Blow after blow, Pakistan is under extreme pressure. On one side, the severe economic crisis continues to deepen. The IMF loan's conditions are tough, common people find it hard to meet their basic needs. On the other side, militancy and terrorism has severely dented its global image. India says the attack on its financial capital, Mumbai, stemmed from terror organizations operating in Pakistan. Growing international pressure and threats of facing an attack from its grieving neighbor, has forced the nation to turn its focus from fixing the economy to immediately hunt down terrorists. Tackling terrorism was never on the back-burner for Pakistan, but current scenario demands results – successfully curbing terrorism as if it never existed – in an extremely short span of time. The demands are anything but realistic. Terrorism cannot be stomped out with an iron fist. Hasty decisions and mass arrests will not curb it. War, as already experienced in Iraq and Afghanistan, cannot bring peace. Countries could cooperate with each other, devise innovative methods to step up defense, analyze the root causes of terrorism and bring up solutions suitable to it, and challenge violent ideologies by evolving peaceful methods of approach. Detecting weapons and bombs are a thing of the past, science and technology are advanced enough to monitor almost every inch of the inhabited world. Tear gas and rubber bullets are violent, now sound waves can harmlessly repel mobs. But who will invest? If human life was valued, the world would have disarmed its nuclear and chemical bombs by now. The paths to solution are many, but the well-trodden path to failure looks like the popular approach. __
