New Delhi, Oct. 28 -- The recent decision by the International Crimes Tribunal to issue arrest warrants in enforced-disappearance cases has re-ignited a bitter national argument: accountability versus institutional survival. That tension is real and unavoidable. But in the rush to score legal and political points, Bangladesh risks trading durable justice for a spectacle that could hollow out the state's capacity to keep citizens safe - and, paradoxically, open space for the very extremists the nation fears.

Two simple facts help frame the danger. First, the tribunal has dispatched arrest warrants against some thirty people in two disappearance cases - a move that has understandably captured public attention. Second, the prosecution in th...