Terrorism is a much larger problem for predominately Muslim states than it is for any nation in the West. The "welcome home" bombings that killed more than 100 Pakistanis near Benazir Bhutto's motorcade is evidence of this. On all dates before and after 9/11 the number of Americans killed by terrorists is relatively small--particularly when you focus on Americans killed by terrorists in America. In Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and elsewhere in the Islamic world, the threat of terrorism is real, immediate, and invasive. For the war on terrorism to be successful--as far as wars on nouns (drugs, poverty, obesity) can be successful--heads of state in Islamic nations, rather than just heads of state far from terrorism's epicenter, must work boldly to root out the problem. The terrorism that some Muslim leaders privately applaud when aimed at the West can just as easily be aimed at them. Pervez Musharraf, are you listening? It is better to fight bad guys than it is to coddle them.

Pakistan is a far greater threat to us right now than Iran is likely to become for a number of years (if they try to). The reason is that Musharraf's dictatorial rule is just so incredibly tenuous, and they are already a clear and definite nuclear nation.

In July Musharraf had the army lay seige on Islamabad's Red Mosque which was housing Islamic radicals who had been kidnapping Chinese nationals in order to alienate Musharraf from his main benefactor. 100 people died. He simply does not control the North-West Frontier Province, having failed in an actual invasion of it in 2006. Baluchistan also wants free.

The place is a nightmare and if he loses a grip on anyone in that army then the nukes could be secreted away just like that.

But all we get to hear from the most prominent candidates is how the "nuclear option" is on the table for Iran, etc. It is just so out of proportion to where our authentic international security interests lie. This is more evidence that we have to declare victory in Iraq asap and get out, pull back from the region, so that we can actually deal again strategically w/ these real threats of Islamic fanatics.

I agree that propping up unjust/tyrranical regimes is both wrong and not in our true long term interest. Nevertheless, there is some definite truth in the idea that stability and something like a state/centralized government in places like Pakistan, Iran, Iraq is the best achievable situation, both for the people there and for us.

Isn't more state power/law and order better in Pakistan? Isn't more state power/law and order better in Iraq? In places where large groups of the people want to kill each other and other people en masse for stupid effing 'reasons', I suggest that centralized government power is probably a good thing.

It now seems to me that we did the stupidest thing imaginable in Iraq.

Uberfrau,

I didn't mean to come off as complaining about propping up Musharraf necessarily, I wasn't thinking along the lines of withdrawing all support for him. My point was more that Pakistan is a more pressing concern to me as regards our legitimate security concerns and ME interests than Iraq or Iran.

But while I don't really disagree that a dictator could be a good thing for a messed up place like Pakistan I still think Musharraf is totally inept at combating the various insurgents in his country and cannot stabilize it in the least.

The campaign we pushed him to fight in the tribal regions bordering Afghanistan in 2006 went to a stalemate, he signed a ceasefire w/ the tribal leaders the terms of which included that they seal the border to Taliban insurgents and then the tribes reneged on it this year. So the leader of the Paki military cannot successfully fight against insurgents in his own country!

(That brings up the slightly off-topic thought, how the flip can we hope to do the same in Iraq . . . not our country . . . that he fails to do there?)

So the real concern is that: a) he is ineffective; b) he has basically zero support in any segment of the populace; and c) he has undermined aspects of civil society (crippling the Parliament recently after already having destroyed the judiciary) which means there is LESS means of control of the population than before.

Even our direct support for any ruling party in any mideast country is grounds for great popular unrest towards the ruling party. Particularly while we are still in Iraq!

If we would just get out of Iraq, then various ways of propping up Musharraf may actually become MORE effective in serving our interests, do you agree?

Iraq is an albatross.

Bruce Wayne: I have agreed with everything you said. I was jsut saying the thoughts that your thoughts led me to, and was afraid that people would think that I was advocating the older US policy of propping up crapping dictators, when that's not what I wanted to do.

I don't know enough about the politics of these situations, but it does seem to me that stronger government (which I am absolutely opposed to here) is really called for in some types of countries.

W/o a doubt. Particularly ones w/ very strong tribal and clan attachments. In such places civil society is practically an impossibility and the only people trusted are family to begin with.