Terror's tipping point: while the U.S. focuses on Afghanistan, nuclear-armed Pakistan is the far more critical concern.

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Terror's tipping point: while the U.S. focuses on Afghanistan, nuclear-armed Pakistan is the far more critical concern.

FOREIGN POLICY magazine calls it the tenth most failed nation in the world. A "dysfunctional state," concedes Tariq Ali, Pakistani author of The Duel. Yet according to U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke, "Pakistan is the most important country in the world."

In response to crisis, the army--savior and suppressor of the state--rules at the expense of civil institutions. Name a problem and Pakistan probably has it. A fierce insurgency within and across the border (hardly a border) with Afghanistan. A menacing, much larger neighbor to its east, India, with whom it has fought five wars. A nuclear arsenal poorly managed in the past and still susceptible to terrorist infiltration. A secessionist movement in the south complicated by Taliban operations. A shattered economy and spreading Islamism. A monster of its own creation, Inter-Services Intelligence, that maneuvers in the shadows on behalf of the state but also its enemies. The world's most wanted man comfortably holdin...

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