiated with Tehran was in theclosing days of the war in Mghanistan,in order to create a new political orderin the country. Bush's representative tothe Bonn conference, James Dobbins,says that "the Iranians were very pro-fessional, straightforward, reliable andhelpful. They were also critical to oursuccess. They persuaded the NorthernAlliance to make the final concessionsthat we asked for."Dobbins says theIranians made overtures to have betterrelations with the United Statesthrough him and others in 2001 andlater, but got no reply. Even after theAxis of Evil speech, he recalls, they of-fered to cooperate in Mghanistan.Dobbins took the proposal to a princi-pals meeting in Washington only tohave it met with dead silence. The thenSecretary of Defense Donald Rums-feld, he says, "looked down and rustledhis papers." No reply was ever sentback to the Iranians. Why bother?They're mad.

Last year, the Princeton scholar,Bernard Lewis, a close adviser to Bushand Vice President Dick Cheney, wrotean op-ed in The Wall Street Journalpredicting that on Aug. 22, 2006, Pres-

ident Ahmadinejad was going to end the world. The date, he ex-plained, "is the night when many Muslims commemorate thenight flight of the Prophet Muharnmad on the winged horse Bu-raq, first to 'the farthest mosque,' usually identified withJerusalem, and then to heaven and back. This might well bedeemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending ofIsraeland ifnecessary of the world:' (my emphasis). This would all befunny if it weren't so dangerous.

Conservativeshave becomesurprisinglycharitableabout two ofhistory'sgreatest massmurderers.