By Ali Safavi
Middle East Times – In 2007, the turmoil in Pakistan culminated in the gruesome assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto on Dec. 27. Although the epicenter of this political tremor shook Pakistan, its ripple effect was quickly felt throughout the world.
The incident was especially worrying because it demonstrated that, as the second most populous Muslim nation, Pakistan is seeing a sharp rise in Islamic fundamentalism. This trend has marred the country’s political process in recent months with more bloodshed as a consequence. Aside from mounting concerns over the safety of Islamabad’s nuclear stockpiles, the resulting violence has also tended to spill over into neighboring countries like Afghanistan.
These worries, along with Pakistan’s strategic significance, have led to questions about who benefited most from Bhutto’s assassination and what can be done to prevent the further rise of Islamic fundamentalism in that region?
Pakistan’s western neighbor, Iran, is perhaps the only major country in the world where Islamic fundamentalists are at the helm of political power. Access to multi-billion dollar oil revenues coupled with Iran’s unique geographical location have endowed the ruling theocracy with opportunities other fundamentalists could only dream of. The regime has both the formal intent as well as the practical tools for exporting its extremist ideology to neighboring countries.
Bhutto’s rise in Pakistan had the potential of obstructing the mullahs’ attempts to darken the political horizon of that region, and especially Afghanistan. This explains why Tehran stood to benefit the most from her assassination.
Preventing the rise of fundamentalism, then, starts with an understanding of the essence and influence of the Iranian regime in this regard. More notably, unable to conform to the economic and political imperatives of the 21st century, the regime’s senior leaders have for years emphasized the need to utilize unconventional tools in order to maintain a balance of power with other states, including the use of terrorism, which they described as ’a new leverage of power.’ The theory was put into practice, for example, with the creation of the extraterritorial Qods (Jerusalem) Force, recently designated as a terrorist organization by the United States.
Not surprisingly, today every major hot-spots in the Middle East bear the vile stench of the Iranian regime. Iraq was a major target even before the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Despite recent tactical setbacks, the mullahs have not abandoned their strategic plan to create a sister Islamic republic there.