As you read this article in today's NYT, keep in mind that Pakistan already has nuclear weapons:
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Nov. 3 — The Pakistani leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, declared a state of emergency on Saturday night, suspending the country’s Constitution, blacking out all independent television news reports and filling the streets of the capital with police officers and soldiers.The move appeared to be an effort by General Musharraf to reassert his fading power in the face of growing opposition from the country’s Supreme Court, civilian political parties and hard-line Islamists. Pakistan’s Supreme Court was expected to rule within days on the legality of General Musharraf’s re-election last month as the country’s president, which opposition groups have said was improper.
The emergency declaration was in direct defiance of repeated calls this week from senior American officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, not to do so. A day earlier, the senior American military commander in the Middle East, Admiral William J. Fallon, told General Musharraf and his top generals in a meeting here that declaring emergency rule would jeopardize the extensive American financial support for the Pakistani military...
Analysts said the emergency-rule decree in effect was the declaring of martial law, because there were no constitutional provisions allowing for such an order. “This is the imposition of real military rule, because there is no Constitution and Pakistan is being run under provisional constitutional order issued by Musharraf as the army chief, not as the president of Pakistan,” said Hasan Askari Rizvi, an expert on Pakistani military affairs.
General Musharraf resorted to military power to gain the presidency in October 1999 when he staged a bloodless coup, and Mr. Rizvi said this was a return to those measures. “This is the first time Musharraf has brought in military rule to sustain himself in power,” he said. “He felt threatened by the Supreme Court.”
UPDATE: Commentary from Time's Joe Klein:
I'm puzzled by all the neoconservative bloviating and war-whooping about Iran and the near deathly silence about the deteriorating situation in Pakistan. I mean, we have actual terrorist training camps in Waziristan that are just sitting there, ripe targets for the sort of quick special forces strikes that the Turks are laying on the PKK in Northern Kurdistan (with our not-so-tacit approval). But I haven't read much in the Weekly Standard about the need to act against Al-Qaeda-Not-in-Iraq. Bill K, N-Pod, you remember Osama, right? What gives?In that regard, I thought Barack Obama's utter sanity with regard to Iran in the NY Times today was pretty striking. He may well be disputed by Hillary Clinton on this again over preconditions and who meets whom first. He probably should be saying, "I'll have my Secretary of State initiate talks and if things look promising, I may jump in myself..." But talk we must, and lower the temperature.
Is it possible that the reason why the neos are so obsessed with Iran and relatively silent on Pakistan (which, you may recall, actually has nukes) is that--ok, I'll go ahead and say it--Israel is obsessed over Iran? Indeed, Israel has a right to be obsessed. It's not just because of--or even mostly because of--Iran's nuclear program, either. It's because of Iran's military and financial support for Hizballah, which fought the vaunted Israeli defense forces more successfully than any other Arab army in history during the summer of 2006 and continues to fester just beyond the northern fence.
I agree that Iran is a matter of real concern for us. But it is not our top concern. It is Israel's top concern. Our top concerns are resolving the disaster in Iraq and preventing a disaster in Pakistan--and trying, once again, to dismantle the hierarchy of Al-Qaeda-Not-In-Iraq. And, most of all, as Senator Obama implied, our top priority is changing our posture toward the Islamic world from being a bully to being a reasonable interlocutor that doesn't abandon our principles or allies (including Israel) or our legitimate campaign against the Salafists who've attacked us, but listens carefully to what those who oppose us have to say and makes it our business to seek peaceful resolutions where possible.
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