‘The Islamists have won in Pakistan and it is desperately important for the government to get in step with its people and stop fighting civil wars with them. Musharraf is completely out on a very long and weak limb with the loathed Bush, FBI, CIA, Northern Alliance, India and all the rest. Musharraf is making lucrative book deals and no doubt all kinds of sub-rosa deals with the U.S. Big Corporations. He is building his Escape Nest, as all failing dictators need to do. If he is lucky, he will be able to escape the bullets and bombs coming his way.

Pakistan is making the very difficult transition to a new Islamist state with a mass Islamist movement as its foundation. It is a very dangerous transition, or they would have taken it several years ago. The U.S. has already threatened to annihilate them, probably a bit more "diplomatically" than Musharraf implies to boost his book sales and try to get some more support from the Islamists.

When Pakistan becomes an Islamist state with large nuclear forces the U.S. will be faced with a real nuclearly armed Muslim, Islamist state. I suspect the Pakistanis will then vow eternal friendship and the U.S. will pretend to believe in the fairy tale because attacking a huge nation with real nuclear weapons is a wee mite more difficult than annihilating a tiny nation with no such weapons on the pretext they have them.

In any event, it will be a major new development with vast global implications for us all, none of them happy. Another Bush Catastrophe for us all.’

The Pakistani Crisis Has Become Acute & Global