Comment, analysis and other offerings from Tuesday’s FT,
Ahmed Rashid: Now to break al-Qaeda’s franchise 
The colonial conquests of Muslim societies by the west were followed by freedom struggles and, in turn, stagnation and repression, writes Rashid, author of ‘Descent into Chaos’ and ‘The Taliban’. Osama bin Laden rose to prominence as Muslims sought a way out, and he tried to take us back many centuries. Now, after confirmation of his death, Muslims must escape this extremist cul de sac. Extremism’s heroes are dead or dying and its ideology bankrupt. But leaders of Muslim civil society must now give it a bold final push into the margins. This is a watershed moment. The question is, can the west and the Muslim world grasp it?
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Analysis: Pimco — right place, right time?
For a company minding more than $1,200bn of other people’s money, Pimco is unusual, writes the FT’s Dan McCrum. It is at the end of the financial world by timezone, operating from sleepy Orange County. Yet little moves in the bond world without Pimco’s involvement. Much like Goldman Sachs – another “best-of-class” financial company – Pimco is both revered and feared by its peers. Its undoubted success has given it the reputation of having ability to move and shape markets. So as policymakers contemplate ending the long period of very low interest rates, the implications of Pimco’s every action for savers, borrowers and even economies loom large. Rivals too are closely watching the firm’s reaction to the end of the 30-year bull market for bonds.
Alan Beattie: Time to limit the Doha damage
And so the comatose patient gets another reprieve. Last week, despite a sombre assessment of the Doha round of trade talks by Pascal Lamy, World Trade Organisation director-general, governments declined for the moment to declare the round dead, writes the FT’s international trade editor. Instead, they promised to look at yet another cunning plan – this one from the EU – to bridge gaps in industrial goods talks. There is a very small chance the EU idea will work. But the lesson of Doha since its launch in 2001 is that political will, not another technocratic fix, is needed.
Gavyn Davies: Anglo Saxon GDP not as weak as it seems
While I readily concede that the official Q1 GDP figures in the US and the UK have been far weaker than I expected a few weeks ago, my best guess is that they have exaggerated the extent to which these two economies have really slowed down – so far, writes the economic commentator and FT blogger. As to the immediate future, much will depend on the course of the oil price. If it continues to rise at recent rates, the depressive effects on consumers’ expenditure could easily prove too much for these, and many other, economies to bear. But it hasn’t happened yet.
Gideon Rachman: Declare victory, end the war on terror
George W. Bush used to ask “why haven’t we found bin Laden?” with such regularity that an exasperated official once suggested responding to the president. “Because he’s hiding.” Now, almost a decade after 9/11, Osama bin Laden has finally been found and killed, writes the FT’s international affairs columnist. His death offers an opportunity to declare an end to the “war on terror”. This is not the same as saying that the US and Europe can now stop worrying about terrorism. The west will need a serious counter-terrorism policy for many years to come.
Lex: Pakistan – foreign capital steers clear
If the US follows up on its pledge to pay $25m in reward money for information leading to the capture of Osama bin Laden, then perhaps somebody, somewhere, is in line for a mega-windfall, equivalent to more than half what foreign institutional investors have put into Pakistan’s stock market so far this year, notes Lex. As the world’s sixth most-populous nation Pakistan has a strong secular growth story. It also has a relatively attractive tax and investment climate. Yet the country’s precarious security situation means that foreign capital continues to steer clear. The killing of America’s most wanted – in a large compound in an affluent satellite town of the capital, Islamabad – is unlikely to change that.
Patrick Jenkins: The real odds in the weighting game
You will no longer be branded a geek if you utter the words “Basel III capital ratio”, writes the FT’s banking editor. Ever since the financial crisis, the world’s regulators – gathered under the auspices of the Basel Committee on Banking Regulation – have stood centre- stage, and Basel III has been their anthem. The aim of the new rules, due to be introduced gradually by 2019, is laudable enough – to make banks more resistant to future shocks. But what if Basel III doesn’t even resolve the core issues of the banks?
BeyondBrics: Brazil’s misleading trade surplus
Take a look at Brazil’s trade balance and you might be surprised, writes the FT’s Samantha Pearson. This is the country with one of the world’s most overvalued currencies, a currency which is now so strong that it is supposedly crippling exporters and flooding the country with cheap imports. However, Brazil’s trade surplus actually widened for the third consecutive month in April and reached a record for the year, data showed on Monday. The main reason for this, though, is the rapid rise in the price of commodities, the vast majority of those exports.
Tony Jackson: Buying into booming manufacturers
On both sides of the Atlantic, stocks have been buoyed lately by strong results from old-line manufacturers, writes the FT columnist. A good thing too, some will say. Time to wean the economy off banks and suchlike flim-flam enterprises. How far that notion makes sense is for another day. Certainly, there is an irrational instinct in many people’s minds that says everything depends on making things you can stub your toe on. But is that sentiment affecting investors?