Islamabad bombing

Almost exactly four years ago, I missed a bomb explosion in the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad by five minutes. I had concluded a meeting and dinner with a senior member of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), and we had left. It brought home to me the difference just five minutes can make. Today, a far larger bomb ripped through the same hotel, killing dozens of people. It is a sign of how far Pakistan has deteriorated during those four years. The outlook for the country now is very bleak - and it must be one of the major foreign policy priorities for both the next British Government, and the next American President. I don't have huge confidence in Pakistan's new President Mr Zardari, but every effort must be made to bolster moderate, progressive, democratic voices in Pakistan, to boldly challenge not just the terrorist actions but also their ideology, to promote religious tolerance, freedom and human rights for minorities in Pakistan by repealing laws such as the blasphemy law and the Hudood Ordinance, and to tackle the hate-filled ideas in radical Islamism that fuel acts such as today's bombing. I am deeply shocked, and profoundly concerned. I could so easily have been there myself.