Apologies blog has been silent of late. A vacation, a delightful house guest from Balkan days, and some new writing projects broke the news junky habit for a spell.

While varying the news diet the past few weeks, had the chance to catch up on some books that have been lying around here for months. Including the extremely bleak Disgrace by recent Nobel laureate J.M. Coetze. I recommend it, with the warning that its vision of post-apartheid South Africa is almost too bleak and nihilist to bear.

More satisfying: in the 100th anniversary year of his birth, the stories of another Nobel laureate, Isaac Bashevis Singer, about which we are preparing an appreciation.

And borrowed from my brother in law, Jeffrey Toobin's memoir of the Iran contra investigation, which reacquaints one with the squalor of the Reagan administration, and reawakens one's disgust at the Bush II/(Roger Ailes) rehabilitation of such despicable figures as Ollie North, John Poindexter, etc.

In the news, I'm struck by Pakistan as 'nukes-R-us' -- here. Max Boot on the US's dubious alliance with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, echoing a couple articles I [and others] wrote on a similar theme.

For an illuminating -- and chilling -- tour of Pakistan's dangerous nexus of intelligence officials, Islamic militants, and nuclear scientists, read Bernard Henri Levy's Who Killed Daniel Pearl. From the series of articles in recent months that disclose Pakistan's centrality in nuclear proliferation to North Korea, Iran and Libya, as well as Levy's contention that elements in Pakistan's security services sympathetic to bin Laden aspire to deliver nuclear capabilities to Al Qaeda affiliated groups - I firmly agree with the assertion by the Post's Robin Wright today on NPR that "Pakistan is the most dangerous place in the world today." Why doesn't the US foreign policy apparatus seem to treat it as such? Granted, Musharraf seems like a good guy compared with others who could be leading Pakistan. His survival - both political and literal - is both desirable and nothing to take for granted. But the US can't ignore the fact that even under Musharraf Pakistan presents conditions which represent perhaps the single-most major future threat to US security -- the prospect of a truly WMD empowered Islamist militancy.

In the competing concerns Washington has regarding Pakistan -- detente between nuclear-armed Pakistan and India, cooperation on fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, cooperation in the hunt for Al Qaeda figures such as bin Laden who Levy and others contends may very well have received refuge in Pakistan -- the fact that Pakistani nuclear scientists are apparently even under Musharraf's reign helping deliver nuclear capabilities to North Korea and Iran and Libya - and perhaps to groups affiliated with Al Qaeda - should seem to be preeminent. What do you do when the problem is not a country's leadership, but a significant portion of the population and state apparatus? How do you vet and reform an entire security services where large constituencies are working for the wrong side? If it's not reformable, then what?

Posted by Laura at January 6, 2004 11:47 AM