Pakistan is not a nation-state in any meaningful sense. Like much of the region it’s a patchwork of tribal enclaves and constantly shifting alliances. The problem is multiplied by magnitudes when you factor in a population of 160 million. And we need to admit that the international border with Afghanistan is largely a fiction. What to do?
Job one is to secure Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. We pay Musharraf for the intelligence necessary to destroy it, or perhaps even spirit it away, with a fat bonus for him in exile when the time comes. We can only hope that such contingency plans have already been made. The alternative would be to stand by and watch India take care of the problem, and that would be dangerous in the extreme. Step two would be to quarantine Pakistan until the situation sorts itself out. We need to stop the contagion before we can address the cause.
