Pakistan Nuclear Nightmare

With the repetitive rhythm of a bad dream, Pakistan keeps jarring America's sense of security, this week with the Washington visit of President Asif Ali Zardari, who will arrive with the usual assurances of stability while begging for more helicopters to fight off extremist insurgents.

As always, anonymous senior US officials warn they are "increasingly concerned about new vulnerabilities for Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, including the potential for militants to snatch a weapon in transport or to insert sympathizers into laboratories or fuel-production facilities."

Yet, at his press conference last week, President Obama was confident that Pakistan's nuclear weapons were in safe hands with "strong military-to-military cooperation," while back in the Swat Valley Islamabad's deal with the Taliban was unraveling, and the sense of alarm in Washington obviously growing.

Somewhere in the background of this mess is the figure of A. Q. Khan, their former top scientist, who was jailed for selling technology to Iran and North Korea, among others, but released by Pakistan's Supreme Court in February to do who-knows-what in the proliferation black market as his country keeps expanding the size and number of its nuclear plants.

At the Washington summit this week, along with Afghanistan's tower of strength Hamid Karzai, Zardari will be assuring the White House and Congress that the upcoming $7.5 billion in aid, with perhaps a little more military hardware thrown in, will keep everything quiet in their neighborhood.

We have heard all this over and over again ever since 9/11, and it keeps ringing more and more hollow as time goes on. If the Obama Administration has some new formula of carrots and sticks, now is the time to use it so we can all stop having those bad nuclear dreams.

Palin's Foreign Policy Coup

The Vice-Presidential nominee should have no trouble remembering the name of Pakistan's president tonight.

Asif Ali Zardari last week told the world Sarah Palin is "gorgeous" and offered to "hug" her in a UN encounter that has landed him in hot water back home.

"Now I know why the whole of America is crazy about you," Zardari told Palin. "You are so nice."

A radical Muslim leader has issued a fatwa condemning the president for shaming the nation with "indecent gestures, filthy remarks, and repeated praise of a non-Muslim lady wearing a short skirt" while Feminists charged Zardari with embarrassing the country with sexist remarks when "he should behave like a mourning widower" for his wife Benazir Bhutto, an icon for Pakistani women.

Nonetheless, if Obama and Biden win the election and want to improve relations with Pakistan, there is an obvious choice for a new ambassador.