Saturday, December 29, 2007

Remember Pakistan has nukes

I think Mark Steyn sums up best the current situation in Pakistan:

....Since her last spell in power, Pakistan has changed, profoundly. Its sovereignty is meaningless in increasingly significant chunks of its territory, and, within the portions Musharraf is just about holding together, to an ever more radicalized generation of young Muslim men Miss Bhutto was entirely unacceptable as the leader of their nation. "Everyone’s an expert on Pakistan, a faraway country of which we know everything," I wrote last month. "It seems to me a certain humility is appropriate." The State Department geniuses thought they had it all figured out. They'd arranged a shotgun marriage between the Bhutto and Sharif factions as a "united" "democratic" "movement" and were pushing Musharraf to reach a deal with them. That's what diplomats do: They find guys in suits and get 'em round a table. But none of those representatives represents the rapidly evolving reality of Pakistan. Miss Bhutto could never have been a viable leader of a post-Musharraf settlement, and the delusion that she could have been sent her to her death. Earlier this year, I had an argument with an old (infidel) boyfriend of Benazir's, who swatted my concerns aside with the sweeping claim that "the whole of the western world" was behind her. On the streets of Islamabad, that and a dime'll get you a cup of coffee......

What concerns me is that they have nukes, lets hope this report is correct:

THE White House said it was confident that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal was secure and did not risk falling into extremists' hands after the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.

"At this time, as far as I know, it is the assessment of the intelligence community that Pakistan's weapons arsenal is secure,'' spokesman Scott Stanzel told reporters near the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas.

Stanzel did not say whether President George W. Bush, who is spending the remainder of the year at his Texas home, brought up the nuclear question during a phone call to Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf yesterday.

But he acknowledged that it was a major topic of discussion between US and Pakistani officials amid fears of further instability in the wake of Bhutto's death.......


No comments:

Post a Comment