Pet snakes, trying to tame fanaticism

Ralph Peters:

NO matter how gently you pet a snake, it's not going to love you back. And faith-fueled fanatics always show their fangs in the end.

Nobody seems to learn. Again and again, states imagine that they can use and control Islamist extremists. Then the terrorists turn against their "masters."

That's what happened Monday in Pakistan, when Muslim militants brazenly struck a police academy near the Indian border -- far from the lawless tribal regions. The terrorists killed seven cops and two civilians. Nearly a hundred officers suffered wounds during the siege.

The terrorists blew themselves up, rather than be captured. They knew Allah would welcome them. The one captured fanatic meant to die.

Pakistan's homegrown jihadis began with local takeovers in the back country. In response, the government -- which had backed the Taliban in the hope of controlling Afghanistan -- tried to cut deals.

But the deals only helped the extremists, ceding them territory. Their attacks spread to major cities, such as Peshawar and Quetta. Then terror crossed the Indus River into the heartland. Benazir Bhutto was assassinated. Islamabad's Marriott Hotel suffered a catastrophic bombing. Even Sri Lanka's visiting cricket team was marked for death.

Now the terrorists have reached right across Pakistan to mount a frontal assault on a police academy. Give 'em credit -- that took guts.

And fervor. Fired by visions of serving an angry god, the terrorists are sure that they're bound to win, that all those of weaker belief will fall before them. Nothing short of death will make them quit.

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Not so long ago, some Israelis hoped that the newborn Hamas would be a useful tool to weaken the PLO's grip on the Palestinians. The bad news is they were right.

The phenomenon shows up in secular history, as well. During the Weimar Republic, German conservatives were confident that they could exploit that down-market ex-corporal and his Brownshirts, then brush them aside. (Slow learners, the same Germans had viewed Lenin and his Bolsheviks as useful mischief-makers.)

Never underestimate a fanatic's fanaticism.

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Nor is this only a problem for the Muslim world. Indian politicians have unleashed Hindu extremists and may find their rage uncontainable one day. Any politician, anywhere, who thinks he can exploit religious fanatics with impunity is dancing with cobras.

Pakistan can no longer get the serpents it nurtured back into the basket. Even Iran may find that the Shia terrorists it encourages may fail to be charmed by Tehran's magic flute when a crisis comes.

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Could we have driven the Soviets out of Afghanistan without the pet snakes? Probably not. But the problem was the failure to put them back in containment after the Soviets were gone. There was some though at the time that the Muslim fanatics would give the Soviet problems in their Stans, and they certainly did in Chechnya. But it was the ones we left in Afghanistan that have been our main problem. We should not make the mistake of leaving again until they are destroyed there and in Pakistan which is the source of most attacks on teh West since 9-11.