Since before the Iraq war, I have written several columns stating that Pakistan should be the focus of our efforts. It's the key to winning in Afghanistan, just ask the Soviets. It's the home of Bin Laden and al Qaeda. It's government is notoriously unstable. It's a breeding ground for radical Islamists. And it has approximately 100 nuclear bombs lying around.

It doesn't take a genius to realize that Pakistan should have been priority #1 after the routing of the Taliban and Bin Laden's escape at Tora Bora. I wish I could believe that President Bush and his people were just too stupid to see this. But they aren't stupid. It's clear they were playing 9/11 off as an excuse to carry out their grand visions in Iraq. Look how overly cautious they were about putting American troops into Afghanistan, but were so eager to send 10 times more soldiers into Iraq they couldn't wait for the UN weapons inspectors to finish their jobs. Look at how quick they were to pull troops out Afghanistan and send them to Kuwait to prepare for the invasion.

I also wish I could believe that this was just a ranking of priorities for the Bush administration. But it seems like they wanted to keep the al Qaeda threat alive. Look at the $10 billion they gave to Gen. Musharraf, which we are now learning was mostly wasted. Bush's people had to know in general that this money wasn't making it to the border region to help with the fight. Even now that everyone knows, they STILL haven't done anything to make sure the funds go to fight the terrorists.

With Benazir Bhutto's assassination, and disaster in Iraq and the changing situation in Afghanistan, perhaps now the Bush administration can be forced to actually start fighting the war on terror in the place where it's happening, the central front, the country that has both Osama and nukes.

If President Bush can't now admit that Pakistan is the central front of the war, then maybe he is stupid, or crazy.

I wrote the last post about Bhutto's assassination as I was walking out the door for a road trip. At that time, I thought that it wasn't yet clear who was behind the killing, Musharraf or Islamic extremists. On the road, I began to think that Musharraf would be crazy to kill Bhutto. He may be power hungry, but he's not suicidal.

That was until I walked in the door and turned on CNN and saw the report where Musharraf's government turned down all of of Bhutto's requests for extra security, measures not out of line with what it provided former prime ministers. It's hard to believe that Musharraf would be so petty as to risk Bhutto's life and leaving him with the blame. It's also hard to imagine that the man who survived numerous assassination attempts wouldn't have had some say about her security.

Of course, perhaps the culprit isn't as clear cut. Musharraf has been playing footsie with the extremists all along, cutting deals, allowing their infiltration of the security forces, spending $10 billion in American aid on almost everything but countering terrorism.

Perhaps Musharraf needed Bhutto's assassination to maintain his dictatorship, justified with the threat of Islamic terrorism. Musharraf may not have pulled the trigger, but he certainly did create the circumstances that led to her death.

Benizir Bhutto is blown up by a suicide bomber in Pakistan. For anyone who know something about Pakistani politics, this threatens to be the kind of event that creates total chaos and revolution. She is by far the most popular political figure in the country, and was on the road to being re-elected prime minister. The Bush administration had been pushing Gen. Musharraf to share power with Bhutto, thus defusing a very dangerous situation there.

Now all hell is set to break lose. With Bhutto gone, the battle for powere could very well evolve into a war between hated autocrat Musharraf and Osama bin Laden's radical followers, with a stockpile of nukes as the prize.

Update: They are still sorting out the pieces in Pakistan this morning. It's too early to tell just who killed her, but there are two very likely suspects. First, there are the Islamic factions who saw Bhutto's moderate/progressive movement as an impediment to their quest to turn back the clock to the 15th Century. Then there is military and their dictator-in-residence Musharraf, who didn't want to share power with Bhutto as most thought would be the result of the Jan. 8 elections.

For American politicians who talk about courage and convictions, they should take a look at Bhutto. Here was a woman who had already climbed to the top of the political heap twice, and was living an comfortable life when her country needed her. They tried to assassinate her on her first day back in the country in October, but she carried on. So it makes the blood boil even more when weasely politicians like Harry Reid can't stand up for what is right. Take a good look and what political courage really is, and what a real leader is.

Bush More Emphatic In Backing Musharraf:

President Bush yesterday offered his strongest support of embattled Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, saying the general "hasn't crossed the line" and "truly is somebody who believes in democracy."

Where exactly is that line, Mr. President? Declaring emergency rule, dismissing the supreme court, arresting thousands of political opponents and putting your main rival under house arrest isn't over the line? Staging a coup and serving as both president and head of the armed forces means he "believes in democracy?"

If Bush real, truly believes these kind of actions are in line with the spirit of democracy, we had all better watch out as January, 20, 2009 gets closer. He may decide to pull a Musharraf, and claim it's all in support of democracy.

Frank Rich draws some chilling similarities between Pakistan's Musharraf and Bush.

Tipping his hat in appreciation of Mr. Bush’s example, General Musharraf justified his dismantling of Pakistan’s Supreme Court with language mimicking the president’s diatribes against activist judges. The Pakistani leader further echoed Mr. Bush by expressing a kinship with Abraham Lincoln, citing Lincoln’s Civil War suspension of a prisoner’s fundamental legal right to a hearing in court, habeas corpus, as a precedent for his own excesses. (That’s like praising F.D.R. for setting up internment camps.) Actually, the Bush administration has outdone both Lincoln and Musharraf on this score: Last January, Mr. Gonzales testified before Congress that “there is no express grant of habeas in the Constitution.”

You know those billions of dollars of aid that the U.S. sends to Pakistan? Turns out most of it is in the form of untraceable cash transfers. Good luck accounting for most of that. Musharraf is a dictator, and that money flows to him. His military also is somewhat unusual in that it owns large segments of the Pakistan economy: banks, airlines, factories. It's a corrupt system through and through, designed to hold great power even during those rare times when it seems elected governments are running things.

Pakistan's president declares "state of emergency."

Why would Gen. Pervez Musharraf do that? Because the Supreme Court was about to rule that he could not serve another term as president and be head of the armed forces.

So, the man who took power through a coup took matters into his own hands and arrested those judges, along with 1,500 political opponents, and prevented the media from saying anything negative about it.

The move also delays elections in which it is widely expected that Benazir Bhutto would be elected prime minister. It was this prospect that was the best hope of quelling problems in this country. But under marshal law and with Bhutto shut out, the real danger here is that extremist elements might overthrow Musharraf. Remember, this is a country in which more people approve of Osama bin Laden than Musharraf. And since it's likely Osama is living in the country, and he recently declared war on Musharraf's government, this is a very real threat.

Osama is one step closer to getting his hands on nuclear weapons.

This situation is a direct byproduct of not finishing the job in Afghanistan, and invading Iraq instead. Even if by some miracle Iraq is somehow saved, the resulting mess in Pakistan may make the whole affair moot.

Check out this amazing report from the largest illegal weapons market in the world:

Like this is really going to help.

Pakistan to landmine Afghan border:

Pakistan will fence and land mine parts of its border with Afghanistan to prevent cross-border militancy, the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.

Pakistan will also deploy additional paramilitary troops at the frontier, Foreign Secretary Riaz Mohammed Khan told a news conference.

The announcement comes amid growing international criticism of Pakistan over alleged infiltration of Taliban and al-Qaida militants from Pakistan's border regions into Afghanistan.

"In keeping with our policy to prevent any militant activity from Pakistan inside Afghanistan, the Pakistan army has been tasked to work out modalities for selectively fencing and mining the Pakistan-Afghanistan border," said Khan, the ministry's top career official.

Pakistan's intelligence service ISI has been helping these militants all along. Are we to believe that the militants won't have maps of where all the mines are?

The only thing these mines will do is blow up some yaks and innocent people.

Also notice that more "paramilitary" personnel will be used. In the tribal regions of Pakistan, you can bet that means the same militants who are the targets of this supposed crackdown.

This is all window dressing to show Pakistan is really trying to crack down on the forces aiding the Taliban and al Qaeda. They are playing both sides of the street. Their people support the militants, but they don't want the world to cut off aid and trade with them, so they play this little game to make it look like they are trying.

Accept defeat by Taliban, Pakistan tells Nato:

Senior Pakistani officials are urging Nato countries to accept the Taliban and work towards a new coalition government in Kabul that might exclude the Afghan president Hamid Karzai.

Pakistan's foreign minister, Khurshid Kasuri, has said in private briefings to foreign ministers of some Nato member states that the Taliban are winning the war in Afghanistan and Nato is bound to fail. He has advised against sending more troops.

Western ministers have been stunned. "Kasuri is basically asking Nato to surrender and to negotiate with the Taliban," said one Western official who met the minister recently.