Pakistan's resurgent Islamic hard-liners are promising to fill the streets with over 1 million demonstrators to show their "fury and anger" at a possible American attack on Iraq and to warn the government not to support such a war.
Anything approaching that kind of turnout in protests scheduled for March 2 and March 9 would send a chill through the halls of power here, and produce anxiety for the Bush administration, which counts a stable Pakistan as a vital ally in the war on terror.
"The fury and anger of the people will turn on the government if they back the U.S. war," said Qazi Hussein Ahmad, head of the Jamaat-e-Islami party a key partner in the six-party religious alliance organizing the protests. "We will get at least 1 million people. We will make sure it becomes an unprecedented event in the history of Pakistan."
Pakistan is currently a member of the 15-nation U.N. Security Council, and might be called upon to vote on a second resolution authorizing military action on Iraq. So far, the government has said it favors a peaceful solution to the crisis, but has not said how it would vote on such a resolution.
Up until now, anti-war protests have failed to draw large numbers of people in Pakistan, and some have petered out with just a few dozen demonstrators. Protests before the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan also attracted less support than expected, in part because of a fierce campaign by the government of President Pervez Musharraf to blunt the movement.
Ahmad says this time will be different, because anti-American sentiment is at an all-time high in the country. As proof, he pointed to the strong showing of the religious coalition, called the Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal, in October elections.
The group rode an anti-American, pro-Taliban platform to a third-place result in the vote, an extraordinary showing after a history of meager support for Islamic parties in Pakistan's national elections. The coalition won outright control of two provinces along the border with Afghanistan that are considered crucial to the U.S. hunt for al-Qaida and Taliban fugitives.
While the religious parties have promised peace, anger at America has boiled over into violence. Islamic militants have carried out a series of deadly attacks on Westerners and minority Christians since Musharraf threw his support behind the Afghan war, and Masood said more violence is likely if America attacks Iraq.
The government seemed to brush off the upcoming protests entirely.
"Let them do it if they can," Foreign Ministry Spokesman Aziz Ahmad Khan told The Associated Press with a chuckle when asked about the proposed marches the first scheduled for March 2 in Karachi and the second a week later in Rawalpindi, a city adjacent to the capital.
Indeed, few outside the religious movement feel the protests will come close to drawing the numbers predicted. But many warn the government's attitude is a dangerous one, and that a U.S. war will have a destabilizing effect in Pakistan.
"The religious parties are hijacking everything in Pakistan, including the anti-war movement," said Talat Masood, a retired general who is now a security analyst. He said Musharraf has exacerbated the problem by blocking mainstream political debate.
Muaharraf, a general who took power in a 1999 coup, barred the leaders of the two main political parties from participating in the October elections, helping push many voters into the religious coalition's camp.
Masood said the government is making a serious miscalculation if it allows the religious groups to gain more support by leading opposition to the Iraq war.
"I don't think the government has any understanding of what is happening in Pakistan," Masood said of the rise of the religious hard-liners. "They have no idea of the damage they are doing."