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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: michael97123 who wrote (197204)	8/14/2006 9:23:36 AM
From: jttmab	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

I think Musharraf cares about surviving to the next morning. He probably feels a small sense of relief when he makes it from one place to another and is still alive. With regard to his weapons inventory. He has nuclear weapons because he knows that the only possibility he has to "win" a war with India is to use nuclear weapons in a first strike. Even then it will be iffy. In any conventional war with India, he loses. There is no doubt in that regard. Like all dictators, he has one driving motivation. Survive and stay in power. With the obvious preference the US has to India, he doesn't see the US as being a particular lasting friendly relationship. For the time being it's a relationship of convenience. He knows that the recent agreement between the US and India, if ratified, will benefit the Indian nuclear weapon's program and doesn't have much choice other than to increase his arsenal. US Intelligence on Pakistan's nuclear command and control and nuclear surety measures are probably poor at best. With the relationship that the US and India has, he's not about to share with the US what Pakistan does in that regard. I would not want to speculate about whether the US knows or doesn't know the locations of every warhead that Pakistan possesses. If Musharaff is knocked off, he wouldn't care about what happens to Pakistan's arsenal. He would be dead, why should he care? Even if he did care, it wouldn't matter. What would matter was who was left to execute his "last wishes" to save the world. If Musharaff goes down, those people are going to worry about their own butts and have to decide whether to go into exile as quickly as possible or join the new management team. It is absolute folly to think that your optimum outcome has any realistic chance. But it was a nice thought. jttmab