come on over

Despite growing evidence of Pakistani support for the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, the Bush administration has so far rejected pleas from President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan for a showdown with Islamabad's military ruler, President Pervez Musharraf....

Disturbing on many levels. The article goes on to explain the enormous subsidies totalling billions of dollars that Pakistan receives in military aid and debt relief in return for cooperation in the fight against terror. This really is an impossible situation because to begin with General Musharaff is, at the end of the day a dictator and not an elected representative, hence making it extremely difficult for him to build any form of consensus around sensitive issues.

Secondly, in spite of genuinely good intentions, his hands are tied: to satisfy the radical Islamic elements in his own country (to whom he has to pay allegiance because without their support he would not remain in power too long or he would be assassinated), he has to look the other way when the Taliban hop across the border into Pakistan to seek refuge while planning another insurgency. The first step would be to root out radical elements in Pakistan...but how to begin when the radical elements are intwined so with the ruler, that too of a nuclear armed state?