http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2008/11/022200.php

“We are really crippled by thinking that the ISI is out of control – it is a myth that has skewed our Pakistan policy for years. It’s part of a larger problem that I go into below. We may not like the implications but the ISI is following its directed policy. It is a branch of the Pakistani military. The military’s current Chief of the General Staff (Kayani) was previously head of the ISI. The current head of the ISI (Pasha) answers directly to him.

… The problem inside the United States government is that if we admit that the ISI is not some rogue element, then the implications are almost too horrible to contemplate. Yet that is precisely the problem that we face. The “rogue element” excuse is used to write off Pakistani assistance to the Quetta Shura (the Taliban’s leadership council), refusal to go after certain tribes providing assistance to AQ, etc.

This is a specific problem that has hampered Bush Administration thinking. Until we get past our faith-based policy on Pakistan we’ll see more and worse coming from Pakistan.

The larger problem — one that particularly haunts Europe and the Left in the US — is the failure to admit that terrorist ideology has a geopolitical dimension. Whether it comes from Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia or even Russia, there is often a state offering silent (and sometimes not-so-silent) assistance.

In fact, more than we would like to admit, those states are actually directing the attacks. If one believes that these are just “disaffected” actors then it’s easier to think law-enforcement can solve the problem.

It’s a lesson that many of us on the Right have forgotten since 9/11, and one that most on the Left never learned. Who knows what our mysterious new President thinks? He was still captive to the Ayers/Wright clique on 9/11. Let’s hope he’s learned a few things since then.”

If true, this means that Pakistani state support for terrorism will not cease until the Pakistani state ceases to exist. And that Pakistan poses an existential threat to India, so India’s only viable policy towards Pakistan must be that of Rome towards Carthage:

“Pakistan delenda est.”

He has become that crazy, vaguely corrupt, half Uncle some of us have.

The real question about Cater is why did it take us so long to figure out what a jerk this guy really is. During his term we often heard “Well he means well, he is just in over his head”. That was not true. He is — and was — a vicious little socialist One Worlder.

If you ask me, Carter got us into this mess in the first place.

I’ve been thinking over your remarks about who’s really running the show and what they’re going to do. Lots of terrible ifs accumulating, aren’t there?

I’ve been trying to take an admittedly perverse comfort in the Clinton fast-track into the Obama administration – better the devil you know, yes? Not to mention who else do they have available? The world is blowing up just in time to ruin the inauguration and he knows he’s weak on Experience. And frankly I doubt he believes in the wit and wisdom of Lunchbucket Joe any more than we do.

Which leads me to believe we could all do worse than say a prayer to St. Michael he doesn’t let Jimmy Carter get his hands on anything important. I do fear that as a real possibility.

Yes, and in retrospect the idea of isolationism wrt to them seems rather naive as well.

That sentiment seems unavoidable these days: the sort of “Wouldn’t it be grand if *something* would come along, by God’s grace, that would solve these intractable problems for us– a plague, nanotech mishap, asteroid, whatever”. Especially from liberals who like to think about population control the way some of us think about using a can of Raid. Ergo their delight in global climate funk! Fun to mull over in its morbid way, but kind of like wishing for a tornado to blow away all evidence of your debts and wrong-doing. Ultimately it is an evasive, pass-the-buck approach. Most generations never see changes of that magnitude, fortunately.

I agree that the greater conflict you refer to may be inevitable, if only on the grounds of the cyclical nature of history. So we “wait around” for something terrible, not much to be done in the meantime, esp. for civilian observers, and we fret over what we might do in the aftermath, how things might take shape. This is still a relatively powerless position, but I have no doubt it does us good to bat ideas around and take away what we will from the more fertile discussions.

The folks who scream “racism!” all the time are wearing out their own binding and many, of all races, are beginning to see this even as things get more extreme (desperate?) at the other end of the spectrum. Unfortunately, all serious communal delusions end up badly. A good case in point is the attack by opponents of Prop. 8 (CA) against the Mormons and other funders, while at the same time they would not dare touch the black community and what was probably their decisive voting pattern in this case. It doesn’t get much more starkly hypocritical than that. Can you imagine the reaction of basically the same tribe of liberals to an amendment to ban Moslem immigration?

sirius– The Nazis were pretty hell-bent, too, as I recall.