After Bhutto.(PAKISTAN)(Benazir Bhutto)

WHEN told by aides that he was indispensable, Charles de Gaulle replied: "The graveyards are full of indispensable men." This melancholy truth has recently been tested by the shocking assassination of Benazir Bhutto, who had been recruited to join with Pakistan's current president (and former military ruler), Pervez Musharraf, in a government that would tackle the country's severe and growing problems:

1. Pakistan is a failing state with nuclear weapons--about "sixty city-busting weapons," according to UPI's Arnaud de Borchgrave.

2. Afghanistan is a failed, corrupt narco-state defended from the resurgent Taliban by increasingly nervous NATO allies.

3. Border areas between the two countries are ruled by extreme religious parties that offer sanctuary to the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

4. There is no way such entrenched and locally popular forces can be eliminated without the full support of the Pakistani armed forces.

5. Yet the Pakistani armed forces, in particular the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), are riddled with Islamist sympathizers.

6. Finally, Pakistani public opinion is strongly anti-American, if not pro-jihadist, and would resist a strong campaign to invade the badlands and extirpate the terrorists.