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Pakistan's political turmoil deepened Tuesday after the two main parties in the ruling coalition split, weakening the fragile government just a week after president Pervez Musharraf resigned.

The world's only nuclear-armed Islamic nation, already facing a fresh campaign of bombings by a resurgent militant movement, now faces the prospect of a bitter political battle over the choice of Musharraf's successor.

Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif pulled his party out of the coalition on Monday, saying they were moving to the opposition because of what he said were the broken promises of the other main party's leader, Asif Ali Zardari.

He said Zardari had gone back on a pledge to reinstate dozens of judges sacked last year by Musharraf -- an issue that has been at the centre of a political dispute in Pakistan for the past year.

"We have taken this decision after we failed to find any ray of hope and none of the commitments made to us were fulfilled," Sharif said on Monday. "This situation forced us to withdraw our support."

Zardari, in a televised address late Monday, appealed for Sharif's return to the government.

"We are sad over Nawaz Sharif's decision. We want to move together and solve the problems facing the nation," he said. "We will request Nawaz Sharif to return to the government."

Lawyers meanwhile called for a nationwide protest on Thursday to demand the reinstatement of the judges, who were pushed out as Musharraf purged his opponents in the judiciary last year.

Sharif's PML-N party has now put forward its own candidate to challenge Zardari, widower of another former premier, Benazir Bhutto, on September 6, when lawmakers will select who will be the next president.

Political chaos is nothing new in Pakistan, which has been under military rule -- including under General Musharraf -- for more than half of its existence since being partitioned from India after World War II.

But the months of turmoil that eventually forced Musharraf to resign last week under threat of impeachment, and the new split between Sharif and Zardari, have made Western allies jittery about Pakistan's role in the "war on terror".

The United States, which turned Musharraf into an ally after the September 11 attacks and has supplied the country with tens of billions of dollars in aid since then, played down the importance of the split.

"I don't anticipate it would have any impact on our joint efforts to combat extremism," said US State Department spokesman Robert Wood.

The strategically important country -- which has the second-largest Muslim population in the world -- has seen a resurgence of Taliban and Al-Qaeda militant activity in the lawless tribal areas along the Afghan border.

While critics have long charged that Pakistan's powerful intelligence service actually helps to support the militants, the military is nevertheless also pursuing a tough campaign against Islamist guerrillas.

Clashes in one region alone have left around 500 people dead in the last fortnight, and the Pakistani Taliban have said that the latest wave of suicide bombings will continue until the assault is stopped.

But the government said Monday it had banned the main Taliban militant umbrella group, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, and frozen its bank accounts and assets.

Unknown gunmen opened fire on the car of a US diplomat in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Tuesday, but she escaped unhurt, police said.

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By MJ ROSENBERG

Jeffrey Goldberg, the Atlantic writer is worried about Iran and Israel. His worry is not the usual one. Although Goldberg is an American Jew so committed to Israel that he served in the IDF, he is worried about what an Israeli attack on Iran would mean for America, specifically for American Jews.

"The problem is simple: Muslim extremists often conflate Israel and the Diaspora. They do this for two reasons: One, they are anti-Semites, and so tend to see all Jews, and not merely 'Zionists,' as their enemies; the second is a practical one - it is easy to strike at soft Jewish targets outside of Israel, easier, certainly, than executing mass terror attacks against Israeli targets these days. And so what you have, on occasion, is an attack like the one directed against the Jewish center in Argentina in 1994, in which 85 people were murdered," he writes.

In other words, American Jews - comfortable in their homes in New York, Washington or LA - could pay a very heavy price if Israel attacks Iran.

Goldberg writes that the reason we don't hear much about this issue of "blowback" is that just raising it challenges the fundamental premise underlying Zionism. The existence of the State of Israel supposedly makes Jews in the Diaspora safer. If, on the other hand, actions taken by Israel jeopardize Jews outside it, then the Zionist concept looks flawed.

Blowback also cuts into the whole idea of Diaspora sympathy for, and identification with, Israel. If American Jews believe that their own children and grandchildren here are no more secure than children and grandchildren in Israel, suddenly the playing field is leveled. Sympathy and concern is no longer a one-way street. After all, as much as we care about Israel's well-being, we are more concerned with the well-being of our own families wherever they may live, and with the well-being of our neighbors and our country. That is as it should be. After all, no one imagines that Israelis living in Tel Aviv are more concerned about Jewish kids in Brooklyn than about their own kids. Why would they be?

The whole question of whether Israel's actions can jeopardize us here is fraught with troubling questions. But they have to be raised.

AN ISRAELI attack on Iran - absent an imminent threat of attack from Iran - is a terrible idea for many reasons. It would not succeed in eliminating Iran's nuclear program but would almost surely prompt Iran to both opt out of the international inspection regime and redouble its efforts to produce a bomb. It would unite Arabs and Muslims against the US (they know that Israel could not attack Iran without implicit or explicit US approval). It would have a disastrous effect on the American effort next door in Iraq, eliminating recently made gains and endangering 130,000 American troops (this is why Defense Secretary Robert Gates so vehemently opposes an Israeli attack). And it would end the Arab-Israeli peace process, even putting the peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan at risk. And, no small thing, an attack would lead to a deadly Hizbullah missile onslaught against Israel, joined no doubt by Hamas in the south.

Nonetheless, an attack is not out of the question because there are forces in Israel and here that believe that anything, no matter how dangerous, is better than either negotiating with Iran or relying on sanctions. These people are as hell-bent for war with Iran as they were for war with Iraq. Mostly, they are the same people. Always wrong, always eager for war. (Many of these people encouraged Georgia to take on Russia, as always disregarding consequences.)

Of course, the last major war they agitated for - the one to depose Saddam - did not present the same threat of blowback here. Saddam Hussein was a lone wolf. Despite the now thoroughly discredited propaganda issued by neocons in and out of the administration, he was not allied with al-Qaida or any other terrorist group that would seek to avenge him. Iran is.

And Iran, or its proxies such as Hizbullah, no doubt has sleeper cells here ready to strike following an attack on the Shi'ite motherland.

NOT LONG ago, we Americans could imagine that we were immune to the kind of terrorism long afflicting Israel and other places. No more. The 9/11 attacks that took 3,000 lives in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania were the most deadly attacks anywhere. After 9/11, nobody can tell Americans that we are naïve and that if we experienced what the Israelis have, we'd be wiser. We now know the ways of the world all too well. (My mother's little neighborhood in New York City lost 75 people on 9/11. My brother-in-law lost 300 "brothers" - fellow firefighters in New York, by far the largest number of firefighters ever lost).

And it's not like 9/11 is likely to be the last terrorist attack on our shores. No one in our government believes that. More than a few are surprised that we have not experienced a second 9/11 already.

There are, of course, those who argue that nothing the US or its allies do have any connection to attacks here. It is an article of faith for neoconservatives that "they" hate us for who we are and not for anything we do. But that's nonsense. They may hate us for who we are, but they often attack us because of things we have done. The Spanish government tried, after the terrible attack on Madrid that took 200 lives, to blame Basque terrorists because it did not want to admit that it was the Spanish government's decision to commit troops to Iraq that caused the attack. Later the truth came out and the government fell.

In short, actions have consequences. Governments, including the governments of the US and Israel, should consider them before preemptively attacking another Muslim state, especially when it is almost certain that an unprovoked attack will fail and leave the US, Israel and the world even less secure than before.

Jeff Goldberg wonders if we Americans have the right to advise Israel on what it should or shouldn't do on matters that relate to its security. Of course we do - when it also affects our own.

The writer is the director of of the Israel Policy Forum's Washington Policy Center.

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The Parliament.com

MEPs are again calling for an end to the European parliament’s "travelling circus" to Strasbourg after the recent collapse of part of the parliament building's ceiling.

The hemicycle ceiling partly collapsed on August 7, and has forced parliament's first post-recess plenary session to be held in Brussels.

ALDE deputy Sarah Ludford said, "The building has the right idea in saving MEPs from the outrageously expensive travelling circus.

"The roof falling in on Strasbourg should be made a permanent feature of the European parliament, in favour of a settled Brussels venue."

Writing in the Times on Monday, EPP-ED deputy Robert Sturdy argued that the ceiling collapse should act as a timely reminder "to stop throwing away good money after bad".

"MEPs will now have to meet in Brussels next month instead of their Strasbourg parliamentary building as planned, so that essential repairs can be carried out," he said.

"And I suggest we keep it that way, instead of continuing with a farcical and costly 'travelling circus', forcing MEPs and staff to leave their offices and meet up hundreds of miles away — just to appease French protocol."

According to parliament’s secretary general Harold Rømer, "preliminary enquiries have revealed that the partial collapse of the ceiling results from the breaking of the parts holding the inserted ceiling which connects it with the actual structure of the ceiling".

He said that the cost of repairing the damage would be covered by the building’s insurance and would not come out of the parliamentary budget.

British Tory MEP Struan Stevenson writing in the Herald said, "This latest disaster to hit the Strasbourg parliament must surely sound the death knell for the ongoing farce which forces Europe's 785 MEPs and around 4000 staff to decant from Brussels once a month and make the 300-mile trip to Strasbourg, only to return again to Brussels four days later."

All three MEPs called on member states to take action to end the monthly trips, estimated to cost EU taxpayers’ more than €200m a year.

"MEPs have a perfectly adequate parliament building in Brussels,” argued Stevenson.

"It is only French pride and prejudice which forces us to make the monthly trip to Strasbourg 12 times each year.

"France routinely uses its veto in the Council of Ministers to block any attempt to centralise all of our work in Brussels.

"Now the ceiling has literally caved in on this French farce. Hopefully the hole in the roof will allow a little light to fall on any future debate on whether to abandon Strasbourg once and for all."

Sarah Ludford added, "The delicious irony is that the French government, the builder of the grandiose Strasbourg edifice, once took MEPs to the European court for a breach of EU law in failing to meet 12 times a year in Strasbourg.

"By way of apology they should now save taxpayers' money by lifting their absurd veto on Brussels."

Gary Titley, UK labour group leader in the parliament, told the BBC that "this monthly charade…should be reviewed and stopped".

"The parliament having to divide its time between Brussels and Strasbourg makes it less efficient and open to ridicule by voters, who cannot understand that this makes sense at all," he added.

Also speaking last week to the BBC, ALDE deputy Chris Davies attacked what he called "the nonsense of the parliament's perpetual momentum" and added, "We should turn catastrophe into opportunity and meet continuously in Brussels."

Parliament officials said they were confident that reconstruction work on the roof of the Strasbourg chamber will be completed before the second plenary session after the summer break, scheduled to begin on 22 September.

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