[HardStarboard]

>>>Musharraf will not last long (days? hours?) in power if "The Mahdi" orders his millions to march on the presidential palace and kill the traitors to Allah.<<<

Trav, far be it from me to question your judgement on these things because you have a damn fine track record - but I think you may just be undersimating Musharraf and the number of Muslim fanatics in Packi willing to cross Musharraf's "new" ISI.

He showed a pretty strong hand by leaving the country (for the U.S. no less) shortly after firing the former Muslim fanatic ISI chief and detaining a leading Muslim cleric responsible for the more violent uprisings. This guy is no pushover. A couple of bullets in the foreheads of major Osama supporters may just get the message across and make the "devout" think aboout the reward on Osama's head rather than dying for him.

Be interested in your opinion of the above.

[Travis McGee]

My opinion of Musharraf's and OBL's relative strengths and weaknesses has changed a lot in the 2 weeks since I wrote this. I hope the OBL is blown to bits by hellfire missiles, and I don't think he will have an easy time getting to the conceptual "balcony in Karachi" in one piece. Still, there's an outside chance of it happening, so we should have a plan ready in case it happens.