Well, it's much more complicated than the sort of one-on-one confrontations I'm accustomed to seeing in politics and war both in the present and in the overviews of history (even though I recognize that it's always more complicated than that).  Here we have the PPP vs Musharraf vs radicals vs whatever else you can toss in there, to say nothing of overlap and the degrees to which the parties do and don't get along.  And I just don't know how they all fit together.

Being a "hope for the best, prepare for the worst" type, I'm inclined to assume Helen is right -- that the gravity of the situation hasn't yet set in, and that we're looking at a bloodbath in Pakistan between rival factions.  It's clear to me that Musharraf holding things together for the time being is not guaranteed.

The nuclear weapons issue is frightening in the sense that we don't know what the ultimate outcome of this will be.  But I disagree with Helen about America, Europe and others getting involved, at least in any role involving the military, because the capacity to get involved simply isn't there.  That said, Pakistanis are not children, and they're more sophisticated than the western press gives them credit for.  I don't think Pakistan is likely to be taken over by the looney toons, which is obviously what most people are thinking about when they refer to the nukes.

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.