Comments on The Belmont Club,"Heading it off at the pass"

Somalia with nuclear weapons.

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Let us do a break down of the interest groups in Pakistan and see how we can deal with them.
1. The potentially pro-Western commercial middle class, the
     Zardawi/Bhutto faction.
2. The anti-American intellectual and legal lower middle class, the
     Narwaz Sharif faction.
3. The professional military, potentially anglophile and pro-American,
     the Musharraf faction.
4. The anti-American, possibly Chinese influenced, pro Taliban
     ISI military faction.
5. Ethnic groups, from the half the country that are Punjabi to the
     Pashtuns that support the Taliban to the Baluchis in the South
     and others. Here is the wiki chart.

Punjabi 81,000,000 (45%)
Pashto  20,790,000 (15%)
Sindhi   20,520,000 (14%)
Seraiki  18,000,000 (10%)
Urdu      12,600,000 (07%)
Balochi   5,400,000 (03%)
Others  10,800,000 (06%)

1. We could try to craft a deal but the problems are twofold, they may not be strong enough to stay in charge and they are so corrupt that we are not sure that they will even stay bought.

2. Also so duplicitous and corrupt that they are likely to betray each other, the reverse of our problem with Zardari is that even their anti-American allies can't trust the Pakistani lawyers.

3. The allies also of the old aristocracy the Army may split apart, can the US or the Indians find what looks like an honorable way to buy them out?

4. We should know our enemies. If we can't buy off Chinese support then we need to rally allies to crush the Chinese and ISI influence. The only third choice is to get out.

5. If Pakistan can't hold together or if it is not in our interest for it to then we should seek to find winners to ally with. That could mean finding a solution with the old aristocracy and the Musharraf Army and the Punjabis, the Baluchis, the Sind and the Indians that neuters the nuclear threat and pushes the Pashtun threat back from the Indus valley and opens up the road to Kandahar.