HOW do you read the situation?” a friend asked. “I cannot,” I replied. “The pages are blank. Let the imagination run.” “Let it run.” “Anything could happen in a flux. The situation could go many ways. But that doesn't mean that some forces are not trying to channel it toward their own interests.” “Who could they be?” “Well, America is first. Then there is the army, most likely in tandem with America. The third is the hidebound mullah under the generic name ‘Taliban'. All three are retrogressive: one has yet to hear of revolutions organized by colonizers or formal armies or obscurants. Only when people are in the vanguard but they are almost always betrayed.” “What next? Certain facts are given. Things are out of control because Pakistan has only illusory governments. Its sovereignty is in tatters, its independence fiction. It has become a vassal state. Its treasury is bankrupt. Debt has gone beyond the repayable and no one is prepared to lend it money any longer. The State Bank is printing Rs2 billion daily to lend to the government. Inflation has breached the roof. Population is growing faster than anywhere while jobs are shrinking. Soon we will be consumed by our own procreation. Civil war has started in Karachi and Balochistan. Sindh is in a sulk. The Pushtun is in a sulk. Many of them want out, either openly or in whispers. The Punjab is fed up. Chaos and anarchy are spiraling out of control. There's no gas, no electricity, no water, no jobs, no education, no shelter, no security, no affordable food and, worst of all, no police, no law and no justice. Our governments impotently whimper and whine at America's capers, escapades and shenanigans. Public transport is diminishing. People cannot afford the rising price of tickets. Soon we will return to the tonga. The only things rising are oil prices, rampant corruption and rampant obscurant clerics in the guise of scholars that are anathema to the spirit of Islam. Obscurant moderates and liberals are unable to break the shackles of their colonized minds and adapt their pet Western political and social constructs to our political, social, cultural, religions and historical milieu to counteract them. That, I'm afraid, is the way things are going: toward de facto clerics who have hijacked Islam by occupying the space left vacant by the educated and interpret it according to their own prejudices and convenience. TO fathom where we are going we have to fathom where America is going. Its debt is the same as its GDP; soon it will be more. Its fiscal deficit is over 10 percent and rising, for its appetite for borrowing remains undiminished. Forty million Americans live below the poverty line. It has lost wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and cannot find an exit from the latter. The might of the dollar has become fiction. It cannot last as the preferred reserve currency. Its dependence on China is growing. We are harvesting the crop of the seeds we sowed in 1971 when we swapped the Gold Standard with the US dollar based on hot air. Now reap the whirlwind. European economies have gone down, with country after country seeking bailouts. Whatever Sarkozy and Merkel might say, the euro born in a laboratory with many fathers and no mother is seeking an orphanage. The Sterling remains artificially strong while Great Britain declines into a second rate European state, at par with Portugal, Greece, Italy and Spain. Britain's debt is equal to its GDP; its fiscal deficit well over 11 percent and no manufacturing base, only financial services and shops. America can hardly afford an economically weakened Europe. Riots have broken out in Europe and the Middle East. The scare of anarchy and uncertainty is upon them all. The obvious has become apparent: if you cannot feed your people, if their standard of living keeps declining, if educated youth and workers cannot find jobs and state funded social sector projects get cut, regardless of what ideology their governments hold, the volcano of the people will erupt. It has started and the lava is spewing out. Wait for the big one. Hunger and hopelessness have no religion, no ideology, only anger and violence. None of this is good for America but it too is going south. It will have to share global polarity with China, Russia and perhaps Germany but it will still remain the dominant global player. It has a manufacturing base and the richest knowledge bank. Like all dead empires and superpowers before it, America's greatest danger is implosion from within rather than explosion from without. There is a distinct rightward swing in the Republican party. First it was the neocons, in tandem with Zionists and the Evangelists. Their failures in Iraq and Afghanistan and the global economic recession led to the rise of the Democrats. When it seemed obvious to the right that McCain would lose the presidential election to Hilary Clinton, they preferred Obama. The Clinton machine could well secure two terms. A black Muslim with a Kenyan father and doubtful nationality would become ineffective in two years. He has. He's not a lame duck; he's a dead duck. They will play on this in the next presidential campaign and defeat Obama. The neocons now have a vanguard, the Tea Party, peddling small government and low spending. They have already taken Congress. Next it will be the White House. The neocons and Tea Partiers believe that Bush's mistake was not to go far enough, pandering to world opinion and the United Nations. America has spent more on the world than anyone has in history. Enough is enough. It will now spend on itself and revive and modernize its economy – a Marshall Plan for America. All irritants will be obliterated, like lancing boils. America has incredible military power that it has hardly used. Places they consider as nests, nurseries and of terrorists will be bombed and even vaporized with tactical nuclear weapons if necessary. The world will stand by and watch and let America do the dirty work. No one will lift a finger. And Muslims have no fingers left to lift. This is the worst of many possible scenarios. Here's hoping that this madness doesn't overtake America. But don't bank on it. – The writer is an Op
