Which is one reason all the talk about "more troops" to capture bin Laden is a load of gas. Fifty thousand troops busting into Pakistan isn't going to go over any better with that nation than fifty troops doing it.

We are walking a tightrope with Pakistan, and like many other tightropes we've walked with less-than-noble nations, we don't have a lot of choice right now if we're going to deal with al Qaeda. Western Pakistan, only nominally under the control of the central government, is an al Qaeda preserve.

The U.S. managed to crank Musharaf over to mostly our side, largely by busting him on the Kahn nuclear deals. In return, we had to grit our teeth when Kahn was let, as you say, "off the hook." The good news was that busting the nuke ring helped push Libya into disarmament.

There is no way the U.S. is going to do anything antagonistic right now to push Musharaf the other way. It sucks, but there it is. Also, if Musharaf is assassinated--and al Qaeda has tried--it's all going to go south.