Just in case you haven’t yet consumed enough troubling news from overseas this week, I’d recommend a Christian Science Monitor series on Islamists making gains in Pakistan. Tuesday’s piece started out with the story of a terrorist leader/cleric, Maualama Fazlullah, whom Pakistani forces sought to arrest — sought and failed, in plain sight, thanks to thousands of human shields. This did not happen in the province Pakistan already essentially ceded to Islamists, Waziristan, but instead in the government-controlled Northwest Frontier Province. As in other trouble spots, the Islamists are in part filling a vacuum created by incompetent and corrupt government:

In calling for sharia, or Islamic law, what residents really seek is good governance often neglected by the state, says Ayesha Siddiqa, a political analyst in Islamabad. It’s a troubling analogy to North and South Waziristan, where local reports say that the Taliban have established their own courts and hospitals, offering services neglected by the state. And, as in those areas, Taliban violence has surged throughout the NWFP in the past year, suggesting that it, too, is becoming a haven for militancy. Nine criminal cases, including the charges of terrorism, have been filed against Fazlullah. The police say they suspect that he’s formed links with terrorist groups like Jaish-e-Mohammed, which is suspected of collaborating with Al Qaeda in a spate of attacks, including a bombing last March in Karachi that killed an American diplomat. He denies these links. Yet the police say they cannot arrest Fazlullah. “We are ready to go after him anytime. But there are national activities,” says Mohammad Yameen Khan, the district police officer of Swat, referring to President Pervez Musharraf’s sacking of the country’s chief justice, which has spawned growing protests. “You don’t want to open too many fronts. The forces are committed elsewhere, in the burning places,” he adds, referring to neighboring areas witnessing Taliban-related violence.

The remaining pieces in the series are well worth a read, too. It’s not all bad news, but the bad news is pretty bad. If the American political system was serving the public well, presidential candidates would be subjected to searching interviews about such developments in a nuclear-armed Islamic state, rather than answering game-show questions and speculating about CO2 emissions in 2075.