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The answer here might be to back Musharak for a while, as long as he co-operates in apprehending AQ leaders and operatives. How much co-operation is forthcoming right now is open for debate.

I'm pretty convincend Mushie is playing us for suckers. We can't occupy a country of 140 million, but there is a neighbour who has a population of 1000 million who might be willing to do the occupation work for us if we knock out the Paki nukes and defenses.

I don't think India could really handle it. 140 million is A LOT of people. A very difficult job. We have excellent examples of how to occupy a country and turn it into a friend, Germany and Japan circa 1945-50 and the present case of Iraq. However, these were different cases and an occupation of Pakistan will have to take into account an Iranian regime that will try to derail everything.

As for Mushie, I don't trust him, but what are the choices? He is walking a tightrope himself. I heard a while ago that his wife was in Washington house shopping. Evidently he has his escape route in place in case things go bad. Pakistan is a failed state. Iran, Syria, and Saudi are borderline. Afghanistan and Iraq were rogue states pre US intervention. When you step back and take a look at the whole picture, I'm not sure if the only thing that will work in the long run is massive nuclear surgery.