Pakistan might be entering a situation similar to those situations in Germany and Italy during the early 1930s, when right-wing and left-wing groups battled for local power in dirty little civil wars. Eventually strong leaders emerged — Hitler and Mussolini — from outside those countries’ political and military leaderships.

In the current case of Pakistan, the country’s leader, the widower Bhutto, does not seem to such a leader who can win a dirty little civil war. Pakistan’s military — even under a Perez Musharraf — does seem to be able to win such a war either.

If the world’s economy slips into a depression, what will happen in Pakistan, which was wallowing in failure even during the world’s go-go years? Pakistan’s economy will become a black hole, from which emerge only eminations of opium.