re: There may be a positive side to all this.
"If you can't stop chaos, or mitigate its effects, you might as well take advantage of it. Turkey, now Pakistan, good grief; what a cock-up this is turning out to be."
Now, Pakistan?
When since the nation's birth has it not been on a knife edge.
Sure, Soviet Union's nutty desire to have a warm water port hasn't helped the region, but it's prior instability was significant factor in drawing the Soviets in. What other reason did the Soviets have to make them want to go into a region which has more population than the entire Soviet Union and which was comprised of religious Muslims?