Some Froomkin:

President Bush’s coddling of Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf suddenly risks being exposed as another case of White House anti-terror policies going spectacularly bad.

The ultimate anti-terror backfire, of course, is the war in Iraq, which U.S. intelligence shows has helped al Qaeda much more than it’s hurt it.

But now, with Musharraf declaring emergency rule over the weekend, the country that Bush considers a bulwark against terror may gain infamy as a crucible for terror instead.

Michael Hirsh writes for Newsweek: “After six years of propping up and making excuses for Pervez Musharraf . . . Washington doesn’t have many friends left to call on in Pakistan — perhaps the No. 1 generator of anti-U.S. terrorism in the world today. That’s the dilemma that democracy crusader George W. Bush faces after Musharraf, one of his firmest allies, took the dictator’s path and declared martial law on Saturday. . . .

“Some U.S. officials now fear that that this nuclear-armed nation is teetering on the verge of chaos, and the result could be every American’s worst nightmare: that nuclear material or knowhow, or God forbid, a bomb, falls into the hands of terrorists. ‘If you were to look around the world for where Al Qaeda is going to find its bomb, it’s right in their backyard,’ says Bruce Riedel, the former senior director for South Asia on the National Security Council.”

Continue reading at the Washington Post

Juan Cole on the situation in Pakistan.

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