It is of course now all the rage, to rage against Musharraf – the embattled President and military autodidact of Pakistan. Raging against the military-machine as it were, might satisfy emotional impulses, or some strange ideas about democracy, but it does nothing to help the West or the US, in the war against Islamic fascism. A simple maxim should suffice regarding Pakistan: 'whoever controls the military and is helping us in the war against fascist Islam, is our friend'. Period.

Quaint notions about democracy cloud everything – and most of them are nonsense. The hue and cry from the Western media is that we must install the corrupt aristocrat Ms. Bhutto as Queen of Pakistan. Interesting. Who then will control the military and the nuclear warheads? Who guarantees that she will be an improvement on Musharraf? Who will promise that she will help us in the war on Islamic fascism – beyond rhetoric and nice words? Indeed who really believes that a country such as Pakistan is ready for anything close to democracy? What will Queen Bhutto give us for elevating her to Queen status, that we don't already get through Musharraf?

If Musharraf and his gang fall, then Pakistan will become an immoderate jumble-mash of radical Islam. Extremist Islamic parties are already very strong and prevalent in Pakistan. Al Qaeda links are legion throughout Pakistani society – at all levels, including the military. If you try to push forward a democracy without the laws, institutions or culture to support it, it will fail. If laid open to predatory democracy, Pakistan will become a larger and far more dangerous Palestine. Instead of Hamas, we will have Al Qaeda and the Wahabbi-Maududi sects taking control.

In short nothing in Pakistan is ready for democracy.

Why does anyone think that the Islamic world is compatible with democracy? The usual argument found on the conservative site The Weekly Standard, is nonsensical, 'Musharraf's determination to stay in power--his evisceration of the democratic opposition and flirtation with radical Islamists--has produced a growing hostility to the United States in Pakistan, an alienated middle class, a powerful Islamist movement, and a demoralized and discredited army uncertain of where its true interests lie.'

Consider the above – from an astute conservative blog no less. Pakistan is MUSLIM and deeply Islamic. Its population is virulently anti-American, anti-European, and anti-modern world. It is Islamic for god's sake. It would not matter who ran Pakistan. The social factors and prejudices of an Islamic society will not disappear regardless if Musharraf, Bhutto or Mickey Mouse were running the country.

The only way to instill some sort of democratic plurality on Islamic states is through exogenous, military change. Muslims and Islamic leaders are not that interested in Western ideals of separation of church and state; rational political discourse; or philosophical investigation of all ideas and matters. The only stable Arab regimes in the world are monarchies – ruled by the iron fists of a single family. Jordan, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia are stable – but not democratic. Turkey is a profoundly Muslim, non-Western state, resting its slender democratic credentials upon the military. Turkey has little in common with the European experience in any social, political, economic or religious sphere.

Pakistan has nothing in common historically, culturally, or socio-economically with the West. Why then do political leaders and the media howl and whine that Pakistan MUST have a democratic process – immediately! It is nonsense. These so-called experts have no idea about the factions, the rifts, the elements of terror which are being held in place by a small group which controls the military.

Consider the hypocrisy of the media and most politicians. They fall over themselves criticising Bush's invasion of Iraq and installing some sort of democratic governance. Yet they wail that some sort of democratic plurality must go forward in a militantly Islamic state, rampant with Wahabbist parties and radicals – with the West powerless to gurantee its outcome. They don't like the Iraq project [not a real democracy, too much violence etc.], but yet they want to open up Pakistan to the threat of a radical Jihadist takeover. This makes no sense.

The only goals the West should have in Pakistan are: 1. secure the nuclear weapons so that terrorists including Jihadist regimes cannot access them, and 2. ensure that Pakistan commits to destroying Islamic fascists along the north west frontier. That is it. No time or energy should be wasted bleating about the beating hearts of Pakistanis, or their great desire for democracy. The only result from a democratic process in Pakistan would be the creation of an Islamic terror state.

No thanks.

Democracy has no place in Pakistan – not yet and not for a long time and only after a Western military invasion most likely. For the time being the best that can be gotten out of Pakistan might be a Bhutto-Musharraf alliance, something the US is trying to patch together. This makes sense. But to call for democratic processes; plurality and to moan about the lack of democratic accountability, is an exercise in fantasy. Pakistan is Islamic. Islam has little or nothing in common with modern democratic processes.