(first of a two part series on Pakistan)

Pioneering psychiatrist Carl Jung noticed that events often dovetail with a precision that reveals the workings of a higher power. He called it synchronicity, the movement toward humanity’s collective subconscious goals. There are older and more divine explanations.

Whatever the cause, synchronicity forms the skeletal structure of human history, though it usually requires a few centuries to strip away the outer covering and reveal it. Pakistan is one of those rare cases in which synchronicity is obvious from the git-go. Watch it work.

Two years ago, an iconoclastic Boston journalist springs a pop quiz on Texas Gov. George Bush, still a newly-hatched presidential chickling. Bush cannot name the Pakistani strongman who has seized power in a bloodless coup one month previously.

However, Bush insists: “that general” might well be a stronger force for honest government and regional stability than the corrupt, but democratically elected, government he’s ousted. Perhaps Bush is scrambling to save face, perhaps he just has the right gut instinct, but this might well be the first endorsement from a major U.S. figure.

Vice President Al Gore and a phalanx of media gray eminences accuse Bush of compounding ignorance, with a bull in a china shop style of diplomacy. Choosing dictatorship over democracy? A dictator who defied President Clinton’s specific warning not to attempt a coup, delivered not two weeks beforehand? Not in a Gore administration.

Bush stands firm, but he stands pretty much alone. Precious few Republicans rush to his defense. But, we can be sure “that general’s” son tells him of Bush’s kind words. How? Synchronicity.

One year later, George Bush becomes president and appoints another general as secretary of state. A general who will be able to meet “that general” as a brother in arms. The very next year, “that general” Bush could not name, risks his government and his life to become one of the first non-western leaders to join our coalition against terrorism. Synchronicity?

Most Americans still don’t know “that general’s” name, but make no mistake, without General Prevez Musharraf, our attacks on Usama bin Laden and the Taliban would be doomed to failure. They may not even have taken place.

Imagine Pakistani borders open to Taliban and terrorists. Imagine safe havens and supply routes. Imagine reinforcements pouring into Afghanistan. Anyone who remembers Viet Nam doesn’t have to imagine.

But it’s worse. Pakistan has atomic weapons. It is the smallest and poorest country in the nuclear club. How many of our coalition partners would sanction aggressive action against a unified Paki-Afghan front? How many staging areas, how many air space corridors would we have? Synchronicity?

Dr. Naved Musharraf is an anesthesiologist and U.S. citizen. He’s been living in Chicago for the last 27 years. He is General Prevez Musharraf’s brother. Synchronicity?

When candidate George Bush was failing his pop quiz in Boston, Prevez Musharraf’s only son was in town; and not by coincidence either. He was working as an actuary for the state of Massachusetts. Synchronicity?

Of all the leaders Pakistan could have at this critical time, what are the odds one of them would have attended a Roman Catholic high school in Karachi, Pakistan, and a Christian college in Lahore, Pakistan? What are the odds that he would be a Pakistani Moslem who believes in separation of church and state? Synchronicity?

Prevez Musharraf ought to be enjoying the same groundswell of good will America now accords Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair. Even more. Blair leads a western nation targeted by terrorists, while Musharraf leads a Moslem nation in which the latest Gallup Poll shows majority support for the Taliban over the U.S. Politically, Blair risks little while Musharraf risks everything.

And so do we. If Musharraf goes down and Pakistan bolts the coalition, we may lose politically, what should be a walkover militarily. And if our coalition stumbles on its first step, there may not be a second.

Bad as that is, it is not the worst case scenario. We have often wondered what terrorists would do if they secured nuclear weapons. Let Pakistan fall to the Taliban and bin Laden and we won’t wonder very much longer. Synchronicity will be the way future historians explain an atomic jihad that makes anthrax look like the common cold.

Pakistan, not Afghanistan, is the first domino in the hot war against terrorism. If it falls against the Taliban domino, that domino will fall against bin Laden’s and from there, the kinetic force of history will crush global terrorism. But if the Pakistani domino falls the other way, it may fall with atomic impact. At the very least, the merciless weight of global terrorism will press down upon freedom for generations to come.

Prevez Musharraf is not a saint, not even of the Moslem variety and Pakistan is not the good neighbor who lives next door. But understanding Pakistan, Musharraf’s challenges and what we can do to keep them with us is critical for a nation whose foreign policy depends on the support of an informed citizenry.

We’ll talk more about it next week, but please don’t wait till then to learn more about it. In this case, synchronicity and history are moving fast and what we don’t know can kill us.

Discuss this column with Paul on KWDB 1110AM, Mondays 1-3PM or contact Paul at newmanagos@yahoo.com