Any long-term strategy for peace in the Middle East has to include dealing with the pernicious influence of radical madrassas, the Islamic schools used to spread a venomous version of Islam and to grow new extremists and terrorists. A Washington Post review of a new book, The Idea of Pakistan, by Brookings South Asia expert Stephen Cohen, identifies one reason madrassas are so popular in that country: parents have no alternative in a land where the state school system has all but collapsed. "On recent trips to Pakistan," reviewer Owen Bennett Jones writes, "I visited two village schools without warning. Both times, the children were sitting in serried ranks, ready and keen to learn. But no teachers were present." Pakistan is one of 12 countries that spends less than 2 percent of GDP on education. Confronting the madrassas would be an enormous political challenge, but Pakistan not only ignores them, it doesn't attempt to provide a decent alternative, despite promises by Pakistani leader Musharraf to improve the schools. Concludes Jones, "Musharraf's failure to make good on his education pledges is his gravest sin. After all, what is the point of a military government if it can't implement policies that have widespread support and require only a modicum of political will?"
"With friends like these," by Owen Bennett Jones, Washington Post, February 6, 2005