It’s certainly an interesting scenario. I had a lot of relatives visiting family in Pakistan over the holidays and I get the sense that the current situation isn’t as volatile as the media makes it out to be. The average Pakistani citizen isn’t the least bit interested in fundamentalism or Jihadism, especially not in the big cities like Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad. They may be sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and have anti-U.S. sentiments, but I don’t think they’re getting ready to throw down nukes anytime soon.

Even the Bhutto assassination hasn’t had as dramatic an affect as many Westerners claim. It happened, there was a “state of emergency,” and then a couple of days later things were back to normal. People went back to work. Life resumed. If there’s one thing Pakistanis are used to it’s political volatility (along with government corruption and mismanagement).

That’s not to say there aren’t fundamentalists; there are, but I think they exist mostly on the fringes of society as they do in most countries. To sell the world on the idea that Pakistan is a Jihadist state is somewhat akin to worrying about Christian fundamentalists taking control of the government in the U.S. Both may be legitimate concerns, but in that sense, I think Musharraf is right in his criticism of the “Islamic bomb” rhetoric.

IMO people undermine Pakistan Army. They survived and kept Pakistan alive by doing what’s necessary.

If there are plenty of ‘Jihadist’ within the army, then that might happen. But so far Army is as united as always.

The most important thing any government in Pakistan has to worry about is the economy. But that’s for ppl who want to live and prosper

Wow! Here we go again! The writer of the above article badly needs to update his knowledge about Pakistan. He claims “majority of the Pakistan population is sympathetic to fundamentalists”. Infact, the majority of Pakistan population is moderate and democracy lover. In the country’s 60 years history, fundamentalist never gained control of the state and they never will. Whatever fundamentalism exists in the country now is a by-product of Russian invasion in Afghanistan. Infact, most of these anarchists are Afghanis, who migrated to Pakistan during Russian invasion and those are the pplz who are up to an extent sympathetic to extremists and responsible for instability in Pakistan.

Pakistan had been a victim of terror itself and the front line fighter against the extremism. On Pakistan-Afghanistan border, Pakistan army had lost hundreds if not thousands of its soldiers. It is a country, which ALWAYS stood by American side, for instance, during cold war and in post 9/11 world.

As far as the political instability concerns, just because Bhutto died (I did mourn on her loss), do not means that she was the only leader in the country. They also have others like Nawaz Sharif (2 x Former prime Minister), Imran Khan (An Oxford graduate and a national hero) and Altaf Hussain (head of 3rd largest political party) just to name a few. Regarding to Bhutto let me make the record straight. Majority of Pakistani pplz are non-Bhutto supporters and her government was thrown out twice due to corruption charges.

Further more, As far as the “falling of the Weapons in the wrong hands” presumption concerns. GIMME A BREAK. A nation, who is capable of developing something like this, must be competent enough to safe guard it.

More over, if we want to help Pakistan, all we need to do is funding the education in Pakistan, in the areas bordering Afghanistan, in particular.