Pakistan is the most dangerous country in the world

I feel there is no larger threat to global stability than Pakistan. Recently, the Director of the CIA testified that Al'Qaeda is regrouping and launching operations out of the tribal agencies of Pakistan. Since the government signed a peace deal with insurgents in the region bordering Afghanistan, deadly attacks in Afghanistan have increased. Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri are widely believed to be somewhere in the tribal agencies. There is a strong undercurrent of fundamentalist Islam in Pakistan. There have been multiple attempts on Gen. Pervez Mussharraf's life. And they have nukes.

Currently Pakistan is counted as one of the US's key allies in the war on terror. But Musharraf's assistance to the US is widely resented. It has also been largely ineffective. For example, when Osama Bin Laden was believed to be trapped in the Tora Bora mountain range, Pakistan sent its forces to cut off any potential escape into Pakistan. However, the Army and intelligence apparatus, the ISI, is sympathetic to Bin Laden, and it is widely believed that Bin Laden and other Al'Qaeda fighters were allowed to escape into Pakistan.

Now imagine for a moment if Gen. Musharraf was assassinated or that his rule was overthrown by a coup. Radical Islamists seize power in Islamabad. They are sympathetic to Al'Qaeda. They have nukes. Al'Qaeda is actively seeking biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons to use against the United States. Scary. Even if Musharraf isn't overthrown, there is the possiblity of Pakistani nukes making it into the hands of terrorists. Take, for example, A.Q. Kahn, the nuclear scientist credited with running a nuclear black market and selling technology to not only Iran, but North Korea.

Recent events are only serving to further illustrate the instability of Pakistan. A recent article titled "Controverisal Clerics Receive Death Threats From Authorities" by Syed Saleem Shahzad reports that after "last week's deadly bomb blasts in the Pakistani cities of Islamabad and Peshawar, well-placed sources in the capital told Adnkronos International that president General Pervez Musharraf asked the Pakistani Air Force to carry out an airstrike on the largest Islamic seminary or madrassa in Islamabad." The article goes on to say that those "attending reportedly disagreed categorically with the idea of an air strike in the captial city..." and pointed out that the Islamic students were "...a force to be reckoned with."

This recent example just goes to show how tenuous the situation of Pakistan is. The government is, at the top with Musharraf, trying to clamp down on fundamentalist Islamists, while at the bottom many sympathise with the Islamists. The ultimate question is what to do about Pakistan to make it less of a threat to the world as a whole.

Here's the link to the article:

Pakistan: Controversial Clerics Receive 'Death Threats' from Authorities
by Syed Saleem Shahzad, 1-29-07
http://www.adnkronosinternational.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Security&loid=8.0.381167776&par=0