August 23, 2008 - Almost 40 years ago, when I first arrived in Pakistan, little boys beat the hood of our taxi with sticks. "Roti, kapra or makan! Ayub kuta hai!" "Food, clothing and shelter! Ayub (the pro-American military dictator of the moment) is a dog!"

The people of Pakistan are still protesting unaffordable flour and fuel. And they are still demanding real democracy.

The latest pro-U.S. military dictator, Pervez Musharraf, has resigned. What should be U.S. policy toward a post-Musharraf Pakistan? Rather than the militarism of current U.S. foreign policy, we must build a new collaborative relationship with the whole world, including the people of Pakistan. It is in abiding by our own lofty principles of human rights and the rule of law that we will come to abide in peace with our neighbors. We should stop shoring up dictators and instead encourage ingredients of stable democracies: fair elections, constitutional rights and independent judiciaries.

I was back in the U.S., living in Nashville, on Sept. 11, 2001. E-mails and phone calls poured in from friends and relatives all over the Muslim world, expressing concern for my friends and relatives in New York City, and shock and sorrow over the attack. Even then, I felt that it was the people of the Muslim world who had the most to lose from the rise of religious extremism and terrorism. And I knew from my experiences in Pakistan that it was the U.S. government that had funded, trained and equipped Islamic militants in Afghanistan and elsewhere. During the Cold War, the U.S. was prepared to back anyone who opposed the Soviet Union.
Supporting thugs can backfire

When the USSR crumbled under its own weight, some in the U.S. credited President Reagan's policies with the fall of the "Evil Empire." The Muslim extremists who had pushed the Soviets out of Afghanistan and Eastern Europe felt that they had brought the USSR to its knees. Without the common enemy to bind their marriage of convenience, Islamic extremist groups and militarist U.S. foreign policy makers found new enemies in each other.

We must learn from our past mistakes. We must refrain from Machiavellian schemes of supporting some groups of thugs against others.

We should not surge more troops into Afghanistan and we should not violate the borders of Pakistan. Extremists can be counted on to wear out their own welcome. This is what al-Qaida did in Iraq. Now, the Taliban are resorting to suicide bombings in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In the last general elections in Pakistan, the extremists did badly. The one thing that will build popularity for the extremists is American violence against innocent civilians. We must combat international terrorism through international police work rather than unending war.

We must recognize that poverty, despair and helplessness are the breeding grounds of extremism. Therefore, we must have enlightened global food and trade policies, and we must support and abide by the international structures of justice and human rights.

Jane Steinfels Hussain is the author of A History of the Peoples of Pakistan, published by Oxford University Press. She teaches at the Susan Gray School on the Vanderbilt University campus.